Bernabei, Gretchen. "The School Essay: Tracking the Movement of the Mind." Teaching the
Neglected "R." Ed. Thomas Newkirk & Richard Kent. Portsmouth, NH: Heinnemann, 2007. 73-86.
"Digital Native." Wikipedia. 16 Apr. 2008. 5 May 2008. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_native>.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Reflective Letter
Dear Dr. Stacey:
I have been truly engaged in my learning process throughout the spring semester in 406. Theories of Composition was the first class where I began to synthesize what I have learned in college (and in life!) with what I hope to teach in my classroom. The texts we have used in class, especially Teaching the Neglected "R," are excellent resources for approaching challenging learning situations, such as teaching boys, English Language Learners, or students with learning disabilities. Despite taking many online classes before 406, I came into your classroom still believing the teaching of writing, rhetoric, and composition was mostly a pen-to-paper process. The multimodal projects I have worked on in 406 have challenged this view and made me better prepared to be a 21st-century teacher. The unifying thread that binds my final 406 portfolio together is a belief that learning is a life-long process and is just as meaningful outside of the classroom as within it .
My first paper, The "Hidden Curriculum" & the Importance of Student Directed Learning, addressed this important point, as did my second paper. The difficulties I had in assembling this paper stemmed from the vast amount of scholarly research I found to support my position. I had 15-20 sources, 200 pages of material that related to my paper. And thanks to the speed and efficiacy of the internet, I barely had to crack a book while researching. Databases and Google are a student's best resources for researching without wasting time in the bowels of the library. Alternative teaching methods, such as Montessori and Waldorf, offered an inticing alternative to the "normal" school where the teacher leads the class in sedentary activities. Modern research into how children learn supports the main contention of both of these teaching philosophies, that meaningful learning is child-directed.
With younger students, child-directed learning allows for plenty of physical activity and variety of play. As students age, child-directed learning can become closely aligned with expressivist philosophy. Valuing the students' contribution to their individual education coexists naturally with valuing their individual voices and talents as writers. Gretchen Bernabei's contribution to Teaching the Neglected "R" offers a masterful way to balance my belief in student-led learning with the structure of a lesson plan. In "The School Essay: Tracking Movement of the Mind," Bernabei presents alternatives to the standard 5 paragraph essay. This is not simply throwing structure out the window, rather the students come up with a structure that relates to their individual theme.
Bernabei presents her essay structures like the logic problems of basic algebra: "If this --> then that --> which makes x." The school essays she offers allow for more student creativity and individuality then if all students respond to the same, teacher-created theme. Some students do better when working within guidelines, and that is true from Pre-K through a level 400 class. My group, the Boston Soybean Police, occasionally needed parameters to create our projects within. Bernabei's structures work very well for essays, which are the backbone of my writing education, but my teaching career will deal with a greater variety of modalities. Some, like Powerpoint and web pages, have been part of my education for years. Others, like Voicethread, podcasting, and SecondLife, are recent additions to a multi-modal curriculum.
In my second paper for 406, Second Life: The Real Ramifications of Virtual Education, I discussed the shift of the classroom from a physical space where learners congregate to a virtual one. No longer is a class of students necessarily homogeneous and sorted by age and location. Using a simulated environment such as Second Life or even "traditional" online classes, teachers and students can connect from great distances. Technology challenges and reshapes notions of literacy and learning spaces, offering current and future educators more choices. The intersection of traditional literacy with aural literacy was the subject of lively conversation in 406.
One of the things I learned with both the Group Audio Project and the Voicethread was that something that looked good on the page didn't "read" as well when heard. The flow of words on a page, from writer's hand to reader's brain is not the same as the flow from the speaker's mouth to a listening ear. This constantly trips me up in life because I can spell words that I can't pronounce. So although there is a nuance to be captured in the use of esoteric vocabulary, it does not translate into my mangled, spoken syllables. Writing for speaking (be it Voicethread, podcasting, or public speaking) needs to be informed by poetry. Stresses on syllables, alliteration, and pauses for breath are more relevant to this type of writing than having five sentences to a paragraph and a topic sentence.
Working with so many different modes of communication, each with their own rules, renders the "one-size-fits-all" approach to literacy useless. There are some instances where knowing the correct structure of a five-paragraph essay would be helpful, but at other times knowing where to host a project on the Internet is of more practical use. In my teaching career, there will be times when I will have to defer to my students' intimate knowledge of the technologies we are using. As a teacher, I do not expect to have all of the answers all of the time, especially when it comes to using computers, microphones, and Moodle. Within my classroom I expect I will rely on what my students have learned outside of class. Teaching "digital natives" as an outsider makes it necessary to respect the knowledge and skills they bring to the table, rather than viewing them as empty vessels waiting to be filled from the fount of knowledge.
Literary Symbolism in 'A Perfect Day for Bananafish' was not written for this class but nonetheless addresses my theme. J.D. Salinger's story explores the fate of the non-conformist, and Seymour Glass' refusal to participate in a rigid, inflexible society has a tragic end. In the story, all of the meaningful interaction takes place between Seymour and Sybil, outside of the boundaries of the hotel beach. Freed from the structure of polite society and the incumbent pressures, Seymour's story of the bananafish becomes a critique of his culture. All of the technologies we have used in 406 allow users to critique their own cultures. Blogs and audio and video podcasting especially allow outsiders a greater prominence and louder voice than before. One of the benefits of these technologies is that the critical outsider is no longer regulated to a lonely stretch of sand; Seymour could have posted his story on YouTube and achieved Internet notoriety, perhaps even a book deal.
The other piece of writing in this portfolio is Spiritual Pizza. It focuses on what I learned outside of the classroom while I was retired. Without taking four years off to work and travel, the importance of student-directed education would not be so clear to me. Normal schooling takes the responsibility for what to learn off the student, but to be successful in life, a person needs to learn and grow. I learned more and was more engaged in my learning process in four years on the beach than in my entire school career. It wasn't just about the pizza, or Hawaiian sunshine, every day was an opportunity for me to add to my knowledge of culture, ecology, edible plants, geology, history, myths, and native language. Part of the reason I absorbed so much was that I learned about these things in relation to each other. Context is crucial, and seeing a volcano or camping among ancient ruins creates a richness of experience that is impossible to achieve from a textbook.
It would be impractical and impossible to spend the school year camping with a bunch of surly teenagers, hoping their experiences would be similar to mine. But the diversity of mediums we explored in 406 will enhance my teaching. Using a program like Second Life, students could explore a visually accurate representation of Tudor England, replete with avatars speaking old English. That would enhance the study of Shakespeare, just like a visit to the Second Life Louvre to view the Mona Lisa might provide a valuable context for studying art. Having such a variety of technology allows students to work with their strengths to create projects that matter. Aspiring directors can upload videos to YouTube, student musicians can podcast, and aspiring journalists can do a program like South Fork News on KMUD.
One reality of the 21st century is that by the time I begin my teaching career, podcasting and Voicethread might be as outdated as acid washed jeans. This is where my reliance on student knowledge of relevant technology will be essential. My classroom may exist in the real world or it may be a virtual one, but I hope that it is just one stop on a life-long journey of learning for the students who pass through. As education relies more on technology, the important contributions of out-of-class student directed learning will no longer be discounted.
I have been truly engaged in my learning process throughout the spring semester in 406. Theories of Composition was the first class where I began to synthesize what I have learned in college (and in life!) with what I hope to teach in my classroom. The texts we have used in class, especially Teaching the Neglected "R," are excellent resources for approaching challenging learning situations, such as teaching boys, English Language Learners, or students with learning disabilities. Despite taking many online classes before 406, I came into your classroom still believing the teaching of writing, rhetoric, and composition was mostly a pen-to-paper process. The multimodal projects I have worked on in 406 have challenged this view and made me better prepared to be a 21st-century teacher. The unifying thread that binds my final 406 portfolio together is a belief that learning is a life-long process and is just as meaningful outside of the classroom as within it .
My first paper, The "Hidden Curriculum" & the Importance of Student Directed Learning, addressed this important point, as did my second paper. The difficulties I had in assembling this paper stemmed from the vast amount of scholarly research I found to support my position. I had 15-20 sources, 200 pages of material that related to my paper. And thanks to the speed and efficiacy of the internet, I barely had to crack a book while researching. Databases and Google are a student's best resources for researching without wasting time in the bowels of the library. Alternative teaching methods, such as Montessori and Waldorf, offered an inticing alternative to the "normal" school where the teacher leads the class in sedentary activities. Modern research into how children learn supports the main contention of both of these teaching philosophies, that meaningful learning is child-directed.
With younger students, child-directed learning allows for plenty of physical activity and variety of play. As students age, child-directed learning can become closely aligned with expressivist philosophy. Valuing the students' contribution to their individual education coexists naturally with valuing their individual voices and talents as writers. Gretchen Bernabei's contribution to Teaching the Neglected "R" offers a masterful way to balance my belief in student-led learning with the structure of a lesson plan. In "The School Essay: Tracking Movement of the Mind," Bernabei presents alternatives to the standard 5 paragraph essay. This is not simply throwing structure out the window, rather the students come up with a structure that relates to their individual theme.
Bernabei presents her essay structures like the logic problems of basic algebra: "If this --> then that --> which makes x." The school essays she offers allow for more student creativity and individuality then if all students respond to the same, teacher-created theme. Some students do better when working within guidelines, and that is true from Pre-K through a level 400 class. My group, the Boston Soybean Police, occasionally needed parameters to create our projects within. Bernabei's structures work very well for essays, which are the backbone of my writing education, but my teaching career will deal with a greater variety of modalities. Some, like Powerpoint and web pages, have been part of my education for years. Others, like Voicethread, podcasting, and SecondLife, are recent additions to a multi-modal curriculum.
In my second paper for 406, Second Life: The Real Ramifications of Virtual Education, I discussed the shift of the classroom from a physical space where learners congregate to a virtual one. No longer is a class of students necessarily homogeneous and sorted by age and location. Using a simulated environment such as Second Life or even "traditional" online classes, teachers and students can connect from great distances. Technology challenges and reshapes notions of literacy and learning spaces, offering current and future educators more choices. The intersection of traditional literacy with aural literacy was the subject of lively conversation in 406.
One of the things I learned with both the Group Audio Project and the Voicethread was that something that looked good on the page didn't "read" as well when heard. The flow of words on a page, from writer's hand to reader's brain is not the same as the flow from the speaker's mouth to a listening ear. This constantly trips me up in life because I can spell words that I can't pronounce. So although there is a nuance to be captured in the use of esoteric vocabulary, it does not translate into my mangled, spoken syllables. Writing for speaking (be it Voicethread, podcasting, or public speaking) needs to be informed by poetry. Stresses on syllables, alliteration, and pauses for breath are more relevant to this type of writing than having five sentences to a paragraph and a topic sentence.
Working with so many different modes of communication, each with their own rules, renders the "one-size-fits-all" approach to literacy useless. There are some instances where knowing the correct structure of a five-paragraph essay would be helpful, but at other times knowing where to host a project on the Internet is of more practical use. In my teaching career, there will be times when I will have to defer to my students' intimate knowledge of the technologies we are using. As a teacher, I do not expect to have all of the answers all of the time, especially when it comes to using computers, microphones, and Moodle. Within my classroom I expect I will rely on what my students have learned outside of class. Teaching "digital natives" as an outsider makes it necessary to respect the knowledge and skills they bring to the table, rather than viewing them as empty vessels waiting to be filled from the fount of knowledge.
Literary Symbolism in 'A Perfect Day for Bananafish' was not written for this class but nonetheless addresses my theme. J.D. Salinger's story explores the fate of the non-conformist, and Seymour Glass' refusal to participate in a rigid, inflexible society has a tragic end. In the story, all of the meaningful interaction takes place between Seymour and Sybil, outside of the boundaries of the hotel beach. Freed from the structure of polite society and the incumbent pressures, Seymour's story of the bananafish becomes a critique of his culture. All of the technologies we have used in 406 allow users to critique their own cultures. Blogs and audio and video podcasting especially allow outsiders a greater prominence and louder voice than before. One of the benefits of these technologies is that the critical outsider is no longer regulated to a lonely stretch of sand; Seymour could have posted his story on YouTube and achieved Internet notoriety, perhaps even a book deal.
The other piece of writing in this portfolio is Spiritual Pizza. It focuses on what I learned outside of the classroom while I was retired. Without taking four years off to work and travel, the importance of student-directed education would not be so clear to me. Normal schooling takes the responsibility for what to learn off the student, but to be successful in life, a person needs to learn and grow. I learned more and was more engaged in my learning process in four years on the beach than in my entire school career. It wasn't just about the pizza, or Hawaiian sunshine, every day was an opportunity for me to add to my knowledge of culture, ecology, edible plants, geology, history, myths, and native language. Part of the reason I absorbed so much was that I learned about these things in relation to each other. Context is crucial, and seeing a volcano or camping among ancient ruins creates a richness of experience that is impossible to achieve from a textbook.
It would be impractical and impossible to spend the school year camping with a bunch of surly teenagers, hoping their experiences would be similar to mine. But the diversity of mediums we explored in 406 will enhance my teaching. Using a program like Second Life, students could explore a visually accurate representation of Tudor England, replete with avatars speaking old English. That would enhance the study of Shakespeare, just like a visit to the Second Life Louvre to view the Mona Lisa might provide a valuable context for studying art. Having such a variety of technology allows students to work with their strengths to create projects that matter. Aspiring directors can upload videos to YouTube, student musicians can podcast, and aspiring journalists can do a program like South Fork News on KMUD.
One reality of the 21st century is that by the time I begin my teaching career, podcasting and Voicethread might be as outdated as acid washed jeans. This is where my reliance on student knowledge of relevant technology will be essential. My classroom may exist in the real world or it may be a virtual one, but I hope that it is just one stop on a life-long journey of learning for the students who pass through. As education relies more on technology, the important contributions of out-of-class student directed learning will no longer be discounted.
Our Powerpoint Presentation
The Boston Soy Bean Police from 406 hosted our Powerpoint presentation on Voicethread. Please cruise over there to check it out and also our work on the class voicethreads. I chose not to link to Voicethread twice because that is confusing. Enjoy!
UPDATE: Voicethread allows you to embed into your blog! So now both my group's Powerpoint and the 406 Voicethread are embedded below. Because they are both in a private area of voicethread, I'm not sure if they will work on my blog.
UPDATE: Voicethread allows you to embed into your blog! So now both my group's Powerpoint and the 406 Voicethread are embedded below. Because they are both in a private area of voicethread, I'm not sure if they will work on my blog.
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