I have always been pretty sceptical about arguments over the difficulty of authenticating student work online, mostly because I structure my courses so that someone would have to make a pretty huge time commitment to complete the course for someone else.
Apparently I should worry a bit more. An article from the Atlantic starts with some pretty generic observations about buying papers--a reality since long before the Internet--but then moves to something that suprised me. The existence of at least one site where a student can hire someone to take a complete course.
Here is the paragraph from the Atlantic piece that interested me:
"And why stop with exams? Why not follow this path to its logical
conclusion? If the entire course is online, why shouldn't students hire
someone to enroll and complete all its requirements on their behalf? In
fact, "Take-my-course.com" sites have already begun to appear. One site
called My Math Genius
promises to get customers a "guaranteed grade," with experts who will
complete all assignments and "ace your final and midterm." And why
should the trend toward vicarious performance stop with education? How
long must we wait until some intrepid entrepreneur founds
""Do-my-job.com" or "Live-my-life.com?"
I visited the site referenced in this paragarph, and it is indeed more than a little scary for adovates of online teaching and learning like myself. Here is a quote from the home page; it comes from a featured box on the page:
One of the compelling arguments against anxiety about online cheating has been that most of the things folks seemed worried about happening online could happen onsite as well. Do I, for example, really know that my students in class are who I say they are? Can I guarantee the authenticity of student out of class work any more onsite than online?
But news of this web site forces me to admit that it is easier for students to cheat online than I realized. At least one site already exists that apparently could help a student work through an online class without doing any work and any learning. At a minimum, this seems to suggest that it would be far easier for a student to hire an online academic surrogate than an onsite academic surrogate.
Perhaps many of my online colleagues have already thought more about this than I have and have developed strategies for thinking about / responding to this challenge. But for me, this news means that the time has come to rethink this question...
In it Maeda offers an explanation for the relationship between art and design that I found intriguing and inspirational. Arguing that the distinction between the two is vital, Maeda elaborates upon the distinction:
"Designers create solutions – the products and services that propel us forward. But artists create questions
— the deep probing of purpose and meaning that sometimes takes us
backward and sideways to reveal which way “forward” actually is. The
questions that artists make are often enigmatic, answering a why with
another why. Because of this, understanding art is difficult: I like to
say that if you’re having difficulty “getting” art, then it’s doing its
job."
Moving on from this defintion to an argument about Steve Jobs as this kind of artist (doesn't really work for me, but what do I know?!), Maeda then elaborates on his definition of art with two ideas that I find very compelling:
"But when we manage to shed our stereotypes of artists as psychologically
unstable, we get to see what an artist really is: someone who often
exchanges his own welfare and even his life for a cause that may have no
meaning to anyone else, but means everything to him or her.
"In other words, an artist is truly in it for themselves – not just
for reasons of wanting to get rich, or get famous, or find a path to
comfort. The artist needs to understand the truth that lies at the bottom of an enigma."
And finally this on the artist and the economic context in which she / he must create:
"Art speaks to us as humans, not as “human capital.” Art shows us that
human beings still matter in a world where money talks the loudest,
where computers know everything about us, and where robots fabricate our
next meal and also our ride there. Artists ask the questions that
others are afraid to ask and that money cannot answer."
I quote Maeda at length because I was struck by how what is basically an homage to Steve Jobs can sound so much like a spot on description of Thoreau and his writing. As I mentioned before, I do not buy the Job's side--I think he gets too much credit for what has actually been an extraordinary collective creation (like Edison taking so much credit--and profit--for and from the work of others)--but I love how aptly Maeda's language describes what Thoreau sounds like to me at his best.
I have been thinking lately about the ways that a traditional classroom enemy of onsite teaching--the cell phone--can become my friend. Here are a few thoughts; please share any ideas that you may have with me.
Already my friend...
By showing me when students are not engaged with what I am doing, the cell phone has always been my friend. When several students are texting or exploring non-class related material while in my class, then clearly I need to make some adjustments and find ways to make more students feel better connected to what I am doing in class. When an isolated student is doing this, then that student has provided me a signal that she or he is feeling disconnected. Then I need to strategize about ways to reach out to that student. Either way, the distradted cell phone user gives me useful cues.
Class Related Phone Searches / Activities
Students do use their phones for class related work, and I should begin to find ways to tap into that--calling for folks to search out something related to what we are doing on their phones--vocab, concepts, history, sources, etc.
Tweeting During Class Discussions
I want to start encouraging students to use twitter during class to respond to what is going on in class. This could be as informal as throwing an idea up on the screen during our full-class discussion or as structured as asking students to post tweets about their smaller group discussions / activities during class for the whole class can see.
Phones as Clickers
I have heard about, but do not yet know much about, technology that allows students to use their phones as "clickers." I need to research more about this because I love the ways that clickers can add to classroom engagement via quick check in questions, surveys, and all sorts of other non-grade impacting multiple choice questions that help every student contribute and see where she or he is.
First Contact! (and then some follow up messaging...)
Typically, I have students fill out some hard copy form of contact information about themselves on the first day of class. I use this later for follow up, etc. But this year I am going to try having all of the students text me that info on their phones right there in class. Then I can set up groups on my phone and send out texts to them during the semester. (I already provide them with my cell phone number, so that is not a hurdle for me). I really like the idea of being able to send out short reminders, quotes from readings, alerts about newly emergent resources via text message. Again, that feels like a potential way to help students feel connected to the larger conversation.
OK. That's five ideas to start with. I would love to hear anyone's suggestions, and I will probably be adding to this post later.
One of the highlights of the past academic year for me was facilitating the Program for Online Teaching's year long certificate program blog discussion.
In the role of ring master, motivator, and admiring reader, I composed about twenty-four weekly posts pulling together all the goodies we were to read, laying out an agenda, and adding a few lines of my own perspective and ideas. The majority of the work on the posts was the collective thinking of the POT leadership group--especially goddess of online learning Lisa Lane--but my job was to browse through the assigned readings and the contributions of our program participants and try to help everyone keep the big picture. Sometimes that involved just a few sentences; other times it required some serious or seriously playful screencasting.
Working throught the course readings--some of each week's were new to me--and reading the thoughts of my colleagues dramatically improved my own teaching because it helped me better understand see the online teaching experience from so many different perspectives and observe the thinking and experimentation of an impressive group of colleagues. Thanks to this experience, I am a better teacher than I was when I began this journey.
Here is a collection of the weekly posts I helped construct to keep the group on task. They include the curriculum developed by the team, my comments, and a video from other POT colleagues (with a few from me sprinkled in there).
Week 1: 9/1/2011 My original post was "accidentally" deleted by a colleague--but I do have a link to the screencast I created to offer some starting points to my colleagues: pedagogy first intro
Here are the two powerpoints that we used during our retreat. I have added our brainstorms about possible writing assignments for and obstacles to service learning. On the obstacles side, I have also added notes on Carol's comments about how to overcome those obstacles:
Our beloved colleague, Kelly--the Dean--Hagen, found some inspiration in our conversation and went out exploring on her own. Here is a link to the cool tool she found and another link to what she created:
A colleague asked me for a list of some non-discipline specific resources that I monitor to help me improve my teaching. This was tough for me because I already focus on lots of material in my fields--composition (NCTE), American literature (SEA, MLA), and American Studies (ASA). But I decided to collect some bookmarks that I have been checking out over the past few years and some of the books I have been reading and searching for.
By the way, I make no claims to visit all of these resources regularly, but I think it is safe to say that I visit most of them at one point or another each year and most frequently during summer and winter breaks when I am really thinking about reworking my teaching approaches.
The Web
General Resources on Education Issues / Not Specific To My Discipline or Even College Teaching! Often these sources, by keeping me up on what is going on in the world of education, put me in touch with pedagogical practices and curricular innovations in unexpected ways.
Always good to follow for general news, but also regularly features articles on teaching practices at various levels--never in depth--but just enough to prod me into my own explorations and questions.
I do not have a subscription, so I often have to find places other than my home to check out the for pay articles, but I find myself frequently following up on and/or playing around with ideas that I find in these three sections.
This may not seem so obviously connected to pedagogy, but I have found Pew an amazing resource for data on a whole range of social and educational topics as well as on the process of surveying and thinking critically about surveys themselves. I have used this site in almost every class I have taught over the last few years. And I have also used data from this site in all sorts of pedagogical and curricular discussions.
What started as a personal passion has evolved for me into a source for all sorts of interesting ideas about education and teaching. A few months ago, for example, I found this wonderful article on the cultural reasons/values/philosophies behind college education in the United States:
I heard about Sal Kahn via a few different venues--NPR, the Huffington Post, and Bill Gates, so I started checking out the videos and became a bit addicted. I am still trying to figure out how and why this stuff works, but I think some exciting rethinking of the role of the classroom is coming from this (students study on their own using these videos and then come to class to practice at high schools that have begun using these materials--that sounds an awful lot like what I have been trying to get them to do for years!!!).
This site is for pre-college, but I find it a good barometer of what the hot topics are in education. For this reason, I keep popping in looking for some inspiration.
I hate to blow our own horn, but I think this site is an amazing resource--I am especially wowed by the range of resources, from videos to blogs. And I am a regular reader of my hero Lisa Lane's blog: Lisa's (Online) Teaching Blog
An amazing organization with amazing resources, the College Research and Learning Association strikes me as one of the most vibrantly engaged groups of professionals concerned abour reading skills and student success.
Bain's summer institute on what the best teachers do is terrific, and I think the book is a wonderful thought / conversation starter (see below). This site moves around a bit each year, so you may have to google it rather than follow a static link.
Skip Downing's site is mostly focused on selling his workshops and books, but they are good workshops and books! More importantly, the site has a student success resources list that I have frequently found cool ideas on and a link to a brief, sometimes useful, email list
I like this short NEA HIgher Education focused newsletter. Each issue includes a focusing on a pedagogy with some basic sources for further exploration: a great indepdendent investigations starter!
I also like the NEA's annual higher ed journal--it provides the interesting mix of theory and practice that they claim as their purpose--another useful springboard.
Focused on California Community Colleges, the Research and Planning Group collects and shares a wide range of resources on its site, many of which deal with best instiutional and pedagogical practices.
An interesting group that focuses on new trends and best practices--a have found some interesting publications, papers, and case studies here.
University Centers For Teaching and Learning
These have become de rigour over the last decade, but to me some rise above others. Here are a few of the sites I visit regularly for resources and ideas:
Searle Center for Teaching Excellence: Resource Page
Over the past five years, these are the general texts about college teaching that I find myself returning to again and again.
Bean, John. Engaging Ideas (new edition coming out this year!!)
Bain, Ken. What the Best College Teachers Do
Barkely, Elizabeth. Student Engagement Techniques
Fink, L. Dee. Creating Significant Learning Experiences
Angelo, Thomas. Classroom Assessment Techniques.
Stevens, Danielle. Introduction to Rubrics
Zull, James. The Art of Changing the Brain: Enriching the Practice of Teaching by Exploring the Biology of Learning
Scrounging
I usually pick up three or four books a year on teaching in general to check out. Some of these I hear about from colleagues or friends, but many I found by scrounging around in Amazon.com or my local UC library for titles which I then order online.
In general, I do this by visiting amazon.com or the UC Riverside web site, looking up books I already know and love and then looking for related texts via amazon links or the UCR library subject headings...
Here's a quick video of my methodolo gy--nothing ground shaking, but I confess that I have stumbled across some of my most rewarding general teaching resources this way.
Worked on a brief voice narration for a video about MiraCosta's Basic Skills Initiative work, and I decided I wanted to save some of what I wrote for it here on my blog as food for thought, reflection, etc.
"Literally thousands of students graduate each year from our feeder high schools testing below proficient in reading, writing, and mathematics skills. With this in mind, teaching basic skills in central to MiraCosta's commitment to the communities we serve. When we teach basic skills students, we contribute to hope, change, and opportunity. For this reason, basic skills students belong at MiraCosta. They come from every community and cultural group represented on our campuses, and they participate in courses in every discipline and program."
For the past five years, California's Basic Skills Initiative has researched and documented best practices and provided some funding to initiate these efforts on our campuses. This best practices research indicates that colleges need to rethink how we teach in the classroom--employing new approaches and pedagogies -- and outside of the classroom--through counseling, tutoring, and other services. Ultimately, the state initiative seeks to help students successfully navigate California's higher education system. Whether returning directly the work force, continuing with career and technical education, or transferring to four-year colleges, basic skill learners can and will reshape our communities and our shared future."
Ah the joys of pre-holiday season consumption in America!
I made the mistake of cutting through the mall (to go see the outdoor Christmas tree) with my kids yesterday. Much to my horror, Santa was not only highly visible--even from the second floor of the mall--but also completely available. My four year old seized the moment and before I knew it I was asking the cheerful teenager selling the photo packages if Santa took plastic. "Of course he does," she answered, "this is America!."
Yes indeed it is. And now I endure three times a day tug-of-wars between my children over who gets to carry which of the preposterous eight pieces of the absurd photo package of Ben's flashing his grimace grin into which of the already overflowing with all manners of crap rooms of my now worth less than half of what I paid for it five years ago house.
"Wait...is that noise coming from the washing machine...
"Daddy...it looks like an ocean in here..."
mysantapicsnightmare.com will prove nothing compared to my buyanewwasheranddryer.com nightmare.
Yesterday I led a syllabus workshop for faculty from Mt. San Jacinto Community College. They were great: energetic, creative, engaged. But I did not feel good about how the workshop went. I had some tech glitches at the that limited what I could show the faculty and the size of the group and limited time with them left me feeling rushed and a bit discombobulated.
For those who attended the workshop and would like more time to think and work through the ideas presented, here is a revised version of my Powerpoint (Download Syllabusworkshop )that you can download and review. You can also visit my syllabus web site. And here is a syllabus and a calendar from this semester that you may find interesting:
You can find other sample syllabus on my syllabus web site as well as links to some great syllabus development resources on the web.
Even with my concerns about how the session went, I still learned so much from facilitating this workshop. Here is a quick list of a few things I learned while purportedly "leading" a this weekend's workshop:
The Power of the Invitation: a math instructor shared an amazing invitation question for a College Algebra syllabus--I am going to butcher the language but it was something to the effect of "how can we identify the unknown?" or "how can we determine the undetermined?" or something supercool like that (how sad that I am mutilating her genius!). Her question reminded me how exciting this practice of identifying a guiding question (this is Ken Bain's idea, see his wonderful site for more) for our courses can be. I have been thinking about how Bain's idea of the invitation connects to James Zull's thoughts about teaching, learning, and the brain. I think that is material for a future post and perhaps even a new workshop...
Rethink How My Syllabus Presents My Assessment Policies: During yesterday's workshop, I realized that the sample syllabus I was sharing does not do a very good job of highlighting the assessment practices that really define my comp course as the students experience it. Specifically the "infinite rewrite" and "outside of class conference based essay grading" elements appear as minor points on my assessment page when I should be highlighting in some creative ways--text boxes, quotes from students, pictures, etc.
Alignment: One of the ideas that came up in yesterday's workshop--within one of the smaller circle discussions--was the role the syllabus plays in helping the instructor stay focused and organized over the course of the semester. My online teaching hero Lisa Lane recently posted about the struggle to align what we are doing in the classroom / learning space on any given day with our broader objectives. This is definitely a challenge, but the better we achieve this oh so allusive goal, the more sense our course will make to our students. I have been trying to do that in my 202 courses by introducing some visual representations of key ideas that we cover in the course into the syllabus. My goal was that we would return to those pages in the syllabus again and again during the semester. Although including that material in my syllabus has helped me stay focused (and I have frequently used these terms and these frameworks in class discussions and assessment), I have not physically returned us to the syllabus itself to reconnect students with those key visual tools. I think one key step I need to take is to create posters for the classroom from those syllabus pages that I can refer back to each day as we encounter, apply, and explore these ideas.
Just Say No! I have to learn to say no to shorter sessions--they do not work for me and often confuse or frustrate the participants. I understand how colleagues want to put together rich programs of workshops and offerings, but my session simply does not work when compressed. I should explore presenting just parts of it--that could address some of this--but the key is for participants to have enough time to brainstorm and create--something that is not going to happen in the standard 75 minute session.
Increasingly
I am finding the Chronicle's technology pages worth monitoring--not
because they are particularly cutting edge but because they can tell
you quite a bit about which way the winds are blowing.
The key resources are their main technology page and their blog (The Wired Campus), which I find particularly interesting. Some samples follow below:
An interesting piece in the NY Times documents research suggesting that online learners tend to score higher in various testing programs.
Although
I have found retention numbers lower in my online and hybrid classes, I
have long felt that rapidly evolving technology is erasing the
liabilities in the online setting for me. As the article suggests,
chat, easy video, and social networking functions are making the online
setting much more appealing.
I have been experimenting with a social network based system for my onsite comp course (signsabound.com) and enjoying it so far.
Seeing this study summarized in the Times simply strengthens my resolve to keep developing my online skills.
This is a response to my friend Louisa Moon, who forwarded these rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read
that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no
more than 15 minutes.
I played by Louisa's rules--and then went back and added my comments, lamentations, and other notes...
Unfortunately, I did some cutting and pasting, so they are not in the exact order I thought of them (which would have been fun--but I cannot completely reconstruct that):
Ceremony (Silko)--an American masterpiece
Nine Stories (Salinger)--when I fell in love with literature
Jesus Before Christianity (Albert Nolan)--helped/helps me in my own search for social justice
Invisible Man (Ellison)--Luis Armstrong and Ellison--our two greatest modernists in one text
Sula (Morrison)--some of Morrison's best prose and most culturally resonant characters/metaphors
A Hundred Years of Solitude (Garcia Marquez)--I remember reading it over and over during my year in Peru
Song of Myself (Whitman): from lonely women watching naked men swim and whitman bathing a runaway slave's feet to the glories of blades of grass and barbaric yawps...
Bless Me Ultima (Anaya)--such a simple and beautiful gateway to helping younger high school students explore literature, art, and culture
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain): if only I had Huck's courage, Jim's wisdom, and one more chance to light out for the territories...
The Portable Thoreau: "Life Without Principle" and "Walking" would be enough even without Walden
The Portable Emerson: "Self-reliance," "Experience," "The Poet"--the texts every American since seems to be arguing with...
La Frontera / Borderlands (Anzaldua)-- what -- identity is a construct not an essential truth -- and that's exciting not scary?!
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson: much madnees is indeed divinest sense (especially when presented slantwise)
The Republic (Plato) -- am I in the cave--am I out--does it matter?
The Norton Shakespeare--Cheating, I know, but I could not face the pain of choosing
I cannot even begin to describe the horror of the many authors that I wanted to include but just did not make that first to rise to the top fifteen: ana castillo, luis alfaro, pynchon, de saint-expury, faulkner, baldwin, dubois, chesnutt, william carlos williams, sylvia plath, dostoyevsky, dickens, cooper, flannery o'connor, tolkien, arthur miller, edward albee, suzie lorie parks, willa cather...perhaps this was more painful than it was worth...
But looking at the list, many of the choices had to do with which texts I keep coming back to but also which books I have most enjoyed teaching.
I still remember...
discovering the world of Latino/a literature through Anzaldua and first teaching Bless Me Ultima to Upward Bound students...
the joys of teaching Sula (the phrase "magnificent desolation" which I picked up from Buzz Aldrin today seems so pefect for that book) to many different groups...
an amazing experience I had ending my American lit sequence last year with Ceremony--a book I had not read in years but was once again thrilled by its beauty...
watching students from many years of lit classes perform scenes from shakespeare...
