The Calf-Path

After watching the Calf-Path video and reading the poem from which the video was inspired, the allegory jumped out at me (http://www.baroncarson.com/2008/12/the-calf-path).    The Calf-Path is a cautionary tale that draws awareness to the fact that most people do not like to think outside of the box and find their own path in life.  They would rather follow a path that is tried and true, even though it may not be the most practical solution. 

I am reminded of a blog entry I read last week by Tara Walker, in her blog, Free Spirituality: Go Deeper.   She comments on Dr. Wayne Dyer’s book Excuses Begone.  (http://freespirituality.com/dr-wayne-dyer-excuses-begone-18-affirmations-list/)  He lists 18 commonly used excuses for not trying a new (better) way and affirmations to get you motivated.  My colleague and I shared this with a group of incoming freshmen last week to inspire them to achieve their goals in their college career. 

One of the Calf-Path poem’s points that I most relate to is trying to get students to think and express their own views, not regurgitating their professor’s view or what they read in the news.   I was helping a student with a writing assignment a few months ago.  She was tasked with writing an essay debating a current topic in the news.  I told her she needed to think about her view on this particular point and state her opinion.  She said, “I don’t want to have to think.  It makes my brain hurt!”  Unfortunately, this student is not alone.  Most people don’t want to exert their mental power and create something original.  They want, and in some cases, need to be led. 

Another point I picked up on is that most people (and animals) are complacent.  Complacency has become one of the biggest issues in today’s society, especially in the education field.   With the advent of the Internet, there is a whole new world of opportunities available to educators and students.  However, there is resistance from both sides, because they are comfortable with the known, Traditional Model.  Not that the Traditional Model is totally wrong, but there has to be a happy medium between the two.  Sometimes people who totally jump off the cow-path without looking ahead for cliffs are worse off then they were before.  Remember to take time for planning and proper implementation.

Technology Coordinators have our work cut out for us.  Not only must we keep abreast of new technologies and pedagogies, we must be advocates and cheerleaders for the use of technology in the classroom.   Although there have been some strides in getting people on board, we still have a long way to go. 

Changes

Hi!  Well, time flies.  I realized the other day I haven't posted here in quite a while.  I'm going to try to do better.

There have been some updates in my professional life.  First, I started working on my Ed.S. in Instructional Technology this past Summer.  I'm really enjoying learning about new ways to incorporate new technology into the classroom and sharing what we're doing in QEP with my fellow classmates.    I look forward to sharing my new knowledge with our QEP staff and faculty.

This leads me into the other change.  My friend and colleague Keith Hamon retired in December, so as of January 3rd, 2012, I am now the QEP Coordinator here at ASU.  I'm so excited and full of ideas to share with everyone at ASU as well as here on my blog.  So, stay tuned.....

Welcoming the New Cohort

This morning, we conducted the first QEP Writing.Realized. workshop for the 2011-2012 cohort.  We had so much for them to do and learn: QEP philosphy, creating a syllabus, and creating an online presence.

I was sure they would feel overwhelmed.  But, as far as I could tell, everyone was sooo excited!  I saw that "Wow!  This is great!" expression on a couple of faces.  Moments like these make teaching worthwhile.   Seeing that really made my day.  Sometimes we get bogged down in bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo and forget why we're really here. 

Life-long Learners

One of my joys in life is learning new things.  I try to learn at least one new thing every day.  This is one of the reasons I love working with the QEP.  There is always something new to learn, whether it is just a learning theory or some new software.

  My wish for this year's graduating cohort is that they continue their passion for learning.   Things are always changing, and if you don't keep up, you get too stale, complacent, and irrelevant.  Remember to keep a fresh perspective when it comes to learning.  I believe that in order to be a great teacher, you also need to be a great student.  When your students see your passion for learning, it inspires them to be better learners.    So, I challenge everyone to keep abreast of new innovations in your field.  Keep in contact with the QEP team.  Even though your required year is over, we are still available to assist and guide you in the right direction.

Using CLAQWA

We started using the CLAQWA writing assessment tool last semester to measure the growth of QEP students writing abilities between the beginning of the semester and the end of the semester.   We are now exploring different things we can do with this service besides program assessment.

One of the things that sets CLAQWA apart, is its 16 trait rubric.  We have seen and evaluated dozens of writing rubrics over the past year, and this one seems to be the best, as rubrics go.  There are enough traits to cover just about any part of an essay imaginable, yet you can customize it to just one or two traits, depending on the class assignment.  

The QEP team hopes to be able to utilize this rubric to help professors and students know exactly what areas to focus on in a given assignment.  For example, Professor Plum tells his class to write an essay about a poisonous plant, and he will be looking for them to demonstrate they can fulfill Traits 10 and 11 (Quality of Details and Quantity of Details.)  Then, the students can come into the Writing Lab and ask the Writing Specialist for help in those areas.    

I think concentrating on a few traits at the time will help build the confidence of the poor writer.  Not only will he not feel overwhelmed, we can work on the most important traits and go from there.

The AHA moment!

Tom Clancy, one of our QEP coordinators, is teaching a Literary Forms class this semester.  He graciously let us use him as our guinea pig, allowing us to re-vamp his syllabus into a Flipped classroom.  This is a relatively new concept to us, but it shows great promise.  It is a natural step to support  our connectivist teaching philosophy as well as using JiTTs in order to allow students to gain more out of the classroom experience.

We have been pushing writing to learn in the classrooms by utilizing wikis and blogs.  However, one of the major roadblocks that I have heard from the teachers is the fact that students don’t actively participate.  I have been trying to think of ways to help them encourage student participation.  A statement by Keith Hamon, our other coordinator set off the lightbulb in my brain.  We have been going about this problem from the wrong end!!

Apparently, in a flipped classroom, you don’t just have the boring text readings done before class, leaving time for class discussion and other interactive activities, you also flip the grading scale!!  For example, class participation usually only counts 5 to 10% in a class.  If you keep giving JiTT assignments, and assign blog postings and only give this small amount of weight to it, of course the average student isn’t going to take it seriously.  What if they were (gasp!) sufficiently motivated to learn?  What if class participation was the meat and potatoes of the course, earning 70 - 80% of your grade?  That would motivate!  

Testing is just a tool to see how well a student can memorize facts.  By the time a student takes a test,  the lesson has long been over, and it’s often to late to go back over the missed objectives.  Is it not more important to see the students progress during class?  Monitor their postings to see if they “get it” or not??  

I know this sounds radical and revolutionary to most people.  In all honesty, as a former high school teacher, I ask myself the same questions the college professors ask about the practicality of it all.   At the end of the day, I think it’s doable.   It’s just going to take some time to re-train our brains as well as the students’. 

Creating a Critical Thinking Rubric

This past week in our QEP workshop, we started winding up our discussion on critical thinking.  One of our final tasks on this subject is to identify ways to evaluate the level of critical thinking in our students.  We have decided to create a Critical Thinking Rubric.  

When you look up “Critical Thinking Rubric” on Google, you get thousands of examples.  It seems like we may be re-inventing the wheel here.  So, you may wonder why are we wanting to create our own.   However, I believe one reason may be that there is no “one size fits all.”  We can take inspiration from the examples out there and craft a rubric that fits our faculty needs.  There also seems to be a hidden lesson in all this - we are learning to think critically about evaluating critical thinking.  May the force be with us on our quest! :-)