I must begin by indicating that I really love the idea of Living-Learning Communities, residential programs which are offered at a number of universities, including Virginia Tech, although I have personally never had the opportunity to be a part of one. I think they have the potential to foster a lifelong love of learning and to promote learning outside of the classroom. However, since these residential programs are department or field-based, I wonder whether they promote the pervasive silo-mentality in many academics ("young" and "old"). I do not think, by any means, that the model needs to be completely revised, as I think there is great value in it. However, I wonder if there is a way to make it more interdisciplinary and more innovative. Perhaps these residences could have "house parties" in which they invite members of other Living-Learning Communities to casual symposia, discussions, think tanks, etc. Or, perhaps the Living-Learning Communities could be organized as Problem-Based Learning Living-Learning experiences around various societal issues. I think this would be feasible, since we already have Enhanced-Learning communities that are focused on an interest rather than an academic major. I think that moving Living-Learning Communities in this direction would help disrupt academic silos and promote innovative, collaborative, interdisciplinary learning.
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Tonight, in my Preparing Future Professoriate class, a student mentioned that some students were in communication with the authors of their textbook. She said that the authors were welcoming comments from their student readers (such as what they (dis)agreed with, needed clarification on, etc.). I thought that that was fascinating, and immediately wondered to myself why that wasn't a more common practice. Surely, textbook authors do not want to have to personally address thousands of students around the world regarding their insights on a textbook. However, I wonder what type knowledge could be created by intergenerational, international, intercultural, interdisciplinary conversations about various academic texts, in which learners and educators have constructive dialogue, and textbook authors chime in every now and then.
This week, reading an article entitled, "What Constitutes Doctoral Knowledge" (Devos & Sommerville, 2012) and watching Godin's TED talk, "Stop Stealing Dreams," has really got me to thinking about how much of a machine higher education is. Granted, schooling at various levels involves training students to behave in certain ways, uphold certain values, and have certain goals. However, this type of mass indoctrination is particularly disconcerting to me at the graduate level, where doctoral students are supposedly imported for their potential to generate knowledge in a particular field (or interdisciplinary area). It strikes me as quite ironic that we admit students who demonstrate some potential to think deeply, innovatively, and critically, and yet, over the course of their graduate career, we proceed to mold them into compliant members of a knowledge-production assembly line, whereby they are trained to “follow suit.” [Note, I say "we" because we are the institution (Palmer, 2007)--We are the academy.]
While we do celebrate innovation, in that doctoral students are expected to create at least a nugget of new knowledge, we also stifle innovation, in that we force students to process and package their knowledge-nuggets in the same traditional packaging, with the same standardized dimensions. For example, with dissertation formatting requirements that warrant entire training workshops, I cannot help but wonder, how do seemingly empty requirements enhance students’ learning and knowledge creation (assuming this is still why we admit doctoral students)? I am by no means advocating for complete eradication of guidelines and expectations, but Dr. Fowler has challenged us to think critically about why we do what we do in teaching. Even beyond the logistics of the physical dissertation document, there are ways in which some of what we do is merely “going through the motions,” or doing things a certain way simply because “that’s how they’ve always been done.” I wonder whether doctoral programs will begin to shift from having students conform to what has always been done to welcoming and supporting students in doing something different—or whether they are too convinced that they are already doing what is best to ever consider something new. My goal is to obtain a tenure-track professorship with a joint-appointment in Cooperative Extension. I have always attended land grant universities (Cornell University, University of Delaware, and now Virginia Tech) and have come to really value Cooperative Extension. Through Cooperative Extension, land grant universities transform the scientific knowledge generated in the "ivory tower" into practical information using lay language. Although Cooperative Extension is not a contemporary institution, I think it has the potential to initiate even greater good in communities if it incorporates contemporary pedagogical strategies. One way Cooperative Extension has begun to respond to a more digital society is by establishing eXtension, Cooperative Extension's interactive online system, which provides practical research-based information online. For example, eXtension has an "Ask an Expert" feature, which allows people to pose questions to Extension Specialists. While the notion of "commoners" depending on "experts" for answers has its own host of philosophical and epistemological issues, I think this is a practical service that youth, parents, farmers, educators, and others can use to access trustworthy research-based information in a practical way (that may be more beneficial than a mere Google search).
Extension Specialists tend to engage in more community education, rather than traditional classroom education. However, just because you take the educator out of the classroom does not mean you take the classroom out of the educator. That is, even community educators may be relying on traditional teaching strategies, which could be enhanced by including contemporary pedagogical strategies. As a future professor and Extension Specialist, I hope to employ these innovative teaching and learning strategies, both in the classroom and in the community. Something I have been thinking about quite a bit these days is how I will balance vulnerability and respect in my future role as a professor. As I revealed in my last post (regarding finding my authentic teaching self), "I think one important aspect of my approach to teaching will be my intentionality in showing to my students that I am a human, with a real past, diverse experiences, strengths, weaknesses, and dreams. In doing this, I will also be poised to reveal my own experiences have informed my ontology, epistemology, and research paradigm."
What I am currently grappling with is the risk that may come with being vulnerable with my students. That is, I am beginning to wonder about how revealing my humanity (past experiences, strengths, weaknesses, etc.) may compromise my image as a qualified scholar and legitimate academic, particularly to students and/ or colleagues that may be prejudicially skeptical of my legitimacy because I am a Black woman. Although this is an unpleasant topic, I think it is a practical concern, since I will undoubtedly interact with (either implicitly or overtly and subconsciously or consciously) racist students and/ or colleagues as a future professor. (No, we are not living in a post-racial society.) Personally, I prefer to err on the side of assuming individuals are not racist unless given a reason to think otherwise. Thus, for the most part, I think that sharing my humanity with my students will be an invaluable community-building practice in the classroom, that may even foster mentoring relationships with some students. However, as we know from examples like the recent SAE incident at the University of Oklahoma that racism still exists on (and off) university campuses. My concern is that by revealing my personal experiences, students who are prejudiced against me because I am either Black, a woman, or a Black woman will have even less respect for me. I know a Black female professor who thinks very intentionally about requiring respect from her students (some of whom accused her of "reverse racism") by insisting that her [mostly White] students refer to her as "Dr. [Last Name]," for example. It is more pleasant to think that even racist students may value my transparency, and therefore have respect for me, but I am not certain that this is a safe assumption to make. For me, the immediate answer is "balance" (and obviously, professionalism). The longer answer will require more reflection and consultation with current and future mentors, particularly other Black female professors. In order to begin discovering my authentic teaching self, I must reflect on my own learning experiences. As a learner, I have benefitted most from teachers you made me feel like they knew and cared about me as an individual learner, by both celebrating and challenging my strengths and supporting me to develop my areas for growth. I have also enjoyed having teachers who in some way showed me that they were human—whether by revealing something s/he struggled with as a student in the past, sharing something some from her/ his personal life, or reaching out to me in some way.
Reflecting on these salient characteristics of teachers who have best supported and educated me, I think one important aspect of my approach to teaching will be my intentionality in showing to my students that I am a human, with a real past, diverse experiences, strengths, weaknesses, and dreams. In doing this, I will also be poised to reveal my own experiences have informed my ontology, epistemology, and research paradigm. By revealing these foundational pieces of myself as an educator and lifelong learner, I would have positioned myself to invite my students to explore how their own experiences have informed their ways of conceptualizing reality, ways of knowing, and ways of regarding what is researchable and how. In the classroom, my goal is to create a safer space, where learners agree to be just a bit vulnerable—enough to explore their experiences and how their own lives affect their scholarship. Since I have a transformative research paradigm, my classes will also be framed in the context of social justice. Whether I am teaching a Human Development class, an Evaluation class, or a Research Writing class, I will always try to support learners in making the connection to how our work in class applies to the greater social context. Since I also value experiential learning, I will also try to engage students in real-life experiences, rather than classroom-based simulations or written scenarios. Since I also regard reflection as a valuable component of learning, I will also engage my students in both individual and group reflection—both of which can also contribute to individual and class evaluation, which should be an ongoing process throughout the course. Finally, since I also value participatory approaches, from the beginning of the course, I will engage learners in contributing to the course design and content—from readings and assignments to course structure and assessment practices. I really do hope, as an educator, that I am able to engage, inspire, challenge, and support learners.
These days, I have been thinking quite a but about the mentors I have had in my life. I have had many mentors in various settings, serving varied purposed throughout my life. Some have mentored me with the goal of nurturing me into a strong woman, a successful Black person, a spiritual person, an accomplished scholar, a contributor to my discipline, and so on. Although the idea of having one mentor fulfill all of those roles in somewhat appealing to me, I am actually happy to have had a diverse array of mentors over the years. Although the notion of a mentor strikes me as a rather "traditional" concept (going back to older apprenticeship models), I actually think there is an important place for mentors in the realm of contemporary pedagogy. As we think about inspiring and supporting our students to take risks of various sorts as learners, we have the opportunity to be truly great mentors for them--possibly in more ways than one.
I've been reading some parts of Women's Way of Knowing, and have come to think quite a bit about silence. I think that we often think of silence as an indication of something negative--oppression, powerlessness, lacking "voice." However, I have come to wonder about the power of silence. I am intrigued about the power we have when we choose not to speak. After all, silence is not an indication of not having a perspective--a thinker can very well have an opinion that s/he is not sharing. Actually, silence may sometimes be the courageous choice--silence can be difficult (think about meditation!). I think that that for me, the important issue is just that--choice. Thinking about the Fifth Amendment, in which we can abstain from sharing information that could be self-incriminating (forgive me if that's not quite right; that's outside of my discipline), there is great power in having the ability to choose not to share (although silence can say a lot too). Thus, in a learning environment, while it is acceptable, and perhaps powerful, for someone to choose silence, it is unacceptable for someone to be silenced, whether explicitly or subtly. Is it okay though, for students to be silent in the classroom? I think the easy answer is that it is okay to be silent sometimes, as long as the learner shares sometimes and is (almost) always actively listening. However, we may need to think about this more critically.
In my own educational experience, there have been times when my personal history has prompted me to share a lot, because I sensed that my personal insight would be beneficial to the learning community. However, there have also been times when my personal history has caused me to not share at all. Sometimes, for example, I am just not in the mood to be the "Black voice"--which I feel I am often called to be (perhaps I am not, but I certainly sometimes feel like I am) as the only Black person in the room. I am curious to hear what others think about student silence in the classroom. How do we know if students who are not sharing are silent by choice or because they have some feeling that they cannot or should not share? Perhaps one way is by inviting them to speak, but maybe that's not enough. If I really were an oppressed learner, a mere "Natalie, would you like to share?" may not quite do it for me. Clearly, I do not have any answers, but I am going to do more reading and more reflecting on this somewhat paradoxical issue of silence. Yesterday as I was reflecting during our Jigsaw-style group discussion in Contemporary Pedagogy class, I remembered an experience I had taking an exam on tectonic plates in the sixth grade. Firstly, it is important to know that I really liked my teacher, whom I'll just refer to as, "Ms. O." Secondly, it is important to know that while I did not enjoy learning about tectonic plates or feel particularly drawn to the topic, I was determined to "master the material." To Ms. O's credit, she had tried some creative teaching strategies for this topic, including a fun song with body movements. So, with the exam day drawing near, I had been preparing with flash cards, reading notes, and our fun song. When I finally got to class and received the exam, I was stunned. There were only a couple of long response questions, none of which I had studied. Terrified by my not knowing, and worried that I would disappoint Ms. O, I immediately began to pour out everything that I had studied. I wrote, and wrote, and wrote. I had to show Ms. O (and perhaps myself) that I had taken the time to study the material and that I had not "blown off" her class. I filled up all the blank space with text and diagrams demonstrating that I knew a great deal about tectonic plates. I had no idea what Ms. O would think about what I had done, but I figured, at least she would know that I knew something about tectonic plates. After she had graded the exams, Ms. O spoke to me about what I had done. I guess she did the "proper" thing. She thanked me for showing her what I knew, but told me that unfortunately, though my responses were quite thorough and presented correct information, I had not provided the responses she was expecting for the questions she had asked.
I am in no way resentful about how Ms. O handled the situation, I am thankfully still in graduate school, but this memory does make me wonder. In this situation, Ms. O had the power of selecting a couple of questions to elicit a demonstration of "knowledge mastery." She did not happen, however, to select the topics I had studied in most depth. Of course, it is excellent when student performance and teacher expectations align. But what about when there's a mismatch? It was not the case that I neglected to study, or that I lacked understanding of the material. It was the case that I chose to study really hard about the topics I thought Ms. O would choose for the exam but happened to guess incorrectly about what those topics would be. Ideally, I would have mastered all of the information in the section, but for whatever reason I did not. I did the best I could in that situation to not disappoint myself or Ms. O by appearing to be a "bad" student, but I did not do "enough." I did not receive credit for the knowledge I demonstrated because it did not address the questions asked. It just makes me wonder how often this might happen--that students have the right answers, just not to the right questions. This makes me appreciative for assessment opportunities where students can select a topic from a list, or choose to answer two out of three questions, for example. Or, like someone at my table shared, to engage students in writing the exam questions. I know this has been a long story, but we have talked about the value of narrative, so I hope someone finds it thought-provoking or some other useful quality. At the very least, it has been a wonderful moment of reflection for me. |
GEDI BLOGI am taking a Contemporary Pedagogy, a Graduate Education Development Institute (GEDI) course towards the Preparing Future Professoriate (PFP) certificate. In this section of my blog, I will be posting about topics related to innovation in teaching and learning. Archives
April 2015
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