(link to article)
Scientists Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller taught several web-based courses at Stanford University last year and were awed to find that they'd touched the educations of at least one hundred thousand students. This is one of the main appeals of online courses. Our Integrating Technology course is example enough of that; where the in class course meets one day a week and tends to about thirty students, our online counterpart reaches one hundred and fifty. This is a huge jump. Ng and Koller found that many other professors were enthralled by the idea of impact so many students' lives all at once. Thus, they created their company, Coursera.
These classes operate as follows: professors partnered with Coursera create interactive lectures. I found their assessment strategy for humanities and social science classes, like English, very interesting. Typically, in those cases, essays are required, but rather than having professors grade over one hundred thousand of these essays (which would be impossible), students are paired with their peers and grade via an established rubric. This way, they are part of the teaching process as makeshift teachers themselves.
The biggest issue with classes offered in programs like Coursera is that they operate on an 'honor code' and are easily cheated. An example of this comes to mind, sadly. My brother's friend, when doing MyAccess assignments from home, had his own older brother write his essays for him, so they could get a 5/5, and his teacher was none-the-wiser. I do like, however, having students play a more hands on role in their education. When I teach, I will try letting my students grade each other's papers in at least a very basic sense. Teaching will actually teach them, in this case.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
(7) Interactivity #5
Spreadsheet: Here.
The teacher I interviewed is an eleventh grade English teacher in the Wayne school district. Unfortunately, this teacher was completely unfamiliar with the National Education Technology Standards for both Students and Teachers. I made sure to link to these standards, in the above case, so she could read them. This teacher is older and has been teaching for a while. She hadn't even heard of the NETS. In her classes, she told me technology is used and encouraged, but is not made mandatory by higher authorities of the school. Rather, for her lesson plans, she does not even have a separate section for technology; it is instead interspersed throughout her lesson objectives. She said, for example, that they are currently reading Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in her class. She scaffolds her students' understanding of the text by having them watch snippets of the film sometime during the unit. Although there are always discrepancies between the text and the film, seeing characters come to life and hearing the way particular lines of the skit are related, can aid visual and auditory learners gain a stronger grasp of the lesson.
The teacher I interviewed is an eleventh grade English teacher in the Wayne school district. Unfortunately, this teacher was completely unfamiliar with the National Education Technology Standards for both Students and Teachers. I made sure to link to these standards, in the above case, so she could read them. This teacher is older and has been teaching for a while. She hadn't even heard of the NETS. In her classes, she told me technology is used and encouraged, but is not made mandatory by higher authorities of the school. Rather, for her lesson plans, she does not even have a separate section for technology; it is instead interspersed throughout her lesson objectives. She said, for example, that they are currently reading Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in her class. She scaffolds her students' understanding of the text by having them watch snippets of the film sometime during the unit. Although there are always discrepancies between the text and the film, seeing characters come to life and hearing the way particular lines of the skit are related, can aid visual and auditory learners gain a stronger grasp of the lesson.
My teacher's school district has not
yet begun to implement the NETS-S and NETS-T standards. Older
teachers like her have likely never heard of these standards. I
discussed, however, Interactivity 5 with someone in my class, who
also interviewed a teacher from the Wayne school district. This
teacher's a recent graduate of Rutgers University's teaching program
and, while her school also hasn't implemented the NETS, she learned
about them in her teaching courses. I think this is generally the
case. From what I recall of high school, many of my older educators
were daunted by technology because they didn't grow up with it the
way new teachers are. The most done in English classes I experienced
was screening of films for our reading texts. Newer teachers use
technologies like smartboards or even iPads to further their
students' understanding. Doing this helps them to relate to
students. In a blog post I read, someone wrote about how cellphones
are used in places without more advanced technology to help students.
Even if teachers cannot give students access to computers, they can
encourage them to use their phones, something most students have, to
take pictures or make films for school. This is wiser than fighting
against new technology – for example, taking phones away when
students text in class. Technology that is 'questionable' can be used
to ameliorate students' educations.
Although the NETS were originally
created in 1998, it's apparent and not very surprising that many
teachers don't yet know about them. Their importance is nonetheless
observable and, as a future teacher, I'd encourage my peers to
incorporate them. Standard #2 for the NETS-S highlights communication
and collaboration. Students use digital technologies to make contact
with one another. With how difficult it is for students' schedules to
correlate, anyone can see the benefit of an online discussion group
where students can sign in and share input.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
(6) NJ/PA CRLA Conference
As a future English teacher, I've been given a very amazing opportunity to tutor English writing (100, 105 and 106) by the Center for Academic Development and Assessment, here at MSU. By comprehensively dissecting essays with members of our campus community, I've gained confidence in my own abilities as an educator. I'm also afforded other advantages, such as frequent tutor training.
I had one such experience of this on March 16th, during spring break, when I helped to represent our university at the New Jersey/Pennsylvania College Reading and Learning Association (a sponsor of my employer, CADA). For free, I attended many seminars pertaining to tutoring that could just as easily be employed in a larger classroom; the particular seminars I chose were, as expected of an English major, related to literature. One seminar honed specifically on technology.
It's common knowledge that text and chat lingo contribute to the distillation of students' output in writing classes. Although it's hard to believe, many students, even in college, do not know how to alternate between the informal lexicon they use with their friends and that reserved for authority figures. The job market is such that being able to express oneself in written and oral speech is pertinent to acquiring a respectable position. If graduated students reply to an extension of an interview opportunity with, "C u there," they are guaranteed not to get the job.
This is something every English teacher should learn to work around. We cannot simply tell our students to do something; we have to show them. The CRLA conference technology seminar gave great examples of what struggling teachers could do. At the very start of the class, as an introduction, students could be required to compose an email to their teacher about a pseudo-issue (an absence, request for tutoring, etc.). The teacher could then analyze with the class what about these emails was done right and wrong.
Another example dictated that English teachers (and perhaps teachers in general) should explicate to students the severity of social networks being abused by employers to pick and choose who gets what position. A volunteer's facebook status (not necessarily a student's, but perhaps a fake account's or a teacher's friend's account) could be dissected by the class. The teacher would pose the question, would you hire this person if you were an employer? In the example given during the seminar, it was the presenter's fiance's status. He wrote something along the lines of, "gotz a b in sceince. cn't bleive i passed yo," with gratuitous grammatical errors. In this situation, even if students write this way themselves, it's put into a different perspective for them and they acknowledge they would not hire this person, given the opportunity. It's not completely fair for them to have to censor themselves, but with the internet as public as it is, some wariness could be beneficial. The assignment students had to do as homework after this required them to copy/paste one of their own statuses and revamp it for a more formal setting.
I think using technology this way, rather than fighting is, is the only way to decrease its occasional negative impact on students.
I had one such experience of this on March 16th, during spring break, when I helped to represent our university at the New Jersey/Pennsylvania College Reading and Learning Association (a sponsor of my employer, CADA). For free, I attended many seminars pertaining to tutoring that could just as easily be employed in a larger classroom; the particular seminars I chose were, as expected of an English major, related to literature. One seminar honed specifically on technology.
It's common knowledge that text and chat lingo contribute to the distillation of students' output in writing classes. Although it's hard to believe, many students, even in college, do not know how to alternate between the informal lexicon they use with their friends and that reserved for authority figures. The job market is such that being able to express oneself in written and oral speech is pertinent to acquiring a respectable position. If graduated students reply to an extension of an interview opportunity with, "C u there," they are guaranteed not to get the job.
This is something every English teacher should learn to work around. We cannot simply tell our students to do something; we have to show them. The CRLA conference technology seminar gave great examples of what struggling teachers could do. At the very start of the class, as an introduction, students could be required to compose an email to their teacher about a pseudo-issue (an absence, request for tutoring, etc.). The teacher could then analyze with the class what about these emails was done right and wrong.
Another example dictated that English teachers (and perhaps teachers in general) should explicate to students the severity of social networks being abused by employers to pick and choose who gets what position. A volunteer's facebook status (not necessarily a student's, but perhaps a fake account's or a teacher's friend's account) could be dissected by the class. The teacher would pose the question, would you hire this person if you were an employer? In the example given during the seminar, it was the presenter's fiance's status. He wrote something along the lines of, "gotz a b in sceince. cn't bleive i passed yo," with gratuitous grammatical errors. In this situation, even if students write this way themselves, it's put into a different perspective for them and they acknowledge they would not hire this person, given the opportunity. It's not completely fair for them to have to censor themselves, but with the internet as public as it is, some wariness could be beneficial. The assignment students had to do as homework after this required them to copy/paste one of their own statuses and revamp it for a more formal setting.
I think using technology this way, rather than fighting is, is the only way to decrease its occasional negative impact on students.
Monday, April 2, 2012
(5) Social Networking as a Way of Understanding Perspective in an English Classroom
Last semester, in my CURR 312-03 (Teaching English Language Learners) class, the lesson plan in my content area given to me to modify was based on understanding perspective. The main text for this lesson was The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, which retold the popular three pig fairy tale in the big bad wolf's point of view. I found it very intriguing because it defied the conventional idea of a protagonist and forced students to look through the eyes of a character they might otherwise be unsympathetic to.
I recently started tutoring a student for my READ 411 class's fieldwork. N is eleven and very good at math. Just Wednesday, she was telling me about how she was chosen to take a special math placement test. English, however, is very difficult for her to grasp sometimes. Like me, she is American born, but the child of Bengali immigrants who can't always help her in English the way they can in math, which has a more universal language.
I asked N this weekend if she was familiar with facebook, to which she replied, "Well, duh, don't you have one?" This is a response I feel may be common to children and young adults nowadays, but I think it's possible to use it to our advantage, particularly in an English classroom. With that in mind, and tasked to create a multimedia lesson plan for READ 411, N and I read the introduction of D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. This is a text I recommend to any teacher introducing Greek mythology, which can be very dark, to very young students. The intro outlined the disparities between titans and gods and how the balance of power between them continually shifted.
After we'd read the intro, I asked N to recap it for me as briefly as she could. Once that was complete, I inquired whether she had a favorite character; she chose, quite obviously, Zeus, who is outlined as the hero who brought the tyrannical titans to their knees. D'Aulaires is especially wonderful because it helped N understand the complex family dynamic of the Olympians, the upper echelon of the gods. I urged her to take this understanding and, to assess it, create a facebook for Zeus that incorporated statuses and relationships to properly portray his perspective and his interaction with the other gods. This was a really fun task for her. She seemed to instantly know based on Zeus' dialogue in the myths that he might not speak to his peers the way she does hers. I noted down specific things she wrote as statuses (hiding from Hera again, getting advice from Athena, keeping Aphrodite away from flirty gods, etc), as well as the image she took from Google to use as Zeus' profile picture.
I think having students do something like this in a greater quantity, in my future classroom, would not only cater to their interests, but also help them get into the head-space of a character they might not otherwise care for. N told me she liked doing what we did, that it was fun, and there are vast differences between an ageless male god and an eleven year old girl, but she closed this gap almost effortlessly during the assignment.
I recently started tutoring a student for my READ 411 class's fieldwork. N is eleven and very good at math. Just Wednesday, she was telling me about how she was chosen to take a special math placement test. English, however, is very difficult for her to grasp sometimes. Like me, she is American born, but the child of Bengali immigrants who can't always help her in English the way they can in math, which has a more universal language.
I asked N this weekend if she was familiar with facebook, to which she replied, "Well, duh, don't you have one?" This is a response I feel may be common to children and young adults nowadays, but I think it's possible to use it to our advantage, particularly in an English classroom. With that in mind, and tasked to create a multimedia lesson plan for READ 411, N and I read the introduction of D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. This is a text I recommend to any teacher introducing Greek mythology, which can be very dark, to very young students. The intro outlined the disparities between titans and gods and how the balance of power between them continually shifted.
After we'd read the intro, I asked N to recap it for me as briefly as she could. Once that was complete, I inquired whether she had a favorite character; she chose, quite obviously, Zeus, who is outlined as the hero who brought the tyrannical titans to their knees. D'Aulaires is especially wonderful because it helped N understand the complex family dynamic of the Olympians, the upper echelon of the gods. I urged her to take this understanding and, to assess it, create a facebook for Zeus that incorporated statuses and relationships to properly portray his perspective and his interaction with the other gods. This was a really fun task for her. She seemed to instantly know based on Zeus' dialogue in the myths that he might not speak to his peers the way she does hers. I noted down specific things she wrote as statuses (hiding from Hera again, getting advice from Athena, keeping Aphrodite away from flirty gods, etc), as well as the image she took from Google to use as Zeus' profile picture.
I think having students do something like this in a greater quantity, in my future classroom, would not only cater to their interests, but also help them get into the head-space of a character they might not otherwise care for. N told me she liked doing what we did, that it was fun, and there are vast differences between an ageless male god and an eleven year old girl, but she closed this gap almost effortlessly during the assignment.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
(4) Interactivity #4
Lesson Plan: Twelfth Night.
Spreadsheet: Breakdown of TN lesson.
The lesson plan I chose is an
introduction to Shakespeare's Twelfth Night that
incorporates auditory and visual technologies. The lesson is also
beneficial to my students in other ways; it employs multiple
modalities (ex. a cluster map, group discussion, recordings, written
skit, etc.), several NJ Core Curriculum Content Standards and other
aspects that ameliorate the educational process.
I went to the NJCCCS website and chose Standard 3.3 out of the other English standards. It reads: Standard 3.3 (speaking): all students will speak in clear, concise, organized language that varies in content and form for different audiences and purposes. This blended with the curriculum goal of my lesson plan, which introduces Shakespeare's Twelfth Night to students by allowing them to first brainstorm, then apply specific vocabulary. It aids in building a larger lexicon for students.
It was a strong lesson, even without modification. Standards met were 3.3.12.C.1, which dealt with application of specific key words; these, in the lesson, were love/rejection, hope/loss, sloppy/foolish and quarreling/pleading. Students dissected these concepts using cluster maps. These served to activate prior knowledge. This was a student centered task. Cluster maps are an organizational technology, as per standard 3.3.12.D.2. Upon this individual organization, students were placed in small groups to satisfy standards 3.3.12.B.2 and 3.3.12.B.3: extend peer contributions through elaboration and illustration (as students did by elaborating their written understanding with a created skit); analyze, evaluate and modify the group process (the whole class watched/heard skits and offered constructive criticism in a discussion).
I added several facets to this lesson plan, despite finding it quite potent. I thought more technology could be used to better strengthen students' understanding. After our last interactivity, I realized how resourceful the internet. I discovered an open source cluster map technology that my class could use to compose a more thorough map. If provided with computers, my small groups could also employ this. It's not mentioned in procedural goals, but having the students grouped made a great teacher-centered task. The week before spring break, in my assessment class, my professor discussed how educators can gauge student knowledge/participation by shadowing each group to see who contributes what. This is something I've heard since beginning to learn how to teach. I took the final step as a chance to self-evaluate my lesson. By viewing every one of my students' digital compositions, I could understand if/where students met difficulty.
Technologies suggested were iMovie and Audacity, among others. They help me make value judgments and can aid my students in self-diagnosing their errors, too. This is why they're so integral to the lesson plan. Hearing and seeing their skits gives students an objective perspective. Having to edit them for viewing by the entire class ensures they have to think critically about their own strengths/weaknesses. I'd modify and use this lesson plan in my classroom. Hopefully, I get the chance to do this soon, during my professional semesters. I can even attempt it earlier with the student I tutor for READ 411. In that class, too, multiple modes and multimedia are lauded as being efficient.
I went to the NJCCCS website and chose Standard 3.3 out of the other English standards. It reads: Standard 3.3 (speaking): all students will speak in clear, concise, organized language that varies in content and form for different audiences and purposes. This blended with the curriculum goal of my lesson plan, which introduces Shakespeare's Twelfth Night to students by allowing them to first brainstorm, then apply specific vocabulary. It aids in building a larger lexicon for students.
It was a strong lesson, even without modification. Standards met were 3.3.12.C.1, which dealt with application of specific key words; these, in the lesson, were love/rejection, hope/loss, sloppy/foolish and quarreling/pleading. Students dissected these concepts using cluster maps. These served to activate prior knowledge. This was a student centered task. Cluster maps are an organizational technology, as per standard 3.3.12.D.2. Upon this individual organization, students were placed in small groups to satisfy standards 3.3.12.B.2 and 3.3.12.B.3: extend peer contributions through elaboration and illustration (as students did by elaborating their written understanding with a created skit); analyze, evaluate and modify the group process (the whole class watched/heard skits and offered constructive criticism in a discussion).
I added several facets to this lesson plan, despite finding it quite potent. I thought more technology could be used to better strengthen students' understanding. After our last interactivity, I realized how resourceful the internet. I discovered an open source cluster map technology that my class could use to compose a more thorough map. If provided with computers, my small groups could also employ this. It's not mentioned in procedural goals, but having the students grouped made a great teacher-centered task. The week before spring break, in my assessment class, my professor discussed how educators can gauge student knowledge/participation by shadowing each group to see who contributes what. This is something I've heard since beginning to learn how to teach. I took the final step as a chance to self-evaluate my lesson. By viewing every one of my students' digital compositions, I could understand if/where students met difficulty.
Technologies suggested were iMovie and Audacity, among others. They help me make value judgments and can aid my students in self-diagnosing their errors, too. This is why they're so integral to the lesson plan. Hearing and seeing their skits gives students an objective perspective. Having to edit them for viewing by the entire class ensures they have to think critically about their own strengths/weaknesses. I'd modify and use this lesson plan in my classroom. Hopefully, I get the chance to do this soon, during my professional semesters. I can even attempt it earlier with the student I tutor for READ 411. In that class, too, multiple modes and multimedia are lauded as being efficient.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
(3) Interactivity #3
Spreadsheet: HERE.
Despite being very large, my interactivity group authentically collaborated as much as possible. Girard and Lizz set up a Google spreadsheet and contacted the rest of us with it promptly. We replied back to their emails with the address we employed when first creating our blogs. From then on, it was a matter of adding appropriate info to the spreadsheet. What I especially enjoyed about the process was, I could see changes my group members made as they were making them, meaning I had that much more insight into their thought processes without being face to face with them. Meeting in that way was troublesome because we had so many members with so many varying schedules, which made the group spreadsheet's features that much better. I believe everyone worked in a timely manner and put thought into their technologies. I operated by arranging my technologies according to the stages of pedagogical development and it seems everyone else did, too. For each stage, about two to three technologies were added (i.e. EBSCO Host + JSTOR for content management, Google docs for collaboration).
The list we've created will, I have no doubt whatsoever, be a wonderful tool for my future student teaching, fieldwork and classroom experiences. Not only did I list technologies that helped me shape my life, I have concurrent additions by peers, so I can see what they consider important when teaching in an English classroom. For example, a technology I listed that I don't think anyone else would have added is the website Fictionpress. It's a gathering of amateur writers and poets who give one another feedback and glean from that feedback ameliorated skills. This interaction could be an innovative way to increase students' love of writing; it certainly had that effect on me. On the other hand, many of my group-mates had technologies I didn't think of. Mike Cadmus mentioned digital storytelling. Where Fictionpress is a traditional means of narrating and expressing ideas, digital storytelling creatively endorses multiple-modalities, something which was discussed in a digital rhetoric class I took last semester. Students are more likely to be riveted if they are allowed to write a story, make a movie, create an online presentation, or anything along those lines, rather than simply composing an essay. I will definitely be saving a copy of our list for further use in future lessons.
Despite being very large, my interactivity group authentically collaborated as much as possible. Girard and Lizz set up a Google spreadsheet and contacted the rest of us with it promptly. We replied back to their emails with the address we employed when first creating our blogs. From then on, it was a matter of adding appropriate info to the spreadsheet. What I especially enjoyed about the process was, I could see changes my group members made as they were making them, meaning I had that much more insight into their thought processes without being face to face with them. Meeting in that way was troublesome because we had so many members with so many varying schedules, which made the group spreadsheet's features that much better. I believe everyone worked in a timely manner and put thought into their technologies. I operated by arranging my technologies according to the stages of pedagogical development and it seems everyone else did, too. For each stage, about two to three technologies were added (i.e. EBSCO Host + JSTOR for content management, Google docs for collaboration).
The list we've created will, I have no doubt whatsoever, be a wonderful tool for my future student teaching, fieldwork and classroom experiences. Not only did I list technologies that helped me shape my life, I have concurrent additions by peers, so I can see what they consider important when teaching in an English classroom. For example, a technology I listed that I don't think anyone else would have added is the website Fictionpress. It's a gathering of amateur writers and poets who give one another feedback and glean from that feedback ameliorated skills. This interaction could be an innovative way to increase students' love of writing; it certainly had that effect on me. On the other hand, many of my group-mates had technologies I didn't think of. Mike Cadmus mentioned digital storytelling. Where Fictionpress is a traditional means of narrating and expressing ideas, digital storytelling creatively endorses multiple-modalities, something which was discussed in a digital rhetoric class I took last semester. Students are more likely to be riveted if they are allowed to write a story, make a movie, create an online presentation, or anything along those lines, rather than simply composing an essay. I will definitely be saving a copy of our list for further use in future lessons.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
(2) Interactivity #2
Sources: Image is from Google. Portrait of a Teacher is paraphrased.
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