11.26 Electronic portfolio, classroom dynamics, syllabi & calendars

Tonight's class discussion began with consideration of communication/power dynamics in the classroom and how the balance of power can affect what student's learn.  After discussing a particular situation we generalized the factors we saw in play along a flexibility scale moving from inflexible to very flexible.

	Inflexible => flexible
Self separate from teaching	openness	Reveal self - share experiences
Clear, definite terms No contextual change	communication	Common language - negotiated terms
Teacher responsible for classroom outcomes	responsibility	Student responsible for clarifying terms, demanding explanations, establishing clear due-dates
Teacher defines expectations and evaluates work based on those expectations	expectations	Teacher teaches to and/or responds to the expectations of individual students

Our discussion did not decide whether inflexible (definite/clear) or flexible (negotiable, contextualized) teaching styles were right or wrong = rather we explored the kinds of problems and solutions that could be posed through each approach.

Electronic Portfolios.  I created a sample teaching portfolio and reviewed the headings (material) we agreed would be in your portfolio.  This portfolio is a requirement for completion of this course and it is the primary document for the assessment of your performance.  It (or some version of it) will also be a critical component of your job applications.  For that reason, you should create your portfolio for an audience suitable to your job search, and I will evaluate (and give feedback to ) your work based on my assessment of its effectiveness with that audience. 

Documents to include in the portfolio include:

• portfolio rationale
• teaching philosophy
• class observation ( this may be a reflective observation of your own teaching - or an observation of the kind we discussed last week)
• calendar + syllabus
• assignment series
• lesson plan 
• sample graded papers
• textbook review

We then spent some time creating a site map (designing the link structure) for your portfolios.  Each of you posed a slightly different organization with different headings.  Your structure should reflect the identity of your audience and the message you want to give to that audience about who you are.

Syllabi & Calendars 

We finished class by reviewing Wayne's presentation of the syllabus from Professor Grillo's class, and Lewis' syllabus from his business writing course. Discussions surrounding these documents made it clear that there are many different ways to present information about course content, assessment, policies, and etc that are both effective and appropriate.  Your form of presentation should match your persona as a teacher - and the needs for your course.  The audiences for this document are the students in the coures AND your potential employers. This means you need to create language that is both easily understood by your student readers, and able to convey the content your employer will be looking for. 

For next week:

 Send me the link to your portfolio, and set the "share" settings so that anyone with a link (or everyone in the world) can see your materials.  

For the rest of the term, I will look at draft materials as they appear on your portfolio.

Post your draft book review and the introduction to your portfolio.

The lesson plan and the assignment series were due 11.26 = so post drafts for those so I can give you some feedback on those, too.

In class we will do some focused work on the book reviews and the portfolio introduction.  You might want to review the blog where we talked about the textbook review to collect your thoughts on what perspective to take.

You might also want to look at these reviews, as models for how other reviewers have represented textbooks.

Blog with book reviews  There are several - click through the posts (not saying this is the right format - just an example). 

Undergraduate Research in English Studies

11.19 Class observations and teaching philosophies

We started class by talking about your next lesson plan, and making plans to for you to teach your second class.

Class observation workshop
We then talked about doing observations - why you might do one, and how you want that document to function in your portfolio.

I felt that the second page of the "what new teacher's need to learn" link on Lew's blog gave excellent food for though regarding what you might want to learn from a class observation.

For the written document in your portfolio you will want to consider the following:

Who is your audience?  We decided, for you, audience will be complex; that is you may choose to engage in a performance where you state that you are the audience for this document (so you can learn something about the classroom you observe) => but that the observation will be an opportunity to illustrate for future employers how you use your observational abilities to learn about/become better at teaching.

What is your purpose?  You might use your observation to explore classroom culture, practices for assessment, how the curriculum is put into practice in the classroom, classroom management starategies, connections to the larger community, or any other feature of teaching/social interactions you want to learn.

We then brainstormed up a list of features we might note if we were observing classroom cultuer.  These included:
teacher actions/interactions/appearance etc
dynamics of communication
characteristics of the student population
power relationships
distribution of responsibilities (who is responsible for what - teachers? students?)
behaviors etc

Form for writing up observations:
As a kind of preface, create an introductory note that states the purpose, context, time and other relevant factors your audience needs to understand in order to be able to interpret your introduction.  If you use your blog (your observations from over the semester) point out that your "data" / examples you base your conclusions on have come from a blog you kept throughout the term.  If you use detailed notes from a single observation focused on one feature - such as classroom culture - state that.

The body of your observation should correlate roughly with forms for ethnographic writing.

Many ethnographic accounts begin with an "arrival story" that places you in the observation context.  This provides you the opportunity to present a detailed description of the context + your purpose for being there.

After placing your reader in the scene with you => state the terms of your analysis: what you will be looking at. Provide whatever context for the examples that follow.

Then make 2-3 points with respect to your focus.  In each point, set up a focus, provide some detailed description to provide the "data" for the point you make.  This part should read like a story, possibly with dialog.  Analyze/state what the description shows with respect to the observation's overall focus.

Finally - sum up what you learned (how you accomplished your purpose).  Make references to your examples..  

Teaching philosophies workshop
During the last half of class you gave short presentations on your teaching philosophies and fielded the class' & my feedback so as to work on the "persona" or overall "guiding perspective" that you wanted to shine through your specific points.  I think you did a great job on that - and as I said at the end of class, the focus in each of your philosophies very much correlated with my impressions of who you are as teachers => so well done.  We generally agreed that you should hit what you see as the central purpose of your teaching, what in particular you teach(your focus); how you teach (your practices); your methods for assessing/giving feedback and that all of these features of your philosophy should loosely connect to your core beliefs/persona.  We talked about closing with a kind of "what's next" or "where I am going" section = but it whether you make this move depends on your purpose, audience and style.  Good job on these - and if you send me revised documents at some point - I will give written feedback if you want it.


For next class:
1. I will return the commented on papers with comments.

2. Send me a copy of your draft syllabus + calendar, assignment series, lesson plans for the second lesson.  I will accept these in any form you send them.  We will workshop them in class at whatever stage they are in.  

We will also set up your porfolio.

Have a good Thanksgiving and see you next week!

11.12 Calendar, commenting, and getting ready for next week

We started class by revising the calendar so that it was essentially a list of workshops for the pieces you will include in the portfolio.  The dates and topics are listed at the previous post.

The middle of the class was devoted to a discussion of Nancy Sommer's excellent booklet on Responding to Student Writers, followed by some talk about how to respond to the writers whose work we brought to class.

After talking through three papers, you observed that:

• One effective form of commenting was to challenge writers with questions.
• Appropriate feedback needs to include adequate information so that the student can understand and apply the suggestion.
• It is important to distinguish between the kinds of comments made in marginal and end comments.
• Comments should focus on high order concerns first (if necessary).
• It is important to find positive, successful features in student writing.
• Effective comments should connect to the issues and language you are emphasizing (teaching) in class.
• Comments that reference books/readings from class (or handbooks) can increase students' agency.
• Comments to drafts focus on how to work on issues for the revision; comments to final essays emphasize how to apply what the student learned from this writing experience to the next essay. 

We also observed that because commenting was essentially a conversation - there aren't really going to be "generic" comments. At the same time, for any given assignment, certain writing issues will probably come up repeatedly - and may be the basis of a "lesson" presented in the class where the papers will be returned.


For next class:
1. Finish commenting on the "set" of papers that you want to include in your portfolio.  There should be more than one, less than 5 papers to illustrate how you respond to a variety of writing issues.  Send your sample papers via email so I can look them over.

2. During the first part of class you will workshop your classroom observations.  To prepare for this workshop, you should read through the criteria for student-teacher classroom observations (listed on Lewis' blog) and then choose one or a combination of several of your blog entries to use as data for your observation.  This draft is a start - and may send you back to the classroom for further observation.  In the workshop we will identify the focus of your observation (the point you are making), work on the effectiveness of the description, and think about whether and where there should be connections to theory.  \

3. During the second part of class you will revisit your teaching philosophy.  I am hoping each of you will give an informal presentation -and we can have some open discussion about how you want to develop your piece, followed by supportive discussion.

See you next week

11.12 Calendar for the rest of the term

11.12  make calendar, de-brief teaching/lessons, class exercise on comments

11.19  Workshop classroom observations, draft teaching philosophy
11.26  Syllabus + calendar, assignment series,. lesson plans => initial set-up for portfolio

12.3  text book reviews, introduction to portfolio (reflective pices on what is in your portfolio)

12.10 workshop anything you want =finish setting up portfolio

12.17 presentations + celebration

11.5 After the storm

I hope each of you is safe - and that your families and homes are safe as well.

I'm good - but no power.  I will be on campus as soon as Kean is open (especially  because Kean is likely to get power before I do). I am assuming we will focus the rest of the term on creating your portfolios.  We will work out a tentative schedule for workshopping/drafts due dates when we meet, hopefully a week from today.

Take care and be safe.