tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58671069433323685042024-03-15T20:10:11.894-05:00iTeach and iLearnThoughts on teaching, learning, technology, students, faith, and school culture.Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.comBlogger591125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-13680575115908384672022-05-27T15:25:00.004-05:002022-05-27T15:40:23.441-05:00The End of a Season<p>Ecclesiastes 3:1 says: </p><h3 style="text-align: center;">There is a time for everything,<br />and a season for every activity under heaven.</h3><div><br /></div><div>The Teacher then goes on to list a series of pairs that illustrate these seasons: </div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>a time to be born and a time to die</li><li>a time to plant and a time to uproot</li><li>a time to weep and a time to laugh</li><li>a time to search and a time to give up</li><li>a time to be silent and a time to speak</li><li>etc., etc., etc.</li></ul><div>I've always appreciated the reminder of this passage, that seasons come and go, but God is faithful and sovereign over it all.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's been a good season for me of blogging. But I think I'm reaching the end of that season. </div><div><br /></div><div>I started this blog in May of 2012, when I was first moving into my office at Dordt University as a shiny and new Instructor of Education. I thought--naively, and at least a little narcissistically--that because I was now a professor, I would have important things to say, and people would care to read them. It's funny to remember that season now, and to go back and re-read some of those early posts. It's not that they are so bad, or anything like that. But as I read them, I can call to mind the earnest attitude I had when I was writing them. And, because Blogger is so good at serving statistics about readership, I also can call to mind the deflated feeling I had when I didn't get the kind of readership I was hoping for right away. Silly, isn't it?</div><div><br /></div><div>And yet, when I look at those statics today, 10 years later, it's sort of surprising. As of right now, as I write this post, iTeach and iLearn has had 446,401 views--not too shabby, if I do say so myself. I'm still getting about 1000 views per month, more or less. I've published 590 posts (this one makes 591) and had hundreds of comments in response to the things I've shared here. Some of my posts have had over ten thousand reads. My most-read ever was cheekily entitled "<a href="https://iteach-and-ilearn.blogspot.com/2015/12/no-more-crappy-homework.html" target="_blank">No More Crappy Homework</a>;" it has had about 18,500 views. Another with lots of views--and the first post I ever had that went viral (for me, anyway)--was one entitled "<a href="https://iteach-and-ilearn.blogspot.com/2013/01/its-not-1989.html" target="_blank">It's not 1989</a>" which had 1000 views in the first 24 hours. That was a bit of a rush for me, truth be told! Another one that took off almost immediately was "<a href="https://iteach-and-ilearn.blogspot.com/2016/06/an-analogy-to-help-teachers-understand.html" target="_blank">An Analogy to Help Teachers Understand Homework</a>." This had nearly 3000 views in the first week...and still gets about 30-40 visits each week today. So it's not that I've not had some "successful" posts on the blog.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>For the most part though, I shifted focus from those kinds of swinging-for-the-fences posts that would get thousands of eyeballs. Over time, the blog shifted to my own reflections about my practice as a professor: the things I was trying in my own teaching, the things I was researching, resources I was finding interesting or valuable, and my thoughts about all of this. Some folks seemed to faithfully read these as well; most posts on the blog have had between 100 and 200 views. (And, of course, the older posts have more views, as they've been around longer.) </div><div><br /></div><div>Many of the posts I have written on this blog were dashed off in 30 minutes or less, and published almost immediately. A few were more deliberately-written, thoughtful pieces that were slower in coming (like this piece from 2018, which feels <i>incredibly</i> relevant again this week: <a href="https://iteach-and-ilearn.blogspot.com/2018/02/schools-and-guns-and-brokenness.html" target="_blank">Schools and Guns and Brokenness</a>) that took multiple drafts before I felt like I could release them into the wild. That shift from the earnest writing back at the beginning to more reflective writing that documented my own practice was what made this blogging more valuable for me. And the fact I would often get feedback from readers only helped; it often pushed my thinking into new directions, or gave me some sense of affirmation that I wasn't loony.</div><div><br /></div><div>But over the past two years, I have had less time to write--or at least I haven't prioritized blogging in comparison to other scholarship I've been doing. I think there were two reasons for this, primarily. First, pandemic teaching took a lot out of me, and sucked up a lot of the time and attention I used to devote to reflective writing here. At the same time, I started podcasting with my friends, Matt and Abby, and the sort of reflection that I used to write here often now ends up spoken in our <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hallway-conversations/id1551012861" target="_blank">Hallway Conversations</a> instead. That combination has meant fewer and fewer posts here. And, when I think about it honestly, I have felt guilty about not writing here more often lately.</div><div><br /></div><div>And that is what's led me to this point of feeling like this season is coming to a close. I've been working on giving myself permission to let things go. That might sound silly, but I do feel a strong sense of responsibility for sticking with the things I've started, and I have a hard time letting go of good things, even to make space for other good things. But, as the Teacher of Ecclesiastes so helpfully reminds me, there are different seasons in life. And I think my blogging season is coming to a close, for now at least.</div><div><br /></div><div>That said, I want to continue to engage with people around ideas related to education and keep doing some form of "public scholarship." So I'm shifting my focus a little, and starting a newsletter. If you're the sort who has regularly read this blog over the past 10 years (thank you SO MUCH, by the way!) you might be interested in subscribing to the <a href="https://drdave.substack.com/" target="_blank">Positivity. Passion. Purpose.</a> newsletter. I'm planning on a bi-weekly publishing schedule at this point, and I hope that this will give me the discipline to write positive, passionate, purposeful pieces that will encourage, equip, and inspire educators (and non-educators for that matter.) It's a new adventure, and one that has me feeling a little more of that earnest, excited energy that I had when I started this blog in 2012.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not planning on deleting iTeach and iLearn, at least not now. So if you have found anything here helpful, it will still be around. But I also don't anticipate posting new things here either, but I guess I've learned to never say never. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's been a good 10 years. Thanks for reading. Blessings to you in whatever season you find yourself in at the moment, and God's grace to you on the journey.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDoC3NHUC0a7rwo9r7Iyq2Q0coemQaMQPNWPNWU3nWqns5TuHDCcKz0VuiC8g01tyhN_JYydz9vQUAL_dBPKFdK_91Sebo2BnwGVA5ihtf148x-BRf-O6-00FO0mRuMsMjcYMQism0J7V70lRaC4ZUG1ar0F3ZGhFOBrH_fzTGGzTHsNnv9spCPcsC9Q/s400/DrDaveProfile.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDoC3NHUC0a7rwo9r7Iyq2Q0coemQaMQPNWPNWU3nWqns5TuHDCcKz0VuiC8g01tyhN_JYydz9vQUAL_dBPKFdK_91Sebo2BnwGVA5ihtf148x-BRf-O6-00FO0mRuMsMjcYMQism0J7V70lRaC4ZUG1ar0F3ZGhFOBrH_fzTGGzTHsNnv9spCPcsC9Q/s320/DrDaveProfile.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><blockquote><p></p></blockquote>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-86035773197116166182022-05-09T15:40:00.002-05:002022-05-09T15:40:12.303-05:00That Academic Rhythm<p>The end of the semester is upon us!</p><p>I feel like every conversation I have with a colleague lately eventually settles on this topic in some way, shape, or form. The semester is nearly complete. Oh, there is so much to do! Exams are being written. final projects and paper work is being completed. Grading...or correcting...or marking...or feedbacking (your preference on what to call it, I guess) is underway. Commencement is coming.</p><p>With the ending of this term, I had steady stream of students stopping by today. One to drop off that paper to document his field experience. One to check in with a question about our final paper that is due so-very-soon. One to drop off a thank-you note and a wish me a lovely summer break. One to ask advice about a tech tool for a presentation she is going to give in lieu of an exam for another course. One to give me a high five and say "thanks" for welcoming him into the world of teaching through Intro to Education.</p><p>It's enough to swell the soul a little, to take delight in the work I get to do in working with future teachers. And because of the rhythm of the school year, with the end so clearly before us, it seems right for students to stop in. And it feel right for me to drop what I'm doing, welcome them in, and take that time to visit a bit with each one.</p><p>The academic rhythm is something I just love about my work. Clear patterns that roll on and on: beginnings, middles, endings, times to rest. Lather, rinse, repeat? Hardly! I love that we have these sorts of seasons that show up so clearly, year after year. The change of pace of summer is always welcome, but would it feel like a change of pace without the rhythm of the semester?</p><p>I've never not been in school, either as a student or as an instructor, since I began kindergarten over 40 years ago now. I know there are plenty of people who don't live their lives based on a school calendar. But it is soothing to me...maybe <i>because</i> it is so familiar?</p><p>Soon the students will be packing up their belongings and heading out to their summer adventures. Campus will become quieter. Colleagues will be transitioning into research mode, or summer teaching mode, or rest mode. (Mine will be a combination of all three, actually.) </p><p>But I'm confident it will happen again, because of that rhythm that I love...three or four weeks from now I'll start thinking that campus is <i>too</i> quiet...and I'll start looking ahead to August, when the students will start to return like the swallows of Capistrano, coming to roost for another beginning.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFFlFy5SAur4Ezt9kBSxvdaYvZo3oH-dI3uJXPynvyt2ItakmIBQHJhEvuN0QUH80HlyeoJRjB4U836voBxd2CiFfJi3g6UAQoWWAgOKzz12nshs8mNdEPBDQnKq9amzQDXrT9FQDJ2cPUXBy2OJdhDxtNIPIIjcNwN-2J_3oJWf7FyrB0iHR5-Wkn6g/s3706/Swallows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2471" data-original-width="3706" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFFlFy5SAur4Ezt9kBSxvdaYvZo3oH-dI3uJXPynvyt2ItakmIBQHJhEvuN0QUH80HlyeoJRjB4U836voBxd2CiFfJi3g6UAQoWWAgOKzz12nshs8mNdEPBDQnKq9amzQDXrT9FQDJ2cPUXBy2OJdhDxtNIPIIjcNwN-2J_3oJWf7FyrB0iHR5-Wkn6g/w400-h266/Swallows.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image of a swallow by <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/aMohRq-jD1Y" target="_blank">Hans Veth</a> via Unsplash</td></tr></tbody></table>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-90503906955808715962022-04-01T09:55:00.006-05:002022-04-01T09:55:47.269-05:00Hope When Things Feel Hopeless<p>True confessions: I'm having a hard time right now with a lot of the things I see in the news. Ongoing conflict in Ukraine, continuing pandemic concerns, an incredibly challenging political climate (here in the US, anyway, as we start looking towards mid-term elections in the fall)...all of it has me asking, along with the Psalmist, "How long, oh Lord?" My devotional prayer time lately is full of, "God, I don't understand what you are doing here..." kinds of prayers.</p><p>It's in times like these I am glad I used to be a middle school Bible teacher. Why, you might ask? Well, the curriculum I was using had me teaching the kings and prophets of Israel and Judah to 7th graders. Honestly, this was a section of scripture I had not spent a lot of time reading before I started teaching it in 2001. But the minor prophets have become one of my favorite sections of scripture to read! Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Joel, Micah...the messages in these books seem like they could have just as easily been written to the contemporary church in North America as to the ancient nation of Israel in the centuries before Christ's first coming.</p><p>And when I feel the stress and frustration, that feeling of "God, don't you care what's happening in this world??"...well, in those moments, I turn back to the book of Habakkuk and re-read it.</p><p>The book of Habakkuk is all about the prophet asking God questions, because he doesn't understand what God is doing, and why God allows bad things to happen to His people. (Sounds timely, doesn't it?) But at the end of the book, Habakkuk ends with a prayer of faith, expressing his trust and reliance on God even when he doesn't understand God's plan. Chapter 3 of Habakkuk includes this powerful statement of faith:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>Though the fig tree does not bud</i></b></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> and there are no grapes on the vines,</i></b></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>though the olive crop fails</i></b></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> and the fields produce no food,</i></b></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>though there are no sheep in the pen</i></b></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> and no cattle in the stalls,</i></b></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>yet I will rejoice in the Lord,</i></b></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i> I will be joyful in God my Savior.</i></b></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>- Habakkuk 3:17-18</i></b></span></p></blockquote></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>This fills me with hope, and I hope it catches you as well: my prayer for you all is that you will be filled with the joy of the Lord in the face of whatever challenges come your way in the days and weeks we have ahead of us.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5_M6F7dtG6IEwTj5VfVU5LjPZkb8pXRRjU_SzcxJiPlIODDVaLrN3oLfa0cPxcTZeW11Kg03S7gq7TG7URnvYf0OiP7CgJ0ar0BsdQAb2jJUmolWhUPNOPE29jz5eOGNtGG9YNJ4An7rpke0BPfuyu32GUz4t2ITvp7_QD4CIRHl8-UeiWb7brbaROQ/s640/hope.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="640" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5_M6F7dtG6IEwTj5VfVU5LjPZkb8pXRRjU_SzcxJiPlIODDVaLrN3oLfa0cPxcTZeW11Kg03S7gq7TG7URnvYf0OiP7CgJ0ar0BsdQAb2jJUmolWhUPNOPE29jz5eOGNtGG9YNJ4An7rpke0BPfuyu32GUz4t2ITvp7_QD4CIRHl8-UeiWb7brbaROQ/w400-h268/hope.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image by <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/xTmqoidRoKQ" target="_blank">Dayne Topkin</a> via unsplash.com</td></tr></tbody></table>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-80132751853178356832022-02-24T12:00:00.000-06:002022-02-24T12:00:12.859-06:00Sympathizing with Students<p>I've had two very different conversations in the past few weeks with two different colleagues, both of which relate to working with students. One of these conversations was very sympathetic to students, in a "how can we help them succeed and thrive?" sort of way. The other was...a bit less sympathetic...the sort of commiserating conversation with more of a "how do we hold students accountable to <i>actually do the work?</i>' sort of feeling.</p><p>I feel both of these things sometimes, as an instructor. </p><p>But I'm coming down right now on the side of sympathizing with students. Perhaps it's because I'm taking a computer programming course on audit right now, and feeling some of the same pressures. I am an achiever, and I want to do well, and represent myself well, and really learn the things I need to be successful! Though, to be clear, auditing a course <i>is</i> different--as much as I want to say I sympathize with my fellow learners, I'm in a bit of a different category. I'm taking this course just for the learning, with no grade attached, and no high stakes (e.g., scholarships) riding on a grade. Also, the professor teaching the course is a friend, and is very supportive and encouraging of me taking the course. And while she is equally supportive of the other learners in the class, there is a different kind of power dynamic, I think, since I am a peer, and the students in the class really are not.</p><p>But while all of this is true, I do feel a sense of the pressures the students taking the course do. There are times when I have to re-read the text multiple times to really understand it. There are times when I am really not sure how to start coding a program that I've been assigned, and I start to trial-and-error it. (Which never seems to work out well.) My wife could tell you how she knows when I'm struggling, because I mutter under my breath and sigh a lot. The work is challenging, and it's stretching me. And I feel a very real sense of accomplishment when I solve a programming problem that has been a bugaboo for me.</p><p>But one experience in particular had me sympathizing with students. We use an online platform as part of our homework for the course. I really like this! We get immediate feedback on the snippets of code we write, and we can redo things as many times as needed to get things right. I find that this is helping me check my understanding in a step-by-step kind of way, and deepening my understanding through repeated practice when I get things wrong. Sometimes I get things right the first go. More often, it takes me two or three attempts, but I figure this is actually a good thing, because it causes me to slow down and rethink my approach, and check my understanding of the syntax of the language I'm learning.</p><p>But there are limitations to this platform, and sometimes this has me running into dead ends, because my code isn't <i>exactly right</i> according to the specifications of the platform. I had this experience last week with a programming problem. I wrote a piece of code that I thought would solve the problem...but no joy. So I took the error messages, and used them to try and pinpoint where things went awry. No joy. I revised, and revised, and eventually started over from scratch. No joy, no joy, no joy. I tried over 30 different submissions on this project! (I was definitely muttering under my breath about it.) I'm stubborn enough to keep working away at it, because I <i>really</i> want to learn this stuff for myself! But there came a point where I felt like I was banging my head against the wall.</p><p>And so...in my frustration and defeat...I turned to Google.</p><p>I found a solution, of course. And my code was about 95% correct, but I had missed a crucial step. It felt so obvious when I saw it. I fixed my code, and submitted the project. All done.</p><p>But I also felt some guilt about needing to look up help online to solve the problem. </p><p>In this course, which I'm taking just for fun and for my own learning, I have the luxury of not caring about a grade. Did I <i>have to</i> find a solution for this problem? No. But I wanted to--perhaps out of wanting to represent myself well, to actually complete the assignment, do it correctly, and get 100% on this assignment. Was it cheating? In this case, no, because my professor-colleague encourages us to use our resources to help us learn, including looking things up online. But there <i>was</i> still some guilt there for me.</p><p>And this is where I'm feeling sympathetic with my students. They often have higher stakes attached to grades, after all. So perhaps it's no wonder that they seek out help when they run into roadblocks. And perhaps that "seeking out help" isn't always on the up-and-up. But in a moment of frustration, or uncertainty, or need to just-get-it-done-and-move-on-to-the-next-thing-because-there-is-always-more-homework, they might seek out illicit homework help.</p><p>So all of this has me thinking about what our philosophy ought to be for encouraging students to actually, deeply learn the material? Yes, I want my students to be accountable for doing the work. And, yes, I want to encourage and support my students so they will be able to be successful in learning. Both of these are true at the same time. Are they in opposition to each other? </p><p>All of this to say, placing myself in the students' seat has been a good exercise in understanding at least some of the pressures they are experiencing. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhDeQmjqkVkKQOVsdiBOej816pGaaSFTQBJ60llbxdyTdwkAI3NUZWrGW5wDJeIoEX3hFRCa9jZjdsnNPJHLxKaxsgS5JDWliO-1V1Wy2dsXcVMthORKf7_wQDWmITNKiK4QclUrk3HlzTC9k9snfXFF4rRdZJ0OEZAYIhw-bF9JPAvqXVEUTQ-Caq8xA=s640" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="640" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhDeQmjqkVkKQOVsdiBOej816pGaaSFTQBJ60llbxdyTdwkAI3NUZWrGW5wDJeIoEX3hFRCa9jZjdsnNPJHLxKaxsgS5JDWliO-1V1Wy2dsXcVMthORKf7_wQDWmITNKiK4QclUrk3HlzTC9k9snfXFF4rRdZJ0OEZAYIhw-bF9JPAvqXVEUTQ-Caq8xA=w400-h268" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image by <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/ieic5Tq8YMk" target="_blank">Chris Ried</a> via Unsplash</td></tr></tbody></table>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-14117981389836014312022-01-28T11:37:00.004-06:002022-01-28T11:37:39.710-06:00Computational Thinking and Solving Problems<p>In <a href="http://iteach-and-ilearn.blogspot.com/2022/01/my-latest-adventure-in-learning.html" target="_blank">my last post</a> I shared how I am taking a programming class. We're a couple weeks in now, and it's all going well enough. (So far, so good!) </p><p>Yesterday I wrote a fun little program to help with planning a hot dog roast. (Why do hot dogs come in packages of 10, and buns in packages of 8???) It's not the most elegant code ever, I'm sure, but I tested it with a dozen or so inputs, and the math checks out. It's a functional program. I'm feeling proud of myself, even though it's a relatively small thing.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg02_WWf66I7a3ZvJ68CM-_0d8cWLezp4T14FaRA8sVDNSsDDoV7Oxsvt2lHMocy23IYlB0zjp-QUiHq6vwd08WzWQzQqSCP9ufxpOK6VUMeaY5Q0cZjgxXzenqBtXz_tgmIqWIvTP3zcKyaYQpeV9VZEAR2kIT6BEvkPVM5eXPYL8648NYs9q_j5H3Vg=s910" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="334" data-original-width="910" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg02_WWf66I7a3ZvJ68CM-_0d8cWLezp4T14FaRA8sVDNSsDDoV7Oxsvt2lHMocy23IYlB0zjp-QUiHq6vwd08WzWQzQqSCP9ufxpOK6VUMeaY5Q0cZjgxXzenqBtXz_tgmIqWIvTP3zcKyaYQpeV9VZEAR2kIT6BEvkPVM5eXPYL8648NYs9q_j5H3Vg=w400-h146" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the output for the program I wrote. Fun, right?</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>I'm learning the syntax of Python, the "grammar" of the language. And I'm learning strategies to build code that is readable by both the computer (obviously) but also humans who might need to understand the code as well. And I'm learning about software development environments, and just how many places Python is used today. (It's a lot--a really useful language!)</p><p>But as interesting as it is for me to think through <i>what</i> I'm learning...it's even more interesting to me to reflect on <i>how</i> I'm learning.</p><p>I've taken programming before, and I'm finding myself calling back to the last time I took a course that involved hacking code, over 25 years ago now. The language is obviously different. But I'm thinking about the habits of mind I'm re-encountering as I'm taking this course. There is quite a bit of discourse in STEM education today about teaching what is called "computational thinking." This is the idea that we can break down problems into "computable" steps--algorithms, heuristics, and patterns that can help us solve the problem. </p><p>I'm finding that more than learning coding in a particular language, I'm (re)learning some computational thinking strategies by taking this course. </p><p>We're at a point in the semester where we are learning techniques for branching and iteration--"if-else" statements, and "while" loops--and the logic of understanding how the computer will process our code. This has me thinking about how I break the problem down, and how I attack the specific aspects of the problem to find a workable result.</p><p>My professor is fantastic at helping us think through "pseudocode" in class, where we take a problem, and collectively analyze the steps we might need to take to solve the problem, and sort of code it out as a series of algorithms, without actually writing all of the code in Python. Then we can work through the specifics of turning that pseudocode into the actual grammar of the language. It's a really effective teaching technique! And then, the practice: we use an online platform to practice writing small snippets of code and get immediate feedback. Because I get immediate feedback on whether my code "worked" or not, I can either move on to another exercise, or rework it, or if I really get stuck, it even offers some hints to get me thinking in a different direction. It's a pretty smart approach. This is really helping me to sharpen up my skills at attacking smaller scale problems that I can then bring to bear on the bigger coding problems that we do, like the hot dog cookout program I shared above.</p><p>When it comes to the exercises for homework, it's amazing to me how often find this pseudocode approach working--and it's also amazing to me how frustrated I get when I don't slow down and think computationally. There have been a few times where I read the problem in our online coding platform, immediately make an intuitive leap to how I think the code should function, hack out a solution to the exercise, and hit submit. And sometimes this works great! But other times...well, let's just say I hit "submit" 23 times for one exercise the other night, tweaking the code just a bit each time before hitting the button again. Ooof. I was getting a little frustrated, but when I finally got the right answer, I laughed...because I realized that I had been banging my head against the wall because I had missed a step in the initial framing of the problem, and in my rush to start hacking code, I didn't slow down to think through the steps.</p><p>And that, to me, is the most important thing I'm learning: I am often quick to make snap judgments, and I think this course has already been opening my eyes to the importance of slowing down and understanding the real situation of the problem before I just barrel on to a solution.</p><p>It's a lesson that I am going to need to keep relearning, I think. </p><p>But I'll celebrate the small steps that I'm taking in this (re)learning process. And if you are planning a hot dog roast, I have a piece of code that might help you in the planning process.</p>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-85776366475886530222022-01-16T20:13:00.002-06:002022-01-16T20:13:17.070-06:00My Latest Adventure in Learning<p> I am a learner at heart. </p><p>Having taken the <a href="https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/254033/strengthsfinder.aspx" target="_blank">StrengthsFinder assessment</a> a couple of times now, it's been confirmed for me: "learner" is one of my top five strengths. I didn't really need the assessment to tell me this. I love to learn new things, and even re-learn things I've learned before.</p><p>Perhaps that's part of the appeal of academia for me: there is always something more for me to learn. And sometimes, it's the teaching that actually leads to more learning.</p><p>That's the case for me this semester. I'm teaching a new course--new to me, but also <i>brand new</i> to our institution: Robotics for K-12 Education. I'm right on the edge of my comfort zone for teaching this one. Honestly, I'm just a little anxious about it. I love robotics as a way of bringing the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) together. But I also recognize that I have some learning to do.</p><p>I've taught math. I've taught science. I've taught technology applications. I've read books on design thinking, and problem-based learning, and I love projects as a way of building understanding. But I recognize the limitations of my current experience with actually building and programming robots.</p><p>It's not that I have <u style="font-style: italic;">no</u> training or experience with building and programming robots. I've taught science and engineering principles at the middle school level with Lego robotics kits. I've used block-based coding tools to build Android apps. I've played around with Arduino micro-controllers. At a conference a couple years ago, I participated in a substantial workshop related to teaching computational thinking that involved programming simple robots. All of this helps.</p><p>But I realized the other day that it is 27 years ago since I took a true programming class, way back when I was a computer science major in my first year of college. Ooof.</p><p>And so...with the recognition that my students taking this Educational Robotics course have had programming MUCH more recently than I have (and it's actually a pre-requisite for this course!)...I've decided that I should retake Programming I, just to brush up on my own skills.</p><p>So here's to learning a new language (Python), and revisiting computer science principles I've likely forgotten in the intervening decades, and updating my skillset to be better equipped to serve my students! I'm hoping to document my ongoing learning here as part of my reflective practice--both in taking the programming course, as well as in the first go at teaching the robotics course.</p><p>Hooray for adventures in learning!</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjtNuiK2iEy87UjkfAWITvSeXXn7t5fIANTSUyxCWkYB4sOjy-3_oadpug0R2tYqFwfZ6_zNXjr1VKGIzS1DqE3rdYGsnm_8Q71vEU5zN6u91PBESZ4YRmjXpPMFTRocLnz5iW89To7t3OWAKq4Esvi1ABej_qPkE9h5dHRGRgxJQ0huTCXAdR9jc-vLg=s640" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjtNuiK2iEy87UjkfAWITvSeXXn7t5fIANTSUyxCWkYB4sOjy-3_oadpug0R2tYqFwfZ6_zNXjr1VKGIzS1DqE3rdYGsnm_8Q71vEU5zN6u91PBESZ4YRmjXpPMFTRocLnz5iW89To7t3OWAKq4Esvi1ABej_qPkE9h5dHRGRgxJQ0huTCXAdR9jc-vLg=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm ready for it...bring on the Python!</td></tr></tbody></table>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-71799354334733661792022-01-04T16:20:00.003-06:002022-01-04T16:20:21.097-06:00Rhythms, and Resting, and Taking Breaks<p>I'm back in the office. It was a lovely Christmas Break for me. And...it was a <i>true</i> break for me. From December 23 through January 3, I did not come to campus at all. I didn't even check my email.</p><p>Wow, I needed that.</p><p>Don't hear me wrong, it's not as though I was trying to avoid work because I dread it, or dislike it, or anything like that. (I suspect if you've read this blog for any length of time, you know just how much I LOVE what I get to do as a professor!) I've written before here on the blog about how I don't like the term "work-life balance" and prefer to talk about "<a href="https://iteach-and-ilearn.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-problem-with-work-life-balance.html" target="_blank">work-life rhythm</a>" instead. Maybe that's just semantics, but I think it is true, because my work is an incredibly important part of my life, and not something I feel like I need to "balance" with other things. But as soon as I say that...I know I really did need the break, perhaps more than usual. I needed to rest.</p><p>Teaching is always hard work, but the past two years have been doubly so. And, challenging as teaching in higher education has been for me, I know it's been even more demanding for my colleagues in PreK-12. I've written before about the <a href="https://inallthings.org/how-can-we-support-teachers/" target="_blank">emotional labor of teaching</a>, and I think 2020 and 2021 only exacerbated the already challenging work in this regard. I know I've felt it too, and though I find deep joy in my work--and take tremendous pleasure in it--it's been, well, a LOT.</p><p>And so, a true break. Truly resting from being "productive." No real "work." Not even checking the email.</p><p>It wasn't easy for me at first. I actually had to remove my email app from my phone, because I realize that there is a weird magnetism that just draws my thumb to that app icon. In the first few days, I noticed just how often I pick up my phone and check my email, because with that app icon's absence, I found myself accidentally opening other apps where I just naturally tap. Odd how easily I was conditioned to do this. (And now that I've disrupted that habit? I'm wondering if I should even put the app back in place once the new term begins.) Is it silly for me to go on and on about how big a deal this was for me? Maybe. But I think it's part of a mindshift for me from that "always on" part of working to a real break.</p><p>So, instead of working all the time...I was deliberately <i>non</i>-productive. I played games with family and friends. I read a novel. I did jigsaw puzzles. I ate a lot of Christmassy treats. (Ooof...and I got on the treadmill...) I took my kids out for breakfast, just the three of us. I got coffee with friends a couple of times, just to talk and connect. I finally started watching <i>Ted Lasso</i>, which so many people had recommended. (And I'm definitely enjoying it!) So much good stuff, and it was lovely to make space to do this <i>instead</i> of working.</p><p>And now I'm reflecting a bit: why is it that I need to give myself permission to do this kind of break-taking?</p><p>I heard a great sermon this past Sunday, a message about ensuring we have margin in our lives for the things that we really care about and that really matter to us. I needed to hear this. One phrase that has kept ringing in my head since hearing it Sunday morning was a call out of the "Cult of Productivity" that is so, so prevalent in our culture. And...ooof...that's me, a priest in the Cult of Productivity. How much do I prioritize being <i>productive</i>? What would it look like for me to cultivate being <i>present</i> first and foremost? What would I have to say "no" to--limiting my productivity--in order to have more of this kind of margin in my life?</p><p>I don't really have any New Year's Resolutions this year, not formally anyway. But I'm already thinking about things I can, and should, say "no" to, not bowing to the cult of productivity. I've already said one "no" to a great opportunity, and it's only January 4. What else will I say "no" to this year? And how will that help me continue to find better rhythms?</p><p>We'll see where I'm at come Summer Break!</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiP6Pq2GAgNLFTj-cYJ7iw0UUOmFgDt8A3b3pb6tf1VXH9ypvq2lI3Ywj-re-Dku25U8YNLmTlnIVVyVtiySzt_RczIKZtPhIkX1MbjZtyQHy9VBP-5AQRxbzlXAHBChLapjV1DrjKmfapo-ZZKGkOlNutsMXhqm-_u54nBlukZw-uHa49n_tVdA-CyWw=s640" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="566" data-original-width="640" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiP6Pq2GAgNLFTj-cYJ7iw0UUOmFgDt8A3b3pb6tf1VXH9ypvq2lI3Ywj-re-Dku25U8YNLmTlnIVVyVtiySzt_RczIKZtPhIkX1MbjZtyQHy9VBP-5AQRxbzlXAHBChLapjV1DrjKmfapo-ZZKGkOlNutsMXhqm-_u54nBlukZw-uHa49n_tVdA-CyWw=w400-h354" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/sloth-sleeping-animal-rest-sleep-5043324/" target="_blank">Ralf Designs</a> via Pixabay</td></tr></tbody></table>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-9353925705555174852021-12-29T15:36:00.004-06:002021-12-29T15:36:57.867-06:00Thoughts on Publishing and on Being an Academic<p>It's the end of the year, and I'm growing reflective. I'm thinking back over the past year, the things I've done, and the things I've left undone. I deliberately didn't set a lot of goals for this year (in my <a href="http://iteach-and-ilearn.blogspot.com/2021/01/welcome-to-2021-lets-go.html" target="_blank">first post of this year</a> I talked some about that), but informally, I figured I would do some writing, and try to publish a few things. I've become an academic...and that's a big part of what academics do, after all.</p><p>One of my proudest accomplishments--academically speaking--of the past academic year was getting an article I co-wrote with two of my professional colleagues and friends published in a highly regarded EdTech journal. Our piece is entitled "<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15391523.2020.1846146" target="_blank">Assessing Digital Nativeness in Pre-Service Teachers: Analysis of the Digital Natives Assessment Scale and Implications for Practice</a>," and we got it published in the <i>Journal of Research on Technology in Education</i>, which is a top-10 journal in the EdTech field (depending on the way the question is asked, anyway. I'm basing it on the research included in the chapter "<a href="https://lidtfoundations.pressbooks.com/chapter/journals-in-the-field/" target="_blank">Where Should Educational Technologists Publish Their Research?</a>") Matt and Jake and I have been researching different aspects of the so-called "digital natives" and "digital immigrants" for several years, and have presented some of our research together at conferences, and now have published this piece. It was a lot of work, but gratifying to see our research in print. </p><p>But I recently read this piece from John Hwang entitled "<a href="https://christianscholars.com/christian-scholars-have-a-distribution-problem/" target="_blank">Christian Scholars have a Distribution Problem</a>," and boy did this resonate with me. Hwang's basic argument is that academics are doing great work...but very few people wind up reading/viewing the work because it's often (primarily) done for others within our specific guilds. And this connected with me...because who is really going to read the article Matt and Jake and I published? Honest answer: probably only a handful of other EdTech researchers who are also interested in the digital natives/digital immigrants "construct," and the problems associated with the abject lack of empirical evidence for it.</p><p>In fact, I can check how many people have cited our work on Google Scholar...and after a year out in the world, it has been cited by...wait for it...ONE person so far. I hope that a few others have actually read the piece, but I don't really know if they have. And if they have read it, have they found it beneficial in any substantive way?</p><p>On the other hand, I write things here on the blog--infrequently as they come--and I regularly have 100+ people read the posts I'm putting out in this format. My most read posts have had 10,000+ reads, though there are precious few in that category; only 3 or 4 over the decade I've been writing on here. But I've had 440,000 views of things I've written on this little ol' blog in that decade, and that feels like something substantial. In contrast, I've had a total of 38 citations of things I've published formally as journal articles, book reviews, and chapters in edited books in that same 10 year period. While I'm quite sure I've had more than 38 people <i>read</i> those pieces that have gone through peer review...it's still a striking difference.</p><p>The numbers don't tell the whole story, of course. Certainly there is a difference in these two forms of writing, and the informality of publishing my thoughts-in-process on the blog is WILDLY DIFFERENT than the rigorously peer-reviewed approach to getting an article published in <i>JRTE</i>. Not to mention that I don't typically use my thickest educationese and academic writing style here--it's much more informal writing, and much more of "here's what I'm thinking about in the 30 minutes I had to write this thing" rather than the careful, painstaking, thoroughly-sourced writing in a journal.</p><p>But I do wonder about whether the things I write here on the blog have more practical value for the readers than the more academic writing I also do. Is this going to be more likely to spur a conversation between practicing educators than a journal article? I wonder about this, and it makes me think I should keep writing things and pushing my first-draft thinking here.</p><p>Or take podcasting as another experiment in informal publishing. Along with my Education department buddies, Abby and Matt, we started recording <a href="https://hallwayconvos.podbean.com/" target="_blank">Hallway Conversations</a> about a year ago. In that time, we have had just about 11,000 downloads over 44 episodes. This means we are averaging about 250 listens to each episode--which is a modest audience by some measures, but I'm incredibly grateful for the dedicated community of regular listeners we've developed over time. We get feedback, questions, and affirmations regularly from our listeners, and this gives us a fair confidence that what we are putting out into the world each week is fostering valuable reflection and discussion, at least for a small number of educators. </p><p>Is there value in traditional, peer-reviewed academic publishing? Certainly. And I'm grateful that I get to do this, and that people have read and cited my work--this is affirmation that it is valued, at least by people in my weird little guild of EdTech researchers.</p><p>But is there also value in non-traditional, more informal publishing venues? I think so. And, when push comes to shove...are these going to be more impactful for practice for educators than peer-reviewed articles that are likely to end up behind a paywall or in an academic library on a university campus? I'm thinking that this is likely the case.</p><p>The real problem for me is time. I have lots of ideas of things I'd like to research and write about. I'm most limited by the amount of time I have to dedicate to this work that I find so enjoyable! So this prompts the question for me: where should I devote my limited time? Peer-reviewed writing for my guild that is more reputable and reliable, but less likely to be accessed? Or informally-published work that has less prestige, but might have more widespread impact? </p><p>Regardless of the answer to this question, I hope I'll keep doing both for the foreseeable future. And I know I've got a couple of books in me too...it's just a matter of finding the time to start writing them!</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmpTVE2VU87XGHSlMZLR_F495N_s6k1rEWS7S4_uMAq8eW_DGW-hV94j5wHKghvELBID_tLqXU0iTr0qUSZR4DvPO9JGNjsGRHJGqSvOGJv2usRbq4T97NUrFwfF-aKdqEy7bxjzZpVobkZO2ujGdGxsb5l4or8CK6b1nQQC7-g8i24uzlqmVOqMRb_Q=s640" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="640" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmpTVE2VU87XGHSlMZLR_F495N_s6k1rEWS7S4_uMAq8eW_DGW-hV94j5wHKghvELBID_tLqXU0iTr0qUSZR4DvPO9JGNjsGRHJGqSvOGJv2usRbq4T97NUrFwfF-aKdqEy7bxjzZpVobkZO2ujGdGxsb5l4or8CK6b1nQQC7-g8i24uzlqmVOqMRb_Q=w400-h304" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/illustrations/megaphone-speaker-speakers-speak-3329991/" target="_blank">Mohammed Hassan</a> via Pixabay</td></tr></tbody></table>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-16258838761357501702021-09-29T21:07:00.002-05:002021-09-29T21:07:45.144-05:00Giving Up on a Book<p>I have a stubborn streak. The folks who know me quite well will not be surprised at all to hear this. It plays out in lots of different ways in my professional and personal life. </p><p>It even comes out in my reading habits. I am unlikely to give up on a book, partly out of sheer stubbornness. Even if it's a slow-mover, or not capturing my imagination, or just really, really dense...I'm usually tenacious enough to stick with it.</p><p>Stubborn, see?</p><p>But there have been a few notable exceptions.</p><p>In high school, I was assigned to read <i>Moby Dick</i>. I tried. I really, really tried. It's the only book I was assigned in high school that I did not finish reading. (Sorry, Mr. Sjoerdsma...I tried...) There was, of course, no googling in the days of yore of the early 1990s. I didn't even have the Cliffs Notes; I just muddled my way through, and tried to not get called on in discussions of the readings.</p><p>As a former science teacher, I tried reading Darwin's <i>On the Origin of the Species</i>. I made it through about 20 pages before the tyranny of the urgent crowded out the reading. So I'd like to say that it wasn't lack of interest, but rather the density of the text and the language that made it a challenge to devote the time. I really should come back and try this one again, but it hasn't been compelling enough for me to bring it to the top of the reading list for me again. (Yet?)</p><p>And then there is <i>Ready Player One</i>. I have this one on my bedside table right now. I checked it out from the library weeks ago. I have heard such great things about this book; it seems like everyone I've talked to who has read it loved it, and they just rave about it. It took me a week to even crack it open, and then I read a few chapters. I just didn't get into it. I've tried getting started with it again several times...and I'm just not into it. I even renewed the book from the library to give me a little more time, but I think it's going to go back to the library unread.</p><p>Why do I feel guilty about giving up on a book? I <i>do</i> feel guilty, somehow. I know that all of the reading specialists out there say that if kids aren't into a book, we should normalize letting them drop the book and find something else to read. But I am having a hard time with this, even after all these years.</p><p>Is it just stubbornness? That's probably 90% of it. But I think 10% of it is is that I wonder if "the part where it gets good" is just around the bend?</p><p>How about you? Do you give up on a book if you aren't feeling into it? Or do you keep slogging?</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gmSHo42q-ds/YVUbq04sIpI/AAAAAAAAIjM/mLcxpbSwdbkuYhtGOIwiSq2bdMGrDBUCQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1018/Bookbox.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1018" height="283" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gmSHo42q-ds/YVUbq04sIpI/AAAAAAAAIjM/mLcxpbSwdbkuYhtGOIwiSq2bdMGrDBUCQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h283/Bookbox.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by <a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-putting-a-stack-of-books-inside-the-cardboard-box-4498137/" target="_blank">Karolina Grabowska</a> via Pexels</td></tr></tbody></table>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-69189075432653646162021-08-26T15:26:00.005-05:002021-08-26T15:26:46.043-05:00On the Death of My Clicker: A Reflection on Technology and Pedagogy<p>At the risk of sounding ridiculous...I am grieving a small loss in my life. My faithful clicker that I believe I purchased during my last year teaching middle school science (in 2009) has died. It's a small grief, but I truly am sad about this.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FrpPJW1c9OY/YSfyVk2sl1I/AAAAAAAAIiw/wxT92yqikvkNX2V9ExGzOUPbLgoyVWkiQCLcBGAsYHQ/s800/Clicker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FrpPJW1c9OY/YSfyVk2sl1I/AAAAAAAAIiw/wxT92yqikvkNX2V9ExGzOUPbLgoyVWkiQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/Clicker.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alas, dear Keyspan...we salute you.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Why grieve this ancient piece of technology? All right, <i>grief</i> might be too strong a word for it. But I did love this tool, and I used it well for a long, long time. The laser pointer still works, but everything else, from the forward and back buttons, to the volume controls, to the mouse buttons...all dead. I changed the batteries, just to be sure. No joy.</p><p>The clicker is kaput. A faithful tool that served me well for 13+ years...no more.</p><p>Why lament it's passing? Maybe it's just because it's so comfortable to use? Maybe it's just because it's so <i>familiar</i> to use? </p><p>It's funny, the relationship we have with our tools. A quote often attributed to media theorist Marshall McLuhan (but I can't find a source for it?) gets at this: "We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us." I find this to be true in so many ways. The old saying is that if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail, and I think this is often the case with educational technologies as well--the tools we have at our disposal so often shape our thinking about what is pedagogically possible. </p><p>With the death of my clicker, I have found myself much more closely tied to the podiums of the classrooms in which I teach. I don't like this much. I prefer to move around the room, getting a little closer to my students, teaching from the back of the classroom, or the side, or roaming around. The clicker represents some pedagogical freedom for me, I think. It shapes my behavior in the classroom, because it makes different things possible for my use of a slide deck. And without it, I feel more tethered--constrained, even. But notice that I didn't give up my slide decks, just because the tool that gives me more freedom in the classroom geography is finished. The technological ecosystem is disrupted, but not demolished by the removal of one tool from my toolbox. I think this is something worth thinking about.</p><p>Every tool has affordances (things it makes possible) and constraints (things it makes difficult.) Perhaps this is why I'm grieving the loss of the clicker a bit...it allowed me to expand the use of other technologies that I like to use when I'm teaching. The clicker's affordances expanded a few things for me, and made me, I hope, a bit more effective in my lecturing.</p><p>So, here's to the Keyspan, which served me well for so long! Rest in peace (or is that "rest in pieces?")</p><p>Ah, and...of course...I ordered a new clicker as a replacement. And this one has rechargeable batteries, and a <i>green</i> laser instead!</p>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-82226497385044882332021-08-24T15:58:00.002-05:002021-08-24T16:00:01.403-05:00First Day Jitters and Joy<p>It's day one, again. </p><p>It's my 10th first day teaching at Dordt.</p><p>It's my 24th first day of teaching, overall.</p><p>It's my 40th first day of school in my life(??!!)</p><p>I still get the first day jitters. The anxious excitement of meeting up with students is still real. It's still palpable. The anticipation of what is to come, the joy of meeting up with new students, and the fear of the yet-unknown things I will encounter all come together. I want it to be a great experience for my students. I want it to be a great experience for me too.</p><p>There are some things that have become "normal" for me as an instructor. I have some go-to moves that I use on the first day, and a lesson plan for the first class meeting in Intro to Education (always my first course of the semester!) that is dialed in, tightly planned, and gets students both actively involved and gives them a feel for who I am as their teacher and how the course "works." </p><p>And yet...</p><p>...I feel the jitters.</p><p>Teaching is work full of anticipation and excitement and all the "maybes" that haven't yet found fulfillment, at least not for this time through the syllabus. It's meaningful work. It's joyful work.</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZJZC8ionZ0c/YSVb9Cb7rnI/AAAAAAAAIio/A74O7rAXTjkQDj9KnOXvMFzemMrQ6sOPgCLcBGAsYHQ/s800/firstday.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZJZC8ionZ0c/YSVb9Cb7rnI/AAAAAAAAIio/A74O7rAXTjkQDj9KnOXvMFzemMrQ6sOPgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h400/firstday.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Obligatory first day of school photo, yeah?</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Class went great today, by the way. The first moments flew by, and I got the jitters out.</p><p>Students were responsive, and interactive, and seemed excited to be there too.</p><p>All good things...and their jitters seemed to be relieved as well.</p><p>Day 2 tomorrow...fewer jitters, probably. Just as much joy, almost certainly!</p>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-12062594945872518722021-07-31T09:11:00.006-05:002021-07-31T09:11:51.664-05:00My Pseudo-Hiatus for Summer<p>Haven't written much on the ol' blog this summer.</p><p>It's a combination of being busy with other things (teaching a couple of courses, recording and editing episodes of <a href="https://hallwayconvos.podbean.com/" target="_blank">Hallway Conversations</a>, working on two ongoing research projects) and--I think--exhaustion from the last year and a quarter of incredibly demanding teaching.</p><p>It's not that the blogging has become unimportant or anything like that. I still value this kind of reflective writing about my practice, for sure. But other things have crowded in, and this writing has sort have felt less important given everything else in my life.</p><p>I struggle sometimes with setting unrealistic expectations for myself, so this has been an exercise in noticing my thoughts (as in, "I really ought to write something on the blog!") and then letting them pass by so I can focus on other things. </p><p>But...here I am, writing a short post, because..."Otherwise I will have a month go by with out a single post on the blog!" (As if that is so important? But in my mind it somehow is.)</p><p>I started this blog a little over nine years ago. It was when I started as a professor full-time, and I somehow thought people would care what I had to say about all kinds of things. That lasted about a year and a half, I think. :-) The first half-year, I had 60 posts. The second year, I had 127 posts. Somewhere in year 3 I realized that writing for myself (in general) here on the blog would be more valuable for me instead of trying to write for other audiences. And, since then, it's been a slow decline year by year, until last year when I posted a whole series of <a href="http://iteach-and-ilearn.blogspot.com/search/label/Distance%20Teaching%20Tips" target="_blank">distance teaching tips</a>, since that's in my wheelhouse, as they say. But this year...well, this is only post #12 for the whole year so far. That's not to say that I won't pick it back up in the fall and start writing more, because I just might.</p><p>But suffice to say I realize how I needed the break. And I am feeling okay about this pseudo-hiatus from blogging this summer, for the most part.</p><p>So here's to the end of July, and the beginning of August (tomorrow!) and the sudden rush to get everything ready for the new academic year to begin! </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2hbo1EFst2E/YQVZtLlM_MI/AAAAAAAAIiM/osrLoV8lSmUeUymq6KltF0K9uMsBTxgBQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/feet-2522874_640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="640" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2hbo1EFst2E/YQVZtLlM_MI/AAAAAAAAIiM/osrLoV8lSmUeUymq6KltF0K9uMsBTxgBQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h266/feet-2522874_640.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yeah...not my feet...and not my photo, unfortunately.<br />Thanks to <a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/feet-sand-beach-foot-barefoot-2522874/" target="_blank">Tabeajaichhalt</a> on Pixabay for this one.</td></tr></tbody></table>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-80165817952541468112021-06-04T11:39:00.001-05:002021-06-04T11:39:24.370-05:00The Future of the Teaching Profession<p>A couple weeks ago I was at my kids' high school for a concert, and afterward, I ran into the principal in the courtyard of the building. We visited a bit about how the school year was wrapping up, and he mentioned just how hectic the end of the year is with <i>so many things</i> going on besides the normal academic parts of school. He was mentioning how many teachers were out as well, with coaching responsibilities or family responsibilities, and he suddenly said, "Hey...since classes are out for you...do you have a little time that you could substitute for us?"</p><p>As a matter of fact, the timing was very good for me to do that, as I was in my lovely in-between-time: I had wrapped up my grading for the spring semester, and I was just getting started with my preparations for the summer term. And so, I spent a couple of days subbing at my kids' high school. (Which they were fine with, since I didn't end up teaching any of the classes they were taking.) :-)</p><p>This was a fantastic experience for me! Honestly, there is a part of me that sometimes wonders if I could still do it--if I could still teach full time in K-12. Certainly subbing is certainly not the same thing as full time teaching. Someone else did the planning, and someone else would do the assessing--and these are the two biggest, mostly-invisible parts of teaching that most non-teachers sort of forget about. But spending a few days in K-12 was a good affirmation for me that I still love connecting with kids, and I still have enough management skills and pedagogical skills to make content come to life for kids.</p><p>It was interesting for me to sit with members of the faculty at lunch too. We had a lot of laughs, and I was glad that they just included me in the conversation. But one thing stood out to me: one teacher said something to me along the lines of, "I think this is really great that you are taking the time to do this. I think more Education professors should spend time subbing." I agreed with this teacher whole-heartedly. And actually, this is something our department has already put into place: we are expected to spend time working with "real kids" in "real schools," either as co-teachers or substitutes just like this. Most of the time when I work in K-12 these days, it's been co-teaching with classroom teachers. I come in as the "outside expert" in some curriculum topic; most often it's been teaching a middle school or elementary science lesson. And this certainly has been great for me as well, but being "in charge" of the classroom the way substitute teachers are is a little different thing, and I was so glad to have this experience.</p><p>There was one more thing I caught from my colleagues-for-a-few-days while I was with them during lunch: they are tired. This year has been really, really tough on teachers. This wasn't shocking for me, of course. I feel that, even in my work as a teacher educator at the university level--I wrote a while back about how I have felt so <a href="http://iteach-and-ilearn.blogspot.com/2021/04/exhaustion-and-emotional-labor.html" target="_blank">exhausted by all the extra emotional labor</a> of this COVID year. But it had me thinking about just how many educators I've seen on Twitter suggesting that they might not continue teaching. For some of them, COVID-stuff seems to be the reason. But for others, COVID-stuff was just the straw that broke the camel's back, because it revealed so many things about Education that feel so, so broken. And there seems to be a growing number of educators who are just going to be opting out of what they see as a broken system.</p><p>All of this had me feeling very curious, so put a poll out on Twitter a week or so ago. My tweet was thus: "I feel like I'm seeing a ton of teachers either not planning to come back to teach again in the fall, or seriously considering leaving the profession. Unscientific poll here to satisfy my curiosity: If you are a teacher...where are you at on this?"</p><p>I included a follow-up tweet encouraging teachers to share more about their decision-making: what was keeping them teaching, or what was nudging them out?</p><p>Here were the results of the poll. I was so encouraged to see that out of the 128 folks who chimed in on this very unscientific survey, almost 80% said they are planning to keep teaching. Of the other 20+%, 8% said leaning towards staying, 9% said leaning towards leaving, and only 4% said definitely leaving. So maybe things aren't so dire for the future of my profession?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vhLydjcedLk/YLpTdAiH7QI/AAAAAAAAIgI/NTQh_T0xXgU5ckXUA3t09dT0aGGYcpk-ACLcBGAsYHQ/s876/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-06-03%2Bat%2B10.40.10%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="876" data-original-width="664" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vhLydjcedLk/YLpTdAiH7QI/AAAAAAAAIgI/NTQh_T0xXgU5ckXUA3t09dT0aGGYcpk-ACLcBGAsYHQ/w304-h400/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-06-03%2Bat%2B10.40.10%2BAM.png" width="304" /></a></div><div><br /></div>But that said...it was interesting to see the comments teachers made in their tweets in response about their decision-making. A few of the comments included these insights:<div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>"I'm staying in teaching because it's where my passions and hopes are, and I've got a vocational calling, but man, this year I am TIRED at the finish line. I blame insufficient rest last summer as we had to plan and strategize though the pandemic."</li><li>"Leaving for now. May get back in it for the right school fit. Tired of being taken for granted, school not doing it's part to fix curriculum & update learning experience for Ss. 1 size/way of doing things won't work for all, so it was clear the company was all about the $$$$"</li><li>"I canβt imagine doing anything else, but I also canβt imagine being able to do years like the last 3 for very much longer. Itβs been...a lot."</li><li>"I've had a number of conversations where I've talked teachers off the ledge this year. Also more and more I'm hearing teachers say that they'll teach for the next while but that they'll leave eventually. I don't know if that is a millennial thing or COVID or..."</li><li>"I hear younger teachers say their reason for leaving is the lack of flexibility and input.</li><li>"Definitely coming back next year! Itβs the pay cut this year, the over-abundance of work teaching hybrid, and lack of communication and providing of good curriculum that make it hard, though..."</li></ul>This wasn't every comment I heard tweeted back in response...but notice any trends here? The biggest thing I note is that it's mostly the non-teaching things that are driving people towards considering leaving the profession. Several folks here seem to be saying, "Yeah, I love teaching...but all the other stuff that comes alongside the teaching that makes me consider not sticking with the teaching."</div><div><div><div><p>Ooof.</p><p>This is my big wondering then: how do we keep the main thing for teachers the main thing? If teachers get into the profession because they love kids, and love subjects that they get to teach, and love the actual <i>teaching</i>...how can we make sure that this is the stuff they do? Yeah, I know...COVID stretched everyone. But as I say that...was it <i>COVID</i> that was the problem? Or was it shifts that have happened societally in the past few years that have made teachers feel differently-burdened...and COVID was just the lens that really brought it all into the light in a different way?</p><p>I don't have any easy answer, or any quick prescription for what would make Education a more appealing profession for more people again. But I'm thinking about that 20ish% of respondents to my poll: what would be the implications if 20% of the teachers in the United States quit teaching in short order? </p><p>I think the future of the teaching profession is unclear at this point. Everyone wants excellent teachers for their own kids, right? No one wants a mediocre teacher, right? So how do we equip excellent educators...and how do we keep them in the field?</p></div></div></div>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-80296184532880735232021-06-02T11:38:00.002-05:002021-06-04T11:03:34.675-05:00Weighing Our Words: The Impact of a Teacher<p>Last week I heard that a former professor of mine had passed away. <a href="https://calvin.edu/news/archive/calvin-remembers-gloria-goris-stronks" target="_blank">Gloria Goris Stronks</a> was a legend, and she influenced an entire generation of Christian teachers. Hearing about her death impacted me more than I would have expected. I'm not exaggerating at all when I say that I am a professor today because of her influence in my life.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/31fL8GW9fnL.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="222" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/31fL8GW9fnL.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dr. Gloria Stronks</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Gloria was one of my professors when I was studying for my Master's degree in curriculum and instruction in the early 2000's. She taught an advanced educational psychology course that helped me clarify and refine my understanding of who my middle school students were, and taking that course shaped my teaching practice (and me personally as well!) for ever after. I was more intentional about connecting with students, about getting to know them as unique individuals, and about tailoring my teaching towards both students needs as well as their strengths. </p><p>But at a personal level, Gloria also influenced me in an incredible way. She kept me after class one day, and very seriously said, "Dave, have you ever thought about becoming a professor? You should!" This was the first time that this idea ever even crept into my mind. I was perfectly happy as a middle school science teacher, and sort of figured I would keep doing that for a long time. But Gloria saw something in me that I didn't see in myself, and her comment stuck with me. Later, when I had the opportunity to teach a course as an adjunct instructor, I gave it a whirl, largely because of this conversation with Gloria. And one thing led to another...and after six year of adjuncting, I took on a full-time position in higher ed...and here I am, nine years later. In that conversation with Gloria all those years ago, her comment to me was something along the lines of, "You are clearly making a difference in the lives of your students. But what if you were teaching teachers? Think of how that difference ripples out to so many more students!" That was a compelling vision for me, and one that expanded the way I pictured what was possible for me--and maybe a bigger view of the way I could use my talents to serve in Christ's kingdom.</p><p>I shared the news of Gloria's passing with my colleagues in the department, and (perhaps not surprisingly) two of them shared that Gloria had similar conversations with them at pivotal moments in our professional careers--she saw gifts in promising teachers, named them, and encouraged us to take bold steps that we might not have taken otherwise.</p><p>All of this has me thinking about the role teachers play in their students lives, and weight of teachers' words--for good, or for ill. If you're a teacher, and you're taking the time to read this, I hope that hearing this story has you reflecting on the way you speak into your students' lives. What gifts do you see in them? Do you name them? Do you encourage them to take bold steps? </p><p>Teachers, let's not take our words lightly. Taking an example from Dr. Stronks, let's encourage students to use their gifts and talents, and challenge them with bigger visions of what is possible for them than they might currently imagine for themselves. Who knows what impact your words might have, teacher!</p>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-56979775200067166052021-05-12T11:53:00.000-05:002021-05-12T11:53:35.161-05:00Finding Gratitude by Way of an Email from the Past<p>This morning I checked my gmail, which I do periodically...though not every day. Actually, it had been a few days since I'd last logged in. There was a surprising message waiting for me. The sender? Well, it was me. But I sent it to myself last year at this time.</p><p>The subject of the email? "A Letter from May 8, 2020." The sender? "FutureMe."</p><p>Now, I've used <a href="http://futureme.org">futureme.org</a> before--it's a pretty nifty tool to send yourself a message in the future. You compose your message, choose a future date, and enter an email address that you'll have access to at the time the message should be delivered. The message stays on futureme.org's servers until then, and they send it out for you.</p><p>But this email was truly a surprise. I do not recall sending this email to myself at all--probably the stress of that time of my life? It was a fascinating window into my past reading this one today. Here's what past me (of May 2020) wrote to future me (of May 2021):</p><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p><i>Dear Future Dave,</i></p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Wow. We are in the thick of COVID-19 social distancing, and it's been about 7 weeks now. You are currently grading exams for EDUC 334 students--they are doing amazing at summing up their learning, even though it has been a crazy second half of the semester being distance learning. You did a fine job of pivoting Science Methods to an online format. Congratulations on putting your knowledge and skills into practice in a way that really benefited your students, by ensuring that the main thing remained the main thing.</i></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>You told several people recently that your big regret in all of this was not saying a better "goodbye" to your students before they left for Spring Break, because that was the last time you met up with them. You've been hard on yourself with your typically high expectations for your teaching practice. But you've also been gracious with your students, remembering that they are whole humans. Keep doing that, and keep focusing on *learning* over "grading."</i></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>You are a good teacher. You recently completed your 8-year interview process, and passed with flying colors. Your students value the work you are doing, and the way you model teaching for them. Don't be so hard on yourself, yeah?</i></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Remember to be grateful for what you've got. You are healthy, you have meaningful work that seems stable, your kids--even though they drive you crazy sometimes--are pretty amazing, and your wife is incredible. You are blessed!</i></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Don't forget to be awesome,</i></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Past Dave</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>Is it weird if an email I sent myself--one that I don't even remember sending!--got me a little choked up? Because that happened.</p><p>This year...whew, what a year! But past me was right: I <i>do</i> have a lot to be grateful for, even in the midst of a whole lot of awful in the pandemic school year of 2020-2021. </p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jkg3771Rp7k/YJwHfrJtqAI/AAAAAAAAIf0/2wbAzaveRbI1aTXkm_dXdn3DJcCV0ayEwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Email.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="231" data-original-width="640" height="145" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Jkg3771Rp7k/YJwHfrJtqAI/AAAAAAAAIf0/2wbAzaveRbI1aTXkm_dXdn3DJcCV0ayEwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h145/Email.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/illustrations/email-marketing-email-marketing-2942593/" target="_blank">Mark Rosemaker</a> via Pixabay</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-29311484626990252552021-05-06T14:06:00.002-05:002021-05-06T14:06:12.378-05:00Concluding a Course: "Sparkiness" in the Classroom<p>I'm having a bit of a hard time today as I'm working on my end-of-semester grading. It's not that the students have written poorly, or that they aren't showing evidence of their learning--quite the contrary, actually! But I'm having a hard time because I am wrapping up teaching Elementary Science Methods right now, and it's likely going to be the last time I teach this course, at least for a while.</p><p>Why is this so hard for me? Well...because I've taught the course 22 times. I started teaching this course as an adjunct instructor back in 2006, and I've taught it every time it's been offered at our institution since then. My quick math says almost 500 students have taken this course with me in that time, which is pretty ridiculous to imagine, now that I'm thinking about it! While I never feel like I have any course "in my back pocket," this is the one that I know inside-out, because I've taught it so many times. And while the course has obviously evolved over 22 iterations, and while I keep bringing in new ideas, and activities, and things to read and discuss...it's also one that feels very comfortable, because I've lived in it for so long.</p><p>At the same time, I recognize it's been more than a decade since I taught middle school science on a daily basis at this point. And I have many other hats I wear in our department, many other courses and projects that I'm part of or in charge of. And so, it's likely time for this one to get handed off to a colleague, and with a new member of our department joining us in the fall, it is time for someone else to take this one.</p><p>But there is a sense of grieving for me, recognizing that this is likely my last go at this course for awhile. I think it's because I identify quite strongly with this course in some ways, because it's been part of my life for such a long time. There have been times where this course has felt like work, to be sure. But it has been <i>joyful</i> work for me. I love studying creation, and teaching others about it, and teaching teachers how to foster a love of creation in their own students. </p><p>And so, I'm struggling a bit as I grade these final summative projects from the semester, but realizing that this is more about how I feel than about my students' learning. Because you know what? They are taking away some really fantastic things! So many of them are sharing specific things that made a difference for them in the way they think about science as a subject, or about themselves as teachers, or their future teaching practices. Many of them are naming specific ideas or activities from class that they want to use with their own students. I love this! It's humbling to think about the 500-ish students I've had the pleasure of teaching over the years all taking things they learned from my class and using them with their own students. (Ooof. Gives a real sense of the responsibility we have as teacher educators!)</p><p>One student wrapped up her final paper with a personal note that just made me grin:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i>To finish off, the last thing I learned in this course that I want to take with me would be to get my students excited. Your attitude that you brought everyday got us excited. The questions that you would ask and the activities you would follow up with would make us excited. You always brought your all and that was evident when we were learning from you. Even maybe if you were not excited about the content, you βfakedβ it and you made us excited in return. Or maybe I was tired a day and the energy you brought defiantly helped keep my attention. I think that students need to have that sense of fun in their day and to not always be so serious. Your constant level of "sparkiness" and fun attitude is something that I want to carry with me.</i> </p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">You know, I'll take that! If nothing else, I hope and trust that my own enthusiasm for teaching, and the way I model this craft for them rubs off on them a little bit. </p><p style="text-align: left;">And I think I'll be okay not teaching this course anymore. I'll still be bringing my "sparkiness" to all of the classrooms where I have the opportunity to teach!</p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2019/01/05/10/01/knowledge-3914811_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="377" data-original-width="800" height="189" src="https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2019/01/05/10/01/knowledge-3914811_1280.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image via <a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/knowledge-spark-flash-hand-think-3914811/" target="_blank">pixabay</a>.</td></tr></tbody></table>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-22286349285805105212021-04-22T14:50:00.007-05:002021-04-22T14:50:58.686-05:00On Being Seriously Silly<p> I saw this one on Twitter today from the eminent Sir John Cleese:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">Always be the silliest in any group. π <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/tbt?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#tbt</a> <a href="https://t.co/oMJu876Wsz">pic.twitter.com/oMJu876Wsz</a></p>β John Cleese (@JohnCleese) <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnCleese/status/1385295625953054722?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 22, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<p>(Just in case you aren't familiar...John Cleese is one of the members of the ground-breaking British comedy troupe, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python" target="_blank">Monty Python</a>. This photo is of the group as they looked in the early days--maybe late 1960s or early 70s?--and Cleese is the one grinning like a fool. They may have had their heyday in the 70s and 80s, but this group has had a huge impact on media and culture far beyond the British Isles.)</p><p>I love it! I think this is a rule that I live by, and I didn't even realize it until I saw it written this way.</p><p>I revel in silliness. </p><p>I play the ukulele.</p><p>I yo-yo as I walk across campus.</p><p>I get my Intro to Ed students to try juggling in class.</p><p>I exhibit a manic energy in teaching my Elementary Science Methods course.</p><p>At one of the summer camps I serve (shout-out to Royal Family Kids!) I dress up in a banana costume and sing ridiculous songs...and somehow get the whole group of campers and staff to play along and sing and dance with me.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mk5Gk2QzFFs/YIHSUmvoksI/AAAAAAAAIe0/kdiTVI3K6-AekARSOn0F8O9qlzat6qK_gCLcBGAsYHQ/s633/BananaMustache.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="633" data-original-width="632" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mk5Gk2QzFFs/YIHSUmvoksI/AAAAAAAAIe0/kdiTVI3K6-AekARSOn0F8O9qlzat6qK_gCLcBGAsYHQ/w399-h400/BananaMustache.jpg" width="399" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not atypical for me to look like this (at camp, at least...)</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Something I've tried to embody--and to pass along to my students, future teachers that they are--is that I should take my WORK very seriously...but I try to not take MYSELF too seriously. </p><p>Not that I want to be the butt of every joke, or anything like that. And I'm not just trying to be self-deprecating all the time. After all, I do want my students to have confidence in me as their teacher, and I want my colleagues to have confidence in me as someone who is reliable, and trustworthy, and an active contributor to important work.</p><p>But...I also want to be able to bring levity, positivity, and joy to my work! And I think I (generally) embody this quite well.</p><p>My big wondering right now: do people take me seriously even when I am silly?</p><p>I guess I'm thinking about this from a John Cleese sort of frame. He is one of the best in the world at what he does--he takes his comedy seriously, and has honed his craft over decades of work. Maybe my teaching practice isn't all that different?</p><p>Can I be seriously silly?</p>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-31401825413628100742021-04-21T17:46:00.002-05:002021-04-21T17:46:19.736-05:00Exhaustion and Emotional Labor<p>What a year it's been! (Understatement much, Dave??) </p><p>Seriously, this has been a demanding year for me as a teacher. I am not complaining. I'm so grateful that I've been able to be regularly meeting up with my students in person. I'm equally grateful for the technological support to make online and hybrid teaching realistic, if not easy. Several months ago I wrote a baleful post entitled "<a href="http://iteach-and-ilearn.blogspot.com/2020/12/teaching-is-not-for-faint-of-heartand.html" target="_blank">Teaching is Not for the Faint of Heart...and HyFlex Teaching in Particular</a>." Looking back at this post...I don't disagree with anything I wrote then. But I'm grateful that I didn't have as many students shunted into quarantine during this spring semester (questions remain about why this is...) which has made managing the times I need to try and teach in multiple modalities simultaneously much more reasonable, at an emotional level at least.</p><p>That comment, "at an emotional level," is something I've been thinking a lot about lately. I am feeling exhausted as we reach the end of this year. I always feel a little tired at the close of an academic year. But this year it's more than "a little tired." I described it to a colleague today as "exhaustion." And I don't want to sound hyperbolic here; I think this is accurate. Teaching is demanding work under the best of circumstances. Teaching during COVID has not been the best of circumstances. And, self-indulgent as it sounds, not having a spring break this year has taken a real toll on me. I understand why we did it this way--and I DO think it was the right call--but I also think that this disruption to our normal rhythm of the semester has had a real impact. My students are tired, but hanging in there. My colleagues are tired, but hanging in there. I'm tired too...and hanging in there, I think.</p><p>But this comes back to the idea of "emotional labor" that I've been thinking about a fair amount over this year. Back in October I wrote an article entitled "<a href="https://inallthings.org/how-can-we-support-teachers/" target="_blank">How Can We Support Teachers?</a>" that draws on this concept quite lot. On our podcast, my buddy Matt and I spent a whole episode thinking through <a href="https://hallwayconvos.podbean.com/e/episode-010-emotional-labor/" target="_blank">Emotional Labor</a> for teachers, and how demanding this is for educators. The main idea of emotional labor: some work is physical, some is mental, and some is emotional. Emotional labor means managing your own emotional state to elicit a particular emotional state in others--and teachers do this <i>all the time</i>. We aren't the only ones, of course; nurses, police officers, social workers, flight attendants, and so many "serving" professions demand a level of emotional labor. But I think this is ever more acute for teachers working in the age of COVID. We often check our own emotions as a normal part of the work, to ensure students will learn.</p><p>Physical labor can be (obviously) exhausting. Mental labor can be exhausting. And...emotional labor can be exhausting. </p><p>This year, the emotional labor of teaching is putting more pressure than ever on teachers, I think. And while I'm pretty resilient, and I LOVE my work, I'm also finding myself looking forward to the weekends more than I think I ever have since I've been a professional educator.</p><p>Check in on the educators you know, friends. I suspect I'm not alone in this exhaustion about the emotional labor of teaching. </p><p>And, how to manage this exhaustion? Well...what makes sense? </p><p>When we are exhausted...we need to rest. </p><p>And so, I'm working on resting more this year than I ever have before. This semester I've been trying to not work in the evenings more than two nights a week. (I'm certainly not always successful at this.) I'm trying to not check my email over the weekends. I'm trying to get to bed at a regular time and get up at a regular time. I'm trying to get at least some physical exercise every week. Isn't that crazy to say "I'm working on resting"--<i>working</i> on <i>resting???</i> But it's true; this is where I'm at, emotionally.</p><p>I'm still feeling exhausted...but I'm (perhaps surprisingly?) still feeling deep joy in my work. But it ain't easy, folks.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tzO0Z2G7wsw/YICrDKyILAI/AAAAAAAAIek/1W98EIdFDO43vTLPK8u1O1_Za0-mf_43ACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/pexels-pixabay-271897.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="640" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tzO0Z2G7wsw/YICrDKyILAI/AAAAAAAAIek/1W98EIdFDO43vTLPK8u1O1_Za0-mf_43ACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h265/pexels-pixabay-271897.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image via <a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/alone-bed-bedroom-blur-271897/" target="_blank">Pixabay</a></td></tr></tbody></table>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-82009318608079302582021-03-15T10:49:00.000-05:002021-03-15T10:49:01.058-05:00A Pandemic Year, and Counting Blessings<p>I am feeling reflective as I write this. I was grateful to have been able to get my first shot for the COVID vaccine this past Thursday, one year to the day after the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. </p><p>I posted this on Instagram afterward getting the vaccine, feeling grateful:</p>
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border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div></div></div><div style="padding: 19% 0px;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0px auto 12px; width: 50px;"><svg height="50px" version="1.1" viewbox="0 0 60 60" width="50px" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns="https://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g fill-rule="evenodd" fill="none" stroke-width="1" stroke="none"><g fill="#000000" transform="translate(-511.000000, -20.000000)"><g><path d="M556.869,30.41 C554.814,30.41 553.148,32.076 553.148,34.131 C553.148,36.186 554.814,37.852 556.869,37.852 C558.924,37.852 560.59,36.186 560.59,34.131 C560.59,32.076 558.924,30.41 556.869,30.41 M541,60.657 C535.114,60.657 530.342,55.887 530.342,50 C530.342,44.114 535.114,39.342 541,39.342 C546.887,39.342 551.658,44.114 551.658,50 C551.658,55.887 546.887,60.657 541,60.657 M541,33.886 C532.1,33.886 524.886,41.1 524.886,50 C524.886,58.899 532.1,66.113 541,66.113 C549.9,66.113 557.115,58.899 557.115,50 C557.115,41.1 549.9,33.886 541,33.886 M565.378,62.101 C565.244,65.022 564.756,66.606 564.346,67.663 C563.803,69.06 563.154,70.057 562.106,71.106 C561.058,72.155 560.06,72.803 558.662,73.347 C557.607,73.757 556.021,74.244 553.102,74.378 C549.944,74.521 548.997,74.552 541,74.552 C533.003,74.552 532.056,74.521 528.898,74.378 C525.979,74.244 524.393,73.757 523.338,73.347 C521.94,72.803 520.942,72.155 519.894,71.106 C518.846,70.057 518.197,69.06 517.654,67.663 C517.244,66.606 516.755,65.022 516.623,62.101 C516.479,58.943 516.448,57.996 516.448,50 C516.448,42.003 516.479,41.056 516.623,37.899 C516.755,34.978 517.244,33.391 517.654,32.338 C518.197,30.938 518.846,29.942 519.894,28.894 C520.942,27.846 521.94,27.196 523.338,26.654 C524.393,26.244 525.979,25.756 528.898,25.623 C532.057,25.479 533.004,25.448 541,25.448 C548.997,25.448 549.943,25.479 553.102,25.623 C556.021,25.756 557.607,26.244 558.662,26.654 C560.06,27.196 561.058,27.846 562.106,28.894 C563.154,29.942 563.803,30.938 564.346,32.338 C564.756,33.391 565.244,34.978 565.378,37.899 C565.522,41.056 565.552,42.003 565.552,50 C565.552,57.996 565.522,58.943 565.378,62.101 M570.82,37.631 C570.674,34.438 570.167,32.258 569.425,30.349 C568.659,28.377 567.633,26.702 565.965,25.035 C564.297,23.368 562.623,22.342 560.652,21.575 C558.743,20.834 556.562,20.326 553.369,20.18 C550.169,20.033 549.148,20 541,20 C532.853,20 531.831,20.033 528.631,20.18 C525.438,20.326 523.257,20.834 521.349,21.575 C519.376,22.342 517.703,23.368 516.035,25.035 C514.368,26.702 513.342,28.377 512.574,30.349 C511.834,32.258 511.326,34.438 511.181,37.631 C511.035,40.831 511,41.851 511,50 C511,58.147 511.035,59.17 511.181,62.369 C511.326,65.562 511.834,67.743 512.574,69.651 C513.342,71.625 514.368,73.296 516.035,74.965 C517.703,76.634 519.376,77.658 521.349,78.425 C523.257,79.167 525.438,79.673 528.631,79.82 C531.831,79.965 532.853,80.001 541,80.001 C549.148,80.001 550.169,79.965 553.369,79.82 C556.562,79.673 558.743,79.167 560.652,78.425 C562.623,77.658 564.297,76.634 565.965,74.965 C567.633,73.296 568.659,71.625 569.425,69.651 C570.167,67.743 570.674,65.562 570.82,62.369 C570.966,59.17 571,58.147 571,50 C571,41.851 570.966,40.831 570.82,37.631"></path></g></g></g></svg></div><div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;"> View this post on Instagram</div></div><div style="padding: 12.5% 0px;"></div> <div style="align-items: center; display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px;"><div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px); width: 12.5px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12.5px; margin-left: 2px; margin-right: 14px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px); width: 12.5px;"></div></div><div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"></div> <div style="border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid rgb(244, 244, 244); border-top: 2px solid transparent; 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line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0px 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CMS1Y6CAoZ4/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">A post shared by Dave Mulder (@d_mulder)</a></p></div></blockquote> <script async="" src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script>
<p><br /></p><p>What a year it has been! And yet, God is faithful. Despite all of the hardships, frustration, angst, anxiety, and depression of this past year--for me personally, and perhaps for you as well--I have learned to more faithfully rely on God as my refuge and strength (in a <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+46&version=NIV" target="_blank">Psalm 46</a> kind of way) on a day-to-day basis than ever before. When I hear people talk about "going back" to the way things were before the pandemic, I long for some parts of that too. But I also realize how this past year has changed me, in both unhealthy ways (like stress eating as a coping strategy, and a <i>lot</i> more time scrolling on social media) and healthy ways (like more intentionally creating quiet times with God, and growing in being okay with being "just okay.") While I certainly hope to reset some of the unhealthy ones...but I don't want to too quickly "go back" to the way things were before, if it means I might forget and lose hold of some of the good things that have been happening in my life too.</p><p>All of this has me thinking about this lovely song, from one of my favorite bands, Rend Collective. The song is "Counting Every Blessing," and it was released some time before the pandemic year (in 2018, I think?) I invite you to listen, and I hope it gives you a lift in the way it buoys my spirits every time I listen to it. It's not a panacea song of, "See, everything is great!" but more of a, "Even when things are hard, or unclear, I can still see that God is in control of all things. </p>
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/w6Y91axwxfI" width="560"></iframe></div>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-51320492714031980002021-02-26T14:54:00.006-06:002021-02-26T14:54:38.009-06:00A Case of the Blahs (And Teaching Anyway)<p>By nature, I'm a pretty upbeat person. I can usually look on the bright-side, find something lovely to celebrate, and bring some joy to pretty much any situation. Positivity is one of my superpowers!</p><p>But today, I have a case of the blahs. Nothing is terrible, but I'm just feeling that sense of tired irritability where small things bug me, and nip at me, and consume more of my cognitive space than I might like to admit.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9QSFvM5BOGw/YDlfii8EqwI/AAAAAAAAIdo/Y0RKC7IC7zIzdnY7G_2KXEWORPEPwDJwgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/meh-4687085_640.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9QSFvM5BOGw/YDlfii8EqwI/AAAAAAAAIdo/Y0RKC7IC7zIzdnY7G_2KXEWORPEPwDJwgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/meh-4687085_640.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/illustrations/meh-face-emoji-emoticon-smiley-4687085/" target="_blank">Krithika Parthasarathay</a> via Pixabay</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>I headed into class at noon today, and in those last couple of minutes just before we began, I decided to change up my lesson plan for today. The future teachers I serve are amazing people, and I'm so grateful for the opportunities I have on a daily basis to help them see the varied aspects of the work we do as educators. And today? Today that meant a little meta-lesson about the emotional labor that is assumed for teachers.</p><p>I started by just naming it: "I'm feeling uncharacteristically blah today, folks." A few seemed surprised, but most kind of nodded--I mean, I <i>am</i> a pretty bouncy presence most of the time, and I just <i>wasn't</i> at the beginning of class today. And I explained how this is part of the work we do as teachers: we often have to check our own feelings, suck it up, and just teach anyway. This probably wasn't earth-shattering news to anyone in the room, but I thought it could be illuminating for them to notice this, and see if they could tell a difference in the way class unfolded. In another course, I have a lesson I teach about the difference between "acting like a teacher" and "<i>being</i> a teacher." Today's class meeting was an example in practice of "acting like a teacher."</p><p>So, after this odd preamble, I headed into the lesson as planed. We spent some time in discussion about a chapter I asked them to read in preparation, and they had lots of thoughtful reflections and deliberate questions, as they normally do. Then a very brief lecture from me, followed by a series of activities and demonstrations. They participated well, interacted well, shared their thinking well.</p><p>And you know what? By the end of class, I realized I wasn't "acting like a teacher" anymore. Somehow, starting off with that "acting" morphed back into my more normal embodiment of my own teaching practice. And honestly, the playfulness of the activities I had planned to do with the students--and seeing their joy in discovery--has buoyed my spirits in a way I wasn't expecting.</p><p>Somewhere in one of his writings, master educator Parker J. Palmer says something along the lines of, "Technique is what you use until the teacher shows up." Maybe this is the lesson for me that I needed to be reminded of and practice today. And my hope is that, for the future teachers I serve, I got to model some sense of this today.</p>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-52734071648598228332021-02-19T11:32:00.001-06:002021-02-19T11:32:07.324-06:00Learning Targets<p> I've been thinking a lot about learning targets lately. In the two methods courses I'm teaching right now (Science Methods for Elementary and Middle School, and Methods of Teaching STEM K-12) we are getting started with developing unit plans, and we're thinking about goals and objectives. And a recent episode of the podcast my buddy Matt and I started was all about learning targets too. (You can listen to the episode here, if you're interested: <a href="https://hallwayconvos.podbean.com/e/episode-001-goals/" target="_blank">Hallway Conversations with Matt and Dave: Goals</a>)</p><p>The main idea I'm hoping to convey to my students about learning targets is just how valuable they are for keeping both the teacher and the students on track for what we're working towards. Imagine yourself as an archer--having a clear target makes taking aim so much more obvious. A clear target helps you measure (assess) learning: did students hit the bullseye? And, I would suggest, a clear target even helps you focus your teaching on ensuring students will be able to hit that target.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_e8UqCD2Eu8/YC_1l3ImPBI/AAAAAAAAIdc/1eJsGZsZpRwaXPVbmV1hHbPcYvbmSqgQgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/target.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_e8UqCD2Eu8/YC_1l3ImPBI/AAAAAAAAIdc/1eJsGZsZpRwaXPVbmV1hHbPcYvbmSqgQgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/target.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/target-archery-arrow-aim-1180236/" target="_blank">mickrh</a> via Pixabay</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><span></span>Is it possible to over-emphasize learning targets? Probably...like almost anything else in the world of Education today. But I have found targets so helpful in my own teaching practice, perhaps because I'm likely to go off the rails and get distracted pretty easily.</p><p>So what <i>is</i> a learning target? Here's my current thinking...</p><p>Learning targets are often framed as "I can..." statements, but the old school format for writing objectives that I learned in my own undergraduate teacher preparation works just as well: "Students will be able to..." Thinking this through, I think that "Students will be able to..." (SWBAT) is more framed for the <i>teacher</i>, while "I can..." is more framed for the <i>student</i>. </p><p>And then, the key is following up this introduction with a solid action-oriented verb: <u>what</u> will students be able to do? Describe? Analyze? Illustrate? Explain? List? Develop? Construct? Argue? Contrast? Hypothesize? Write? Model? Debate? There are so many possibilities, but I like the idea of connecting them to different levels of thinking, such as what is described in <a href="https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/" target="_blank">Bloom's Taxonomy</a>. Aiming for at least <i>some</i> learning targets that get at higher-order thinking skills seems like a really wise strategy to me. (If all we're asking students to do is remember and regurgitate information...that feels like a "thin" education to me!)</p><p>When I was talking this through with my students in STEM methods this week, we were debating the pros and cons of writing learning targets for students vs. framing them for teachers. One of my students expressed some concern about "I can..." statements, even as a university student: it puts a lot of pressure on the students to <i>really</i> be able to do these things! Another student responded with a wondering: why not use both SWBAT <i>and</i> I can? Here was his reasoning: even if you are sharing learning targets with students at the beginning of a unit or lesson, using "students will be able to..." as the frame puts this in a future-tense: "Maybe you can't do this now...but you <i>will be able to</i> do this later on." And then, using "I can" as a frame at the end of the unit or lesson gives students an opportunity to self-assess: "Can I now do this, after I've had the opportunity to learn it? Or do I need more practice?"</p><p>I LOVE this approach, honestly. And this makes me feel grateful for the opportunity to keep learning, right along with my students.</p><p>Are you using learning targets? How do you feel about them? Do you find them valuable for guiding your students learning, or for your own teaching?</p>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-42482645767570262362021-02-03T11:16:00.005-06:002021-02-03T11:16:58.880-06:00Happy PodDay!<p>My buddy and co-conspirator, Matt, texted me first thing this morning: "Happy PodDay, brother!"</p><p>Today is the day...after weeks of dreaming, scheming, recording, and a whole lot of laughing have come together into this thing: we are launching our podcast today.</p><p>"Hallway Conversations with Matt and Dave" is what we decided to call it. The whole thing grew out of the way our relationship came together: we often wound up having conversations in the hallway outside of our offices. Matt is my newest colleague in our Education department, but we've known each other--or maybe known of each other?--for years. We have many mutual friends in education, so I felt like I knew Matt even before he moved to town. But it's been so, so good to get to know him in a more personal and personable way.</p><p>And after so many hallway conversations...one time one of us said, "We should really record these and turn them into a podcast."</p><p>And so we did.</p><p>Our basic plan is that each episode will be a 20-minute unscripted conversation around a theme. (20 minutes because teachers' time is precious, and we certainly don't want them to feel like they are <i>wasting</i> it with us!) While we have agreed on some topics ahead of time, each conversation will be driven by a question related to the theme of the episode that one of us will bring without telling the other ahead of time, and then we will think on our feet as we try to come to an answer to that question--just like we do in our "real" hallway conversations.</p><p>It's a little terrifying to step up to the microphone and record an episode this way, but it's also been a lot of fun, and some really good professional development for both of us, I think.</p><p>And, honestly, it's a little terrifying, launching this out into the world.</p><p>Will anyone listen? Will anyone care?</p><p>Early on in the recording process we joked that if the only people who listen are our wives (you know, to keep an eye on us...) we will be fine with that. The real intent for us was to further develop our own reflective practices, and build up our friendship at the same time.</p><p>But now, now that we're launching it out into the open...I'd be lying if I said that I don't care if people listen. I hope that people listen, and that the things we are talking about in our "hallway conversations" will spark some more hallway conversations among the Christian educators who might listen in, that they might start having these same kinds of professional discussions with thoughtful colleagues in their own school hallways.</p><p>Anyway, if you're up for giving us a listen, you can find our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify. Just search for "hallway conversations with Matt and Dave" and you'll find us. Or, you can access the show via the web right here: <a href="http://hallwayconvos.podbean.com/">http://hallwayconvos.podbean.com/</a> We would love for you to listen in, and to share your thoughts in response.</p><p>(So...if I'm not writing as often here on the blog...it's probably because we're recording and editing some new episodes. That was definitely the case in January!)</p><p>Happy PodDay!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LAcnPVcEFUs/YBraLopz-RI/AAAAAAAAIcw/Z-TKFzFrtCskOK6C-UsDeGer_PTzi6tkwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1400/HallwayConversations.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1400" data-original-width="1400" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LAcnPVcEFUs/YBraLopz-RI/AAAAAAAAIcw/Z-TKFzFrtCskOK6C-UsDeGer_PTzi6tkwCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h400/HallwayConversations.png" width="400" /></a></div>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-56016456398943136782021-01-06T10:47:00.000-06:002021-01-06T10:47:20.903-06:00Welcome to 2021: Let's Go!<p>Welcome to 2021!</p><p>I know, I know...I'm a few days late. But here we are. It feels like everyone I know has taken a collective sigh of relief that the madness of 2020 is now in the rearview mirror. Really, though, how different has the new year been from the old? I'm not sure there is something magical in closing the old calendar and opening up a new one. And yet, I find myself feeling hopeful for the new year, perhaps more hopeful than I've felt in sometime.</p><p>This past year I continued my practice of capturing one second of video every day using the <a href="https://1se.co/" target="_blank">1 Second Everyday</a> app. I smashed all of those seconds together again into a six and a half minute video recap of my year. As I watched it, I'm struck by how clearly I can remember so many of these one-second slices of life, both the highs and the lows. You're welcome to watch it here, if you like:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="341" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4hf7QsmRbdY" width="410" youtube-src-id="4hf7QsmRbdY"></iframe></div><br /><p>That last second of my 2020 is my niece leaping off of a chair in our living room. Her shout got cut off just a bit to squeeze the whole leap into one second. It was actually a, "Let's go!" And I can't think of a more fitting way to think about leaping into the new year: "Let's go!"</p><p>This is often the time of year where I--like many people--reflect on setting goals for myself. There is something about the milestone of the new year beginning that makes this seem right. Last year, about this time, <a href="https://iteach-and-ilearn.blogspot.com/2020/01/resolutions-goal-setting-and-making.html" target="_blank">I wrote a post</a> wondering about the value of "resolutions" and whether goals need to be measurable to be attainable. I'm still wondering about this, I guess. I'm not really making any resolutions this year, and I'm not sure I'll set any measurable goals either.</p><p>Oh, yes...I could stand to lose a bunch of the pounds I packed on through stress-eating my way through 2020. And, yes...I'm planning to be out pedaling as soon as the snow and ice are done for this winter...and I'll probably shoot for 2000 miles on my bike again, since that has been about what I've been pedaling for the past couple of years. And I do intend to keep up the blogging, at least a few times each month. And, gratefully, I'm getting more intentional about spending time in prayer and reading scripture again, with the support of a new devotional I got for Christmas. And professionally, I have broad ambitions of both starting a podcast with a colleague this year, and drafting a book, as well as teaching to the best of my ability in our ongoing pandemic world.</p><p>That looks like a lot of goal-setting, doesn't it?</p><p>But I think my actual "goal" for 2021 is to be fully present in the things I'm doing. I want to take a cue from my niece's joy in jumping in with both feet, with a "Let's Go!" attitude.</p><p>Welcome to 2021, friends. Let's do this!</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w-WmqlXqRWU/X_XoOfIsa6I/AAAAAAAAIbw/gMf9Muml5NYGCw6h3nV18hNBUZBT4ZQ3gCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Let%2527s%2BGo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="2048" height="250" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w-WmqlXqRWU/X_XoOfIsa6I/AAAAAAAAIbw/gMf9Muml5NYGCw6h3nV18hNBUZBT4ZQ3gCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h250/Let%2527s%2BGo.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Let's Go!"</td></tr></tbody></table>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-87882868805151157742020-12-30T12:24:00.000-06:002020-12-30T12:24:16.141-06:00Teaching is Not for the Faint of Heart...and HyFlex Teaching in Particular<p>I saw this tweet this morning, and boy did this resonate... </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">I don't think non-teachers understand what teaching remote and in-person simultaneously really entails. <br /><br />How would you describe it, teacher friends? <a href="https://t.co/yFRSAUTJxg">pic.twitter.com/yFRSAUTJxg</a></p>β Julie Jee π°π·πΊπ² (@mrsjjee) <a href="https://twitter.com/mrsjjee/status/1344103321813069825?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 30, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<p>I've said to a few people that this past fall semester was the most demanding for me since my first year of teaching. Most of the challenge was that I have such high expectations for myself and my teaching practice...and I fell short of those expectations. </p><p>A lot.</p><p>Here's the thing: the HyFlex model of teaching <i>sounds</i> great in theory. But it's really, really hard to do it well in practice. HyFlex is "hybrid flexible," and the basic idea is that students should be able to fully participate in class whether they attend in person or via distance learning. Early in my doctoral studies, we considered HyFlex as a pedagogical approach in a case study in one of my courses. One of the biggest problems we identified is the huge cognitive demand for instructors using this approach. You have to be able to teach students in the room and students joining via videoconference simultaneously, and either of these modes of teaching is already plenty demanding...let alone simultaneously! </p><p>To do HyFlex teaching well, you basically have <i>two</i> demanding tasks--teaching face-to-face, and teaching via live videoconference. These require similar skillsets...but not identical skillsets. And the difficulty is that you have to do them both at the same time. It's a problem! And, I think that's why I felt like I was failing almost all of the time this fall: I couldn't focus on my normal face-to-face pedagogy, because I was constantly distracted by trying to keep my Zooming students involved in what was happening in class. But the Zoomers were always the minority (just my students who were in quarantine, most of the time) and if I focused on good distance pedagogy, everything felt lifeless in the room, where the majority of my students were. And here was the most-likely-to-fail point for me: I couldn't do either of these things well (or at least, not well enough to meet my own high expectations for my teaching), so I felt a constant sense of frustration that I wasn't doing enough to support at least one group of students' learning. But what made it most difficult for me was that I was also recording each lesson, because some students were not able to join the live class meeting via videoconference, particularly if they were sick. And while teaching is always a public endeavor (you're always doing it in front of someone, right?) having a video record of my work makes me much more self-conscious!</p><p>So, to answer the question prompted by the tweet I shared above, here's my best analogy... </p><p>I can yo-yo pretty well. I was a pretty big nerd in middle school, and I yo-yoed a lot. I can do some fun tricks: walk the dog, loop the loop, around the world, and rock the cradle. Not the most impressive repertoire, but a variety of entertaining tools in my yo-yoing toolbox. </p><p>I can also juggle fairly well--with three beanbags, if I have both hands available, or two beanbags, if I have just one hand available. I was still a pretty big nerd in high school, and taught myself to juggle one afternoon, just because I decided I wanted to learn how.</p><p>I also can balance a meter stick vertically on my foot for quite a long time. I was able to balance a meter stick on my hand for years and years...and early in my middle school teaching career, I realized I could also balance it on my foot, much to the delight of my students. (Middle school teachers, am I right?) :-)</p><p>Now, here's the thing: I think HyFlex teaching is sort of like yo-yoing with my right hand, while juggling two beanbags with my left hand, and balancing a meter stick on my right foot, all at the same time. It's keeping the face-to-face teaching going, while also getting the online teaching going, and then an awareness of the camera, and how this all looks to the students who are watching it after the fact. I might get the yo-yo going (in class students), and keep the beanbags flipping and flopping (Zooming students), but then I'm suddenly derailed by the meter stick dipping--maybe a tech problem with the camera--which has me dropping beanbags, or tangling my yo-yo string.</p><p>Ugh. It was an exhausting semester. </p><p>But there were bright spots for me. My students were GREAT throughout--they were very encouraging, despite my feeling that I was failing. My colleagues were amazingly supportive in a "we're all in this together" sort of way. My fully online courses (the ones that were planned to be offered online) went really, really well, which was a buoy for sure.</p><p>I think the biggest lesson for me was that I have to be okay with letting "good enough" be "good enough" sometimes when it comes to my teaching practice. (This is HARD for me...) I will do what I can to support and encourage my students' learning, obviously, but I have to check my own expectations for teaching during a pandemic, I think. Sometimes I'm going to drop a beanbag, or get a knot in my yo-yo string, or trip over the meter stick I'm balancing. Who wouldn't flop sometimes, with all of that going on? </p><p>Maybe it's more amazing how often it all <i>worked</i> than the 10% of the time that things went sideways? I guess the real take-away for me is what I always tell my students, future teachers that they are: if you ever stop learning, perhaps it's time to stop teaching?</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RxqRlpiEb70/X-zFX08qxgI/AAAAAAAAIbU/KCzg8g0NMmYRautXZu8aG_YPa0BbRCMSQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/onlinelearning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="362" data-original-width="640" height="226" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RxqRlpiEb70/X-zFX08qxgI/AAAAAAAAIbU/KCzg8g0NMmYRautXZu8aG_YPa0BbRCMSQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h226/onlinelearning.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/learn-student-laptop-internet-3653430/" target="_blank">Gerd Altmann</a> via Pixabay</td></tr></tbody></table>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5867106943332368504.post-20311495523716770282020-12-26T11:57:00.006-06:002020-12-26T11:57:37.737-06:00Merry Christmas (And All That Stuff)<p>2020 has been weird, weird year. If you've spent any time at all on social media, I'm sure you've seen all the posts and tweets and reels and memes about how this year has been the absolute worst. And, yeah, I feel that too. It's been an emotionally taxing year for me in almost every way. And yet, there has been good, and beauty, and surprises.</p><p>In the month of December I've started several posts for the blog, and ended up discarding a couple of them, and saving a few as pieces of string I might unspool in a future post. But I didn't want to end the year on a down note...and most of the posts I had been writing were cynical or downright grumpy.</p><p>But, against all odds, I found some Christmas cheer this year.</p><p>My church has had rough times this year, but our traditional Christmas Eve service was exactly what I needed. Singing carols, celebrating communion, and a hope-filled message helped me reframe and remember just how much I love these people I worship with each Sunday.</p><p>Several of my family members have moved to the same small town where I live this year, which meant spending time with loved ones I don't typically get to see at Christmas. This was a joy!</p><p>I've made deliberate time to rest, to do <i>unproductive</i> things. This has been an exercise in intentionality, as I typically strive to be as productive as possible to feed my inner achiever. (Ah, the joys of being an Enneagram 3...) But over the past week or so, I've taken a lot more time to read for pleasure, to play games, to spend time with my wife and kids...and none of this is wasted.</p><p>Silly as it might sound, the hyped-up "Christmas Star" conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn was a lovely reminder that the world is a wonderful place. The science teacher in me marveled at this celestial moment, and the child in me was reminded of just how much I love astronomy. (Seeing Halley's Comet in 1986 left an impression!)</p><p>I am seriously thinking about starting a podcast with a colleague in the coming year, and I've found joy in brainstorming about what this could look like. Working with colleagues who continually inspire me to sharpen up and keep learning has been--and continues to be--a tremendous blessing.</p><p>Even the blizzard we experienced in Northwest Iowa this past week was a surprise blessing. I have realized I feel disappointed now if we don't have snow at Christmas (which is a little weird for this former Californian!) and it was looking like it was going to be a brown Christmas for us this year...until we got six inches of snow chased by a ferocious wind two days before!</p><p>I'm generally a pretty positive person, but the stresses of this year <i>have</i> gotten me down. I suspect I'm not alone in this. </p><p>But I hope that you, dear reader, were able to find joy in the midst of a hard year. I wish you a Merry Christmas; I hope you are able to experience a sense of hope, and peace, and joy, and love as we close out 2020.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K7rvy0zlYEI/X-d5TMw2rcI/AAAAAAAAIbI/3cLZrMvIr-ot19FY29b5FZSnqsN1mNKFgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/MerryChristmas.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K7rvy0zlYEI/X-d5TMw2rcI/AAAAAAAAIbI/3cLZrMvIr-ot19FY29b5FZSnqsN1mNKFgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h400/MerryChristmas.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From our mudroom letter board to you...</td></tr></tbody></table>Dave Mulderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18395580054297587342noreply@blogger.com2