Oh, the Humanities!

Just saw this gem on Twitter...

Make your heart sing. #WednesdayWisdom pic.twitter.com/lO72Tf1tjD

— NEH (@NEHgov) July 26, 2017

I love this so much.

Observation as Professional Development

I've had the opportunity to visit several colleagues' classes this semester. It was a privilege for me to sit in on a variety of different disciplines that are not my direct area of expertise across the humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences.

I've volunteered to serve as a peer mentor, which means I sit in on another professor's class to help him or her think about the teaching and learning happening there. There are a small team of us who are doing this. We began by visiting each others' classes and practicing some techniques for providing feedback. We explored different things we can look for, such as tracking the level of questions being asked, mapping the interactions taking place, capturing student engagement (check out their body English--it speaks!), or even just the gestalt "what's-it-like-being-in-this-class?" from an outsider's perspective.

Hacking the LMS: Breaking Out of the Defaults

I tend to take a very broad view of "technology." So often when we hear that word, we immediately go digital: computers, tablets, the Internet, 3D printers, wearables, etc. are "technology," right? But could a hammer also be considered “technology?”

What if we instead define "technology" as any tools designed to solve a particular problem? In his prescient (1992) book Technopoloy: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Neil Postman describes technology as “largely invented to do two things: solve specific and urgent problems of physical life…[and]…serve the symbolic world of art, politics, myth, ritual, and religion…” (p. 23). When viewed this way, hammers, stethoscopes, plungers, and the Internet can all be considered technologies, though probably all in the former category rather than the latter.

Frankly, in the realm of educational technology, we are quick to think of computers first, aren’t we? But I have argued before that even a pencil is an educational technology: a tool designed—or appropriated—to solve a specific problem for education (borrowing from Postman’s language.)

Dissenting Opinions

This tweet showed up in my Twitterfeed today, retweeted by a friend:

Without dissenting voices & diversity of thought, the storyline never changes (& it has to change) @HealthUKTD pic.twitter.com/AVhkLQu8iK

— Helen Bevan (@helenbevan) May 31, 2015

I laughed. So truthy. (Like something @BluntEducator might have tweeted.)

A similar idea actually came up in a pedagogy workshop I was part of yesterday. A group of colleagues from across disciplines get together regularly throughout the summer to talk about our teaching practices--it's a great way to get to know faculty from other departments and to reflect together on how we are teaching.

Freshman Expectations: "You Aren't In High School Anymore!"

Yesterday I posted a bit about good pedagogy, and technology, and navigating change in today's educational environment. My friend Ed replied and his point got me thinking some more about one part of the discussion fodder I shared in that post in particular: the idea that there is a real difference in expectations for learning in high school vs. learning in college. He was responding to a quote I shared in that piece that came from an article entitled "Message to My Freshman Students."

You see, I teach a lot of freshmen, first year college students. As in, they were just in high school in May, and then show up in my college class in August.

So I'm thinking now about how I can better help the freshmen I teach in Intro to Education understand the difference in expectations for their learning from high school to college. Because if I'm going to expect them to be dramatically different learners than they were in high school, they need to understand the difference.