Thoughts on Publishing and on Being an Academic

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 first post of this year 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.

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 "Assessing Digital Nativeness in Pre-Service Teachers: Analysis of the Digital Natives Assessment Scale and Implications for Practice," and we got it published in the Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 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 "Where Should Educational Technologists Publish Their Research?") 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. 

But I recently read this piece from John Hwang entitled "Christian Scholars have a Distribution Problem," 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.

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?

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 read those pieces that have gone through peer review...it's still a striking difference.

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 JRTE. 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.

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.

Or take podcasting as another experiment in informal publishing. Along with my Education department buddies, Abby and Matt, we started recording Hallway Conversations 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. 

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.

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.

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? 

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!

Image by Mohammed Hassan via Pixabay

Giving Up on a Book

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. 

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.

Stubborn, see?

But there have been a few notable exceptions.

In high school, I was assigned to read Moby Dick. 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.

As a former science teacher, I tried reading Darwin's On the Origin of the Species. 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?)

And then there is Ready Player One. 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.

Why do I feel guilty about giving up on a book? I do 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.

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?

How about you? Do you give up on a book if you aren't feeling into it? Or do you keep slogging?

Photo by Karolina Grabowska via Pexels

On the Death of My Clicker: A Reflection on Technology and Pedagogy

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.

Alas, dear Keyspan...we salute you.

Why grieve this ancient piece of technology? All right, grief 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.

The clicker is kaput. A faithful tool that served me well for 13+ years...no more.

Why lament it's passing? Maybe it's just because it's so comfortable to use? Maybe it's just because it's so familiar to use? 

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. 

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.

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.

So, here's to the Keyspan, which served me well for so long! Rest in peace (or is that "rest in pieces?")

Ah, and...of course...I ordered a new clicker as a replacement. And this one has rechargeable batteries, and a green laser instead!

First Day Jitters and Joy

It's day one, again. 

It's my 10th first day teaching at Dordt.

It's my 24th first day of teaching, overall.

It's my 40th first day of school in my life(??!!)

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.

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." 

And yet...

...I feel the jitters.

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.

Obligatory first day of school photo, yeah?

Class went great today, by the way. The first moments flew by, and I got the jitters out.

Students were responsive, and interactive, and seemed excited to be there too.

All good things...and their jitters seemed to be relieved as well.

Day 2 tomorrow...fewer jitters, probably. Just as much joy, almost certainly!

My Pseudo-Hiatus for Summer

Haven't written much on the ol' blog this summer.

It's a combination of being busy with other things (teaching a couple of courses, recording and editing episodes of Hallway Conversations, working on two ongoing research projects) and--I think--exhaustion from the last year and a quarter of incredibly demanding teaching.

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.

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. 

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.)

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 distance teaching tips, 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.

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.

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! 

Yeah...not my feet...and not my photo, unfortunately.
Thanks to Tabeajaichhalt on Pixabay for this one.

The Future of the Teaching Profession

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 so many things 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?"

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.) :-)

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.

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.

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 exhausted by all the extra emotional labor 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.

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?"

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?

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?

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:

• "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."
• "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 $$$$"
• "I can’t imagine doing anything else, but I also can’t imagine being able to do years like the last 3 for very much longer. It’s been...a lot."
• "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..."
• "I hear younger teachers say their reason for leaving is the lack of flexibility and input.
• "Definitely coming back next year! It’s 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..."

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."

Ooof.

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 teaching...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 COVID 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?

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? 

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?

Weighing Our Words: The Impact of a Teacher

Last week I heard that a former professor of mine had passed away. Gloria Goris Stronks 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.

Dr. Gloria Stronks

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. 

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.

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.

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? 

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!