Global Feed for Committed Technofile

Applying for the Google Teacher Academy

2010-06-29T23:50:00Z

I’m happy to announce I was accepted to the Google Teacher Academy in London on July 29th. Google sent out emails of acceptance last Friday; I excitedly squealed via Twitter and Facebook (I think maybe LinkedIn too). One person responded with a congratulations as well as a “I thought that was for K-12 educators.” I’m writing this blog as a longer response to that tweet…
This summer I’m one of the instructors in one of our MCC Study Abroad programs, the one going to England. I already knew I was going to be in England the month of July when Google announced the GTA in London, so I applied! Granted, I knew it was a long shot since they explicitly said that they target K-12 educators; however, the call for proposals also emphasized a commitment to sharing ideas through various professional development activities--which I do, a lot! Not only am I active within my community college district as well as in my discipline, I also work with local K-12 educators through connections I’ve made on my own as well as through the ATLAST grant project.
Knowing that my application was a long shot since I did not exactly fit their criteria, I decided not to spend too much time completing it (I’m not saying I spent no time, just didn’t treat it like a $50k grant). Specifically, I did not want to spend too much time making the one minute video required for the application. Therefore, I decided what I was going to say and then put together the video. I decided I would “argue” (I’m a rhetorician!) that “Classroom Innovation equals Playing and Sharing.” I then searched for images representing ”Playing” and ”Sharing” at Flickr licensed under Creative Commons. I then used Audacity to record my short blurb about playing and sharing. I used Macromedia Fireworks (what I already had loaded on my computer) to add some simple attributions to the images as well as add some key words from my audio file. I then uploaded the images and audio to Animoto and let Animoto edit together the video.

This is not a polished video; however, it does the job of conveying my beliefs about classroom innovation. The Google proposal form gave a space for any extra comments about the video. I basically outlined my process and articulated that the photo editing, just adding words on top of the images, could have been done in Flickr’s free editing software. I mentioned that I like trying to use technologies that are free and have a relatively low learning curve, technologies that other faculty and students might use in their classes.

Besides being amazed that Google actually met their deadline of reviewing all the applications in just over a week (in academia we can take weeks, even months, to review proposals), I really appreciated the second line of their acceptance email:

After reviewing your application, we believe that you have the experience and passion necessary to positively impact education in your region, and we are excited to have you join us on Thursday 29 July 2010 at the Google office in London.

So, to answer my colleague about why I might have gotten accepted although I teach in higher education, I think it because I’m also clearly dedicated to “positively impacting education in my region.” I like playing with new technologies, I enjoy testing out ideas on how they might better facilitate teaching and learning, and I adore sharing my successes and failures with others.

Revising My Teaching Philosophy, Part II

2010-06-28T01:24:00Z

Whereas teaching philosophies generally develop from your experiences as a teacher, my revised teaching philosophy has emerged from my experiences facilitating various professional development activities and working one-on-one with faculty designing, developing, and/or revising their courses. I found myself needing a way to get folks to think about how and why they were designing research & writing assignments as well as using technologies in their courses. In short, my teaching philosophy is now:

Courses need to be organized in modules that provide a variety of content delivery activities, content learning activities, and learning assessment activities; these activities all need to be aligned in terms of their learning outcome as well as in the complexity of skill and thinking.

Stereotypical math teachers, you know, the ones that don’t exist, provide the best and worst examples of this philosophy. I’m sure most know of the stereotypical way of math instruction:

the teacher delivers the content by demonstrating a few examples of a formula on a chalkboard ,
she provide the student with opportunities to learn the content by assigning 20 problems for homework, then
the students demonstrate their learning by taking a quiz or test.

And then the stereotypical way that this philosophy falls all apart is when the math instructor only demonstrates formulas, only gives formulas for homework, and then asks the students to do word problems on the test. The delivery and learning activities were out of alignment with the assessment activity.

This teaching philosophy accounts for a variety of learning styles; instructors need to make their materials accessible for different learning style as they deliver content, facilitate learning activities, and assess learning. Similarly, faculty should also try to follow guidelines suggested by brain research, things like engaging multiple senses and needing to repeat. However, my favorite part of this teaching philosophy is the explicit category of “learning activities.” Whereas the math and science instructors are generally pretty good about making sure students have low stakes activities to practice new concepts and skills, sometimes those of us in the humanities and social sciences forget to provide these learning activities. I also like that if faculty are transparent with this teaching philosophy, it places learning accountability into the hands of the students.

I’ve started developing some multimedia to help tell the story of my new philosophy…

Shell’s Theory-O-Teachin on Prezi

Revising My Teaching Philosophy, Part I

2010-06-28T00:37:01Z

Last January, instead of rereading and revising my teaching philosophy that I wrote while in grad school (really, who has the time?), I decided I would make a Wordle (word cloud) of it and see if I still "jive" with what is emphasized based on word use.

I like that the word "Students" and "Student" are some of the biggest words there. I’m happy "Learning" and "Learn" are larger; however, I now feel like my emphasis is more on learning that students (although, honestly, they are flip side of the same coin, right?). I am glad that words related to "student" and "learning" are both bigger than words with "teach" in them. I think it is a problem that "Technology" is not their; however, I know in 2001 I wrote a separate "Teaching w/Technology" philosophy.

Other words I’m happy to see:

questions
activities
ideas
writing
engage

Words I’d like to see (and/or are not popping out at me):

literacy
media
assessment

Ironically, I guess I had been developing a new teaching philosophy, it just was emerging in relation with my professional development activities (workshops, mentoring, etc.) instead of out of my teaching and learning.

Why I failed the Quality Matters Peer Review

2010-06-28T00:14:01Z

At the end of the spring 2009 semester my online ENG102 course was submitted for an official Quality Matters Peer Revier; I failed! Now, thi sis actually not surprising. Most people fail the first time their course is reviewed; however, the process is set up to account for this first round of failure. In other words, the review process allows the course instructor-designer to revise his or her course based on the first round of review. As a person who teaches writing, I appreciate this process. So, my review results were:

Course Overview & Introduction

0/3 points: 1.1 Instructions make clear how to get started and where to find various course components.
0/3 points: 1.2 A statement introduces the student to the purpose of the course and to its components; in the case of a hybrid course, the statement clarifies the relationship between the face-to-face and online components.
0/1 points: 1.3 Etiquette expectations (sometimes called “netiquette” for online discussions, email, and other forms of communication are stated clearly.
0/1 points: 1.4 The self-introduction by the instructor is appropriate and available online.
1/1 points: 1.5 Students are asked to introduce themselves to the class.
1/1 points: 1.6 Minimum student preparation, and, if applicable, prerequisite knowledge in the discipline are clearly stated.
1/1 points: 1.7 Minimum technical skills expected of the student are clearly stated.

Learning Objectives (Competencies)

3/3 points: 2.1 The course learning objectives describe outcomes that are measurable.
3/3 points: 2.2 The module/unit learning objectives describe outcomes that are measurable and consistent with the course-level objectives.
3/3 points: 2.3 All learning objectives are stated clearly and written from the students’ perspective.
3/3 points: 2.4 Instructions to students on how to meet the learning objectives are adequate and stated clearly.
2/2 points: 2.5 The learning objectives are appropriately designed for the level of the course.

Assessment & Measurement

3/3 points: 3.1 The types of assessments selected measure the stated learning objectives and are consistent with course activities and resources.
3/3 points: 3.2 The course grading policy is stated clearly.
2/2 points: 3.3 Specific and descriptive criteria are provided for the evaluation of students’ work and participation.
0/3 points: 3.4 The assessment instruments selected are sequenced, varied, and appropriate to the content being assessed.
0/3 points: 3.5 “Self-check” or practice assignments are provided, with timely feedback to students.

Resources & Materials

3/3 points: 4.1 The instructional materials contribute to the achievement of the stated course and module/unit learning objectives.
3/3 points: 4.2 The relationship between the instructional materials and the learning activities is clearly explained to the student.

2/2 points: 4.3 The instructional materials have sufficient breadth, depth, and currency for the student to learn the subject.
1/1 points: 4.4. All resources and materials used in the course are appropriately cited.

Learner Engagement

5.1 The learning activities promote the achievement of the stated learning objectives.
5.2 Learning activities foster instructor-student, content-student, and if appropriate to the course, student-student interaction.
5.3 Clear standards are set for instructor responsiveness and availability (turn-around time for email, grade posting, etc.)
5.4 The requirements for student interaction are clearly articulated.

Course Technology

3/3 points: 6.1 The tools and media support the learning objectives, and are appropriately chosen to deliver the content of the course.
3/3 points: 6.2 The tools and media support student engagement and guide the student to become an active learner.

0/3 points: 6.3 Navigation throughout the online components of the course is logical, consistent, and efficient.
2/2 points: 6.4 Students have ready access to the technologies required in the course.
1/1 points: 6.5 The course components are compatible with current standards for delivery modes.
0/1 points: 6.6 Instructions on how to access resources at a distance are sufficient and easy to understand.
1/1 points: 6.7 The course design takes full advantage of available tools and media.

Learner Support

0/2 points: 7.1 The course instructions articulate or link to clear description of the technical support offered.
0/2 points: 7.2 Course instructions articulate or link to an explanation of how the institution’s academic support system can assist the student in effectively using the resources provided.
0/1 points: 7.3 Course instructions articulate or link to an explanation of how the institution’s student support services can help students reach their educational goals.
1/1 points: 7.4 Course instructions answer basic questions related to research, writing, technology, etc., or link to tutorials or other resources that provide the information.

Accessibility

3/3 points: 8.1 The course incorporates ADA standards and reflect conformance with institutional policy regarding accessibility in online and hybrid courses.
2/2 points: 8.2 Course pages and course materials provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content.
0/2 points: 8.3 Course pages have links that are self-describing and meaningful.
1/1 points: 8.4 The course ensures screen readability.

Based on my review, I made a chunk of changes, especially with the beginning of the course. I believe that the "getting started" steps and support are a lot stronger due to this process; however, I did not make all the changes requested of me. Two major changes I did not make:

My peer-review committee thougth that by requiring Animoto for self-introduction videos I was introducing too many new technologies during an already chaotic begin to the course (not that my course was especially chaotic, just that all courses are chaotic). Whereas I agree with not wanting the beginning of an online course to be any more chaotic than necessary, I was/am not willing to give up the Animoto Introduction assignment. In over two years of having this assignment, I’ve never had a student ask for help on how to use Animoto; the application is silly easy! But what is more impressive, the Animoto Introductions are about the only assignment that almost all the students go look at every single other student’s posting. This one assignment has been worth it’s weight in gold in building course community.
The peer-review committee also didn’t like how I had the due dates for all the assignments in only one location. They wanted dates in multiple locations so that students could easily find them when needed. Again, I understand the desire to make materials easily accessible for students; however, I also know the dangers of having due dates in multiple locations. Susan Miller-Cochran and I did usability testing on earlier versions of our online ENG102 courses and found that if dates are in multiple locations, students may latch on to the wrong area of the course to guide them and then not find the rest of the work that they need to complete. Therefore, unless required by the learing management system (like setting up "assignments" in drop-boxes and such), I give all assignments associations with a deadline number, or now I use the phrase "due date." Then, in the syllabus, I give the list of dates associated with each due date number.

Ultimately, I did not make the "big" changes that my peer-reviewers required for a QM stamp-of-approval. Therefore, I failed!

I know some of my colleagues disagree with my decision to reject "suggestions" by my peer-reviewer colleagues. Maybe my experience as a rhetoric & composition scholar impacts my interpretation of "peer review" as just suggestions. However, I think I was more of stickler because although the QM process is a great for helping faculty improve their online courses, it is still a "peer" review process. I have my students conduct peer-review in writing courses; ulitimately, these reviews are not conducted by the "real" audience. Therefore, my interpretation of the requests made of me, especially the two listed above, I belive that how I have my course designed works better for the real audience of the class...the students.

Serving on the Campus & District IRB Boards

2010-06-26T16:42:00Z

Three years ago, our district finally outlined a process to set up an Institutional Review Board. They set up the “full-board” as a overall district entity; but, also set up campus boards for both faculty and student projects. As a more active scholar on my campus, I was asked to do the reviewer training through CITI and serve on our campus IRB (called the College Research Review Committee). Basically the college level IRB could approve exempt and expedited proposals; however, if the proposal needed a “full-board review” it had to go to the district level IRB.
Although no one has the extra time to do the full reviewer training, it was a worthwhile endeavor. I learned a lot of information that has helped me design studies in a more careful manner. During our first year, the CRRC met a lot! I really enjoyed talking about different projects and the potential risks involved; just like the training, these discussions were worth the time because they impacted my own researching thinking and designs later. The second year we did not meet nearly as much; and this third year, I don’t think we met face-to-face at all.
Our campus chair asked me to cover her position for a couple months when she was out. During that time period I got to attend one of the district meetings. Again, the discussion was a worthwhile experience. Since I also needed to submit my own IRB application, I was also able to test out our new electronic application and deliberation process. The geek in me was happy to give some feedback on what might make the application process run a little smoother for applicants with the primary suggestion being to provide applicants a document with all the questions before they log into the system!
Although I like being on the campus, and representing occasionally on the district, IRB committees. I’m realizing it is a little difficult as well since I’m one of the more active researchers on our campus. If I’m one of the few active IRB members, but I can’t be a reader for my own application, that causes a problem. I think the electronic system will help with that because we could get readers from other campuses; however, I’m sad that it would cut down on the robust dialog we had during face-to-face meetings.
(PS...this is a boring descriptive post because it is a part of my Faculty Evaluation Plan).
(PPS...sorry to all of you who saw the accidental early posting of this before it was done.)

2010 Faculty Evaluation Plan

2010-06-26T00:29:00Z

Once a faculty member in the Maricopa Community College District gets “tenure” (or is no longer in his or her “probationary” period), he or she has to submit a Faculty Evaluation Plan (FEP), basically a self-study/reflection, every three years. This year was my third year since leaving probation/getting tenure. One of the things I’m trying to do with this FEP is get up an running with a digital professional portfolio. And although I really think I wanted to do it in a wiki, I also really want to get back to my professional identify living in my blog. Thus...the blog wins! The following is very formulaic and is the cover page, what is officially submitted, for the FEP.
FEP Summary
Faculty Member’s Name: Rochelle Rodrigo
College and Department: Mesa Community College, English Department & Center for Teaching & Learning
Date Completed: June 25, 2010 For Academic Year: 2009-10
Faculty Evaluation Team

Jeffery Andelora
Naomi Story

Three Required Areas:

1. Teaching, Learning and/or Service (Why I failed the Quality Matters Peer Review and Revising My Teaching Philosophy Part I & Part II)

2. Course Assessment and/or Program Development/Revision (Developing a Writing Certificate Program)

3. Governance and/or Committee Participation at the College and/or District levels (Serving on the Campus & District IRB Boards)

Two Elective Areas:
1. Professional Development (My StrengthsQuest Results)
2. Acquisition of New Skills (I’m Loving MindMeister)

Additional/Related Areas:

1. Service to Community (Writing for EduKid)

2. Disciplinary Service (CCCCs Executive Committee)

Summative Reflection

1. Brief description of my roles and responsibilities as a faculty member:

During the past three years I have taken on a lot more responsibilities related to the role of faculty professional development coordinator. During the 2007-8 academic year, I was completely reassigned to the CTL to function as MCC’s Interim Instructional Technologist while we did a full search to fill the position. For 2008-9 I applied for the faculty developer (I prefer to call is faculty professional development coordinator) position and had nine hours of reassign time to facilitate the New Faculty Experience (NFE) program as well as coordinator faculty professional development activities on campus. For the 2009-10 academic year nine hours of reassign time shrunk to six hours, and I gained more work since we lost our adjunct faculty professional development coordinator position. During the Spring 2010 semester I decided to only facilitate NFE for three hours of reassign time.

As Instructional Technologist, I added teaching CIS236 and CIS237 to my list of courses taught. I also continued to grow the number of workshops, usually about teaching with technology, that I taught at MCC or in the district. I also taught HUM206 for the first time during the Fall 2008 semester. Besides teaching and professional development activities, I continued serving on various committees in the English Department, in the College, and in the District.

2. Focus of the FEP (teaching and course or program development/revision) and a brief statement of rationale and purpose:

For this FEP I focused on three examples of professional self-evaluation, reflection, and growth. First, I submitted my online ENG102 course to the official Quality Matters review process. As is normal, I did not pass the first round of review; however, since I decided not to make some of the changes my peer-reviewers suggested, I did not officially pass the Quality Matters review. I believe the QM review criteria are generally good, like most online/hybrid course criteria; however, I didn’t agree with the interpretation of those criteria with some aspects of my course. I also blatantly did not make two other suggested changes and presented reasons why; however, again, the peer-reviewers and I disagreed on my justifications. Please read my more detailed reflection on this process in my blog posting titled ”Why I failed the Quality Matters Peer Review.”

The second serious reflection and change came about in reaction to working with other faculty for three years in helping them develop online, hybrid, and/or technologically mediated courses. Basically, I simplified my teaching philosophy. This simplification came more at the desire to provide faculty constructing courses with a more streamlined way to think about how/why they are organizing their course; however, it is also helping me continue to rethinking my own teaching practices (both in the traditional academic classroom as well as in workshop settings). In short, my philosophy is now:

Courses need to be organized in modules that provide a variety of content delivery activities, content learning activities, and learning assessment activities; these activities all need to be aligned in terms of their learning outcome as well as in the complexity of skill and thinking.

To read more about my new teaching philosophy, visit the blog posts titled Revising My Teaching Philosophy Part I and Part II

Finally, I’m thrilled that after three years the English department finally submitted our curriculum for a writing certificate program. During most of that time I chaired the Composition Committee whom did the major work during this process. It took us so long because the English Instructional Council wanted us to develop curriculum for a 200 level course that the program would require as well as some type of capstone. The two courses had to be developed, proposed, and accepted through the entire curriculum process before we could submit the writing certificate proposal. We were happy to announce that ENG270: Workplace Writing and ENG297: Writing Program Portfolio were approved by the end of the Spring 2010 semester. And although we’re glad that the district has decided that it needs to “improve” the process for academic certificates, we’re bummed that our proposal is now put on hold until that process has been updated. To read more reflections on this curriculum process, visit the blog posting titled ”Developing a Writing Certificate Program.”

3. Summary of accomplishments and outcomes:

During this three year period I’m most proud of the completion and “publication” of three book length projects: The Wadsworth Guide to Research (co-authored), Rhetorically Rethinking Usability (co-edited), and Motivation and Play: How Faculty Continue to Learn New Technologies (my dissertation). I was also honored that the New Media Consortium refer to my online ENH241: American Literature before 1860 course as an example of “open content” teaching within the 2010 Horizon Report. Finally, I was honored by my colleagues at MCC when I received the Residential Faculty Excellence Award for the Fall 2008 semester.

4. Brief statement of plans to integrate or apply this learning into my work as a faculty member:

The current “learning” I’m integrating into my work as a faculty member is my three part/cycle teaching philosophy. First, I’m increasingly using this philosophy in the workshops I present and while I’m talking to faculty about building and/or revising their courses. I’m also trying to develop and revise my on courses to fit into this philosophy as well. To read more about my new teaching philosophy and how I’m trying to use it, visit the blog posting titled ”Revising My Teaching Philosophy, Part II.”

5. What method and class was used for the student/service recipient evaluation?

I always ask for students and workshop participants to evaluate my teaching/facilitating; however, with online courses it is very difficult to get a high return rate on course evaluations. Similarly, with workshops, all the people who are getting some type of credit for the workshop always complete the evaluation; however, since it has their names attached to it, I question the validity. The evaluations for the workshops are in a variety of locations and I did not hunt them all down to do a comparative analysis; however, usually I get positive comments about my personality and enthusiasm and how that engages and excites the participants. In terms of suggestions for revisions, the comments that I continue to work are generally about providing more support materials and specific examples.

Since the Fall 2008 semester I have collected all my course evaluation data using Google Spreadsheets. I ask the basic questions from the English Department’s Course Evaluation Form that asks students to respond on a 1-5 scale (1 = does not apply to this course and 5 = Excellent). I’m happy to say that all questions except for two had an average score of over 4.0 (the two exceptions: Time in Class, the full class period is used effectively was a 3.73 and Testing, exams cover material on which I expect to be tested was a 3.79). My highest rating was a 4.63 in Knowledge of Subject, the instructor demonstrates a comprehensive knowledge of the subject area of the course. In the open ended questions I would argue my most positive comment was similar to what I get in my workshops, references to enthusiasm and passion. As for negative, I’ve got to get better at turning over grading of major projects/assignments. To read more of my reflections on my course evaluations, read the blog posting titled ”A Synthesis of Course Evaluations, Fall 2008-Spring 2010.”

6. Goals for next evaluation

Survive?! I say that jokingly; however, there is something to it! To stay sane and healthy I have got to try to figure out a way to gracefully and politely say “no” to both “fabulous opportunities” and to some requests for help for which I sincerely do not have the time, nor am I being compensated for; maybe some of the tips and suggestions from my StrengthsGuests results might help. I would also like to start incorporating more self-regulatory and study skills into my courses to help my students become better learners and hopefully successful students. Maybe I can be transparent with my students as an example about self-discipline and self-regulation and talk about my own need to be better about dedicating time and energy in a timely manner to get graded work back to them (as per the results of my course evaluations). I don’t want, nor have the time, to do a huge study correlating incorporating study skills content with retention rates; I just want to try to track what type of activities I’m incorporating into my classes and start keeping better track of my retention rates. We’ll see about this last idea in regards to balancing time, energy, and sanity (back to goal number one).

A Synthesis of Course Evaluations, Fall 2008-Spring 2010

2010-06-21T16:42:00Z

Course Objectives: course objectives are clearly defined: 4.41
Course Organization: Course syllabus, outline, and other materials are made available.4.23
Time in Class: The full class period is used effectively: 3.74
Instructional Materials: The instructional materials (textbooks, slides, tapes, films, reference books, etc.) are used effectively and are easily understood: 4.29
Assignments: Assignments are clearly presented: 4.24
Testing: Exams cover material on which I expect to be tested: 3.79
Grading: Grades are assigned fairly: 4.24
Students’ Progress: I am gaining a good understanding of the concepts and principles in this course: 4.35
Knowledge of Subject: The instructor demonstrates a comprehensive knowledge of the subject area of the course: 4.64
Ability to Communicate: The instructor gives clear explanations and responds effectively to students’ needs for clarification:4.36
Ability to Create Student Interest in Subject: The instructor encourages questions and/or participation and makes good use of examples and illustrations: 4.41
Enthusiasm for Teaching: The instructor maintains a positive atmosphere in class and seems to enjoy teaching: 4.53
Attitude Towards Students: The instructor displays respect for students: 4.61
Instructor Availability: The instructor is accessible other than class time: 4.39

The two lowest scoring categories, the only two under a 4.0 average, (Time in Class, the full class period is used effectively and Testing, exams cover material on which I expect to be tested) sent me back to figure out what classes were being evaluated. These averages come from a variety of courses:

In this time period, all of the ENG101 and ENG102 courses were taught online (as was the ENH241 and CIS237). HUM206 was a hybrid, and one out of four sections of HUM/WST209 was online, the other four face-to-face. I sorted the results via course and I’m relieved to see that both areas, use of class time and testing, were above 4.0 in the HUM/WST209—the only course I consistently teach face-to-face and actually have “tests.” A lot of folks in online courses marked “1: does not apply to this course” on the use of class time question. Similarly, many writing students marked a 1 for the testing question. In both cases, that would lower the overall average when in reality the students were marking the question did not apply. (So I’m thinking maybe 0 needs to be the answer for that response so not to skew the results. Time to go talk to someone in institutional research and planning.)

I was happy to see my two highest ratings, both above a 4.5 average were: Knowledge of Subject: The instructor demonstrates a comprehensive knowledge of the subject area of the course Attitude Towards Students: The instructor displays respect for students Although I’m happy to know that students are confident in my knowledge, I’m thrilled to know that they recognize that I respect their knowledge and experience as well.

As for the open ended responses, the four questions are:

Comments on the Instructor:
What do you LIKE MOST about the course?
What do you LIKE LEAST about the course?
What changes would you suggest in class procedures?

I read through the comments and my general responses to the categories are as follow…

Comments on the Instructor:

The general vibe was a positive one! There were lots of repeated comments about students being engaged by my enthusiasm and passion. There were also lots of comments about me being knowledgeable about the topics. I sincerely appreciated the various comments about my promptness and helpfulness in responding to general calls for help.

That being said, the major negative thing that was repeated was my lack of promptness on grading. UGH…I know this is a problem (I really, really hate grading papers); however, reading through these make me realize I’ve got to start being much more disciplined about turning around graded papers in a prompt manner. This also resonates with the statistics about students higher satisfaction with their course management system when they are using the CMS more than once a week (from the 2009 ECAR Student Technology Usage study). In other words, I need to be more active in online course’s (specifically with grading major assignments; however, I know I need to make more general appearances/announcements as well). I’ll admit, part of the reason I’m returning to the classroom (I’m only teaching hybrid courses at MCC this fall) is because it is much harder to put off grading and returning papers when you’ve got to look students in the eye during class the next day.

What do you LIKE MOST about the course?

As usual with course evaluations, there were comments all over the place, some discussing very specific assignments and/or readings. In terms of repetitive comments, I got a lot of comments from my women & film students about the variety of films we watched. I’ll confess, the core design of my course is based off of Nancy Hellner’s course; however, I have swapped in and out various films over the 5+ years I’ve taught the course.

I really appreciated all the positive comments about peer reviews. I’ll admit, I also got negative comments in the later two open comment areas from people who did not get prompt and/or any peer reviews because of some students not participating.

There were also a sprinkling of comments appreciating the techiness of the courses. These students generally either thanked me for working with contemporary technologies and/or appreciated learning about them.

What do you LIKE LEAST about the course? and What changes would you suggest in class procedures?

The repeated message I got across the types of courses was “too much work.” Within those comments there were two general aspects: “this is a summer course and should be easier” as well as “to much fluff work, focus on the papers.”

I’ll admit, the comments about making summer classes easier makes me cranky! These courses have the same course competencies/outcomes as a traditional course and transfer with the same credits as a full course. For the past couple of years I developed online courses with 15 deadlines; these could function as one deadline a week for full semesters, two a week for 8 week courses, and 3 a week for 5 week courses. All this to say that I don’t intend to make these courses easier; I’ll just need to be much more explicit about this at the beginning of the shorter session (which I was this summer and promptly lost students the first couple of days).

The second comment was referring to all of the invention work in the writing classes. This makes me think I need to be much more explicit about what/how/why invention work is as well as the point of a writing course being to share some writing strategies that you may or may not use every time you compose. I already started talking with Devon about this…we’ll see how we develop this reasoning and how we share it with students in future courses.

I’m loving MindMeister

2010-06-21T02:41:00Z

This past December I decided to upgrade my MindMeister account for one year. I had played enough with MindMeister that I knew I really wanted to seriously play and needed more than the three mindmaps that the free account would give me. I have not regretted this purchase at all! I’ve built mindmaps for:

What I found while developing the last mindmap about 21st Century Literacies, as well as another workshop mindmap about my teaching/course organization philosophy (below), is that my outlining my thoughts, ideas, notes, and thinking in this application, I usually make connections I did not see before.

On the one hand, I’m not surprised by this! This is what all the proponents of mind and/or cluster mapping talk about; however, as one of those more linear thinkers that succeeded in a school system that privileged linear thinking...I had never found much of a use for mindmapping. What is now fun is that I have to try to convince my colleagues that although they may think linearly and can’t imagine working in such an environment, they need to acknowledge that some of their students might work and think better with this type of a tool. In other words, we might be able to see students demonstrating learning in this environment in a manner that was not possible before. For example, I loved the variety of formats different students of my demonstrating in taking notes from the same five or six chapters of reading:

example 1
example 2
example 3
example 4

Similarly, instead of having students write up bad reflection essays or end of term papers, I gave them the option of presenting in MindMeister. Check out both this, and this, example; be sure to read the notes and open the nodes to see all of the thinking and writing that went into these documents. I had a few other students do great jobs with colors and uploading images.

I was also ecstatic to learn that MindMeister has a history/timeline tool that allows users who have view or edit access to the document to see who made what changes at what point within the timeline. This not only allows individuals to see earlier versions, but to revert to them as well. The timeline also provides the names of the users who made particular changes (think of what this might mean for collaborative assignments!).

This review of MindMeister is actually functioning as my demonstration of acquiring new skills for my 2010 Faculty Evaluation Plan; however, I am happy to rant and rave. I will be honest and say that Mindomo is also a great mind/cluster mapping tool that does a lot of the same things. At this point I can say that I will probably maintain my subscription (I guess it depends on my budget); however, I will definitely keep assigning these tools in my classes. I can’t wait to try an assignment where students use the ranking and due dates features as well.

My StrengthsQuest Results

2010-06-20T17:16:00Z

During the Spring 2010 week of accountability, we had the New Faculty Experience group participate in a StrengthsQuest professional development day. Prior to the day, we all had to take the StrengthsQuest assessment to get our top five strengths. The following are my top five areas with my quick reflections on examples of how I fit the category:

INPUT: People who are especially talented in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information. I think my 2984 links in delicious, over 3300 when I’m signed in, demonstrate a collecting habit.
SIGNIFICANCE: People who are especially talented in the Significance theme want to be very important in the eyes of others. They are independent and want to be recognized.I admit it, I’m an egotistical little turd! I’m very proud to have my name as co-author on a textbook and co-editor on an edited collection.
STRATEGIC: People who are especially talented in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues. I think this strength is what makes me good as a teacher who uses technology. With technology it’s never a question of if it will fairl, only a question of when. Therefore, geeky teachers have to be ready on the fly to come up with a different activity.
LEARNER: People who are especially talented in the Learner theme have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them. I don’t think it was a big surprise to all the faculty in the room that over half of us had “learner” as top five category. I think the 141 RSS feeds I subscribe to in my Google Reader account (although I’m woefully behind in reading them) as well as my daily dedication to skimming The Chronicle of Higher Ed‘s and Inside Higher Ed‘s email updates demonstrates the commitment to learning something new.
IDEATION: People who are especially talented in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena. I firmly believe this is why people like chatting with me when it comes to teaching with new technologies. I love looking at a new technology and start brainstorming how/why it might better facilitate learning in a variety of content areas and class modalities.

The SrengthsQuest program provided a variety of suggestions of how to improve/grow a person’s strengths. I’m pasted in the ones below I think I want to try to work on the next couple of years.

Input

Identify your areas of specialization and actively seek more information about them.—Although I’ve been doing this every time I prep for a workshop; I know I need to do this more systematically in a way that is about sustaining a life-long research/scholarly agenda.
Make time to read books and articles that stimulate you. Schedule the times.—I definitely need to do this…I read every night before bed; however, it is fiction. It has helped that I’ve started reviewing for Educause Quarterly, WPA Journal and TETYC; however, I also need to get myself reading scholarly journals and books.
Devise a system to store and easily locate information. This can be as simple as a file for all the articles you have clipped, or as sophisticated as a computer database.—Considering that bibliographic database programs existed when I did my dissertation, I should have started a database of resources then; however, I did not. I would love to motivate myself to start a database of annotated bibliographies with something like Zotero; however, I at least have my 3000+ links in delicious and others in Diigo as well.
Identify situations in which you can share the information you have collected with other people.—I do this already with workshops and other presentations; I need to make a master list of all the workshop I’ve done so that I can tell folks what I can do. Since I always refresh/reprep for each workshop, continuing to do workshops helps me grow my knowledge base.
Partner with someone with a strong Focus or Discipline theme. This person will help you stay on track when your inquisitiveness leads you down intriguing but distracting avenues.—Susan…I miss having you locally!

Significance

Your reputation is important to you, so decide what it should be and tend to it in the smallest detail.—On the one hand I do this, I write, speak, etc. However, because I over commit myself, I don’t do as polished of a job as I should in the name of reputation.
Make a list of the goals, achievements, and qualifications you crave and post them where you will see them every day. Use this list to inspire yourself.—Isn’t this my to-do list? LOL

Strategic

You can see repercussions more clearly than others. Take advantage of this ability by planning your range of responses in detail. There is little point in knowing where events will lead if you are not ready when they do.—I’m thinking I should do this more when making decisions, especially decisions about taking on new responsibilities.
Trust your intuitive insights as often as possible. Even though you might not be able to explain them rationally, your intuitions are created by a brain that instinctively anticipates and projects. Have confidence in these intuitions.—I love reading this suggestion; I like having the excuse to trust my intuition!
Find a group that you think does important work and contribute your Strategic thinking. You can be a leader with your ideas.—I’ve started participating in more national/disciplinary organizations.

Learner

Seek roles that require some form of technical competence. You will enjoy the process of acquiring and maintaining this competence.—I think this is one of those reasons I like to play with new technologies!
Find ways to track the progress of your learning. If there are distinct levels or stages of learning within the discipline or skill, take a moment to celebrate your progression from one level to the next. If no such levels exist, create them for yourself (e.g., reading five books on the subject, or making three presentations on the subject).—Maybe this can overlap with the “carve out time to read” suggestion above!

Ideation

Schedule time to read, because the ideas and experiences of others can become your raw material for new ideas. Schedule time to think, because thinking energizes you.—In the CTL we talked about the need for “thinking” or “R&D” time. I’m thinking I need to be more disciplined about making time for myself.
Finish your thoughts and ideas before communicating them. Lacking your Ideation strength, others might not be able to “join the dots” of an interesting but incomplete idea, and thus might dismiss it.—My high school English teacher made me aware of this problem…I try to do it; however, the ideas are so exciting and I just want to share them.
Partner with someone with a strong Analytical theme. This person will question you and challenge you, therefore strengthening your ideas.—Susan, didn’t I already say I missed having you local?

Developing a Writing Certificate Program

2010-06-20T16:48:00Z

I admit it, I thought we could produce a proposal for an Academic Writing Certificate pretty quickly...and we did during the 2007-8 academic year. At the beginning of Fall 2008 we took our proposal to the English Instructional Council (EIC). Our proposal basically allowed students to take ENG101 and ENG102, take a few more writing courses and call it an academic certificate.
Because one of the other colleges had recently gone through some bad experiences with another academic certificate, the EIC sent the proposal back requesting two things:

one more 200 level required course, and
some capstone activity.

It took three full semesters for our Composition Committee to finally reemerge with a new proposal. We added a 200 level Workplace Writing course as well as a Portfolio Capstone requirement. Since the courses have to already be approved and in the course bank before a program can require them, we submitted the two course proposals during the Spring 2010 semester; both were approved by the end of the semester. And although the Writing Certificate Program proposal is officially submitted, we are now waiting for the district to revise it’s academic certificate proposal process.
One of the reasons the process slowed down is because we introduce more people into the process. During the Fall 2008 semester we also had hired on two more rhet/comp faculty members who were very excited about developing the writing certificate program and had definite ideas of their own. We ended up basically starting from scratch; however, had much more critical and reflective discussions and developed a more robust program proposal. I’ll admit that I still don’t necessarily agree that the required upper division level course for this certificate should be focused on workplace or professional writing; however, this process was all about negotiation for all of us on the committee.

Ultimately, I am very proud of the work of our committee and our resulting writing certificate program proposal and can’t wait for it to be approved so we can start advertising to students.

CCCCs Executive Committee

2010-06-18T21:15:00Z

I love Duane Roen, my dissertation chair and scholarly mentor. He was good and tried protecting me from national/disciplinary service commitments until I had finished my dissertation. Now, I have to give him credit because although I sabotaged my own PhD progress by still serving on these type of committees, working too much, writing a textbook, etc., he still protected me. I really know that because practically within days of defending my dissertations I was getting requests to serve on different committees. Needless to say, I have been elected to the CCCC‘s Executive Committee. This is a three year committement and I have to attend both the annual CCCCs confernece in the Spring and NCTE’s annual conference in the Fall. After attending my first meeting this past spring, I can say I’m both excited and intimidated about being on the committee. I’m glad to represent community college interests the committee. However, I also realize there is a lot of work with various sub-committees and such. I’m even overwhelmed with all of the official and unofficial responsibilities I have at the CCCCs conference itself. My TripIt planner was pages long, getting me started as early as 7:00am (as in events started that early) and going late into the evening (yes, late night socializing is serious “work” at this conference). Prior to being elected to this committee I sincerely thought I wanted to be TYCA Chair someday; however this position at least makes me appreciate the time, energy, and traveling commitment that type of a role requires.
I’ll admit, there is no shining pearl of wisdom in this blog post...it’s more of a “here’s what I’m up to” so that I can connect it to my 2010 Faculty Evaluation Plan. I will, however, ask the following question to any readers: how do you balance your regular work, institutional service, and national and/or disciplinary service?

Writing for EduKid

2010-06-18T21:11:01Z

During the Fall 2009 semester I did a workshop on Facebook for Mesa Life Options (a community outreach component of MCC). Kate Ali’varius, the editor of EduKid, attended. EduKid is a local non-profit publication for school-age children. Kate asked me to write a technology column for the paper. My first column was about Wikipedia and it was published in the December 2009 issue (page 6). My second column, in the May 2010 issue, as about alternative Google Search Engines. I’m planning to do a follow up article on using Google’s Advanced Search Pages. Other technologies I think will be interesting to this audience include: Social Bookmarking/Diigo and security options/features in social networking sites like Facebook. (If you have other ideas, feel free to reply below!)
I’m very excited about this project because I think it is a perfect example of scholarly service. I’m taking the skills and knowledge I’ve learned as a teacher and scholar and I’m applying them in the real world. How Groovy is that?

Computers & Writing 2010

2010-05-21T12:12:01Z

I’m trying a little experiment with Susan’s grad students while at Computers & Writing 2010. We’re trying to take notes in a variety of places with different technologies. I’m setting up a CoverItLive to at least track Computers & Writing 2010 Twitter hashtag (#cw2010) but hoping they’ll take notes too!
Computers & Writing 2010

The Start of Summer 2010

2010-05-20T04:07:00Z

The last grades for the spring semester are in, the 2010 mTech conference has already come and gone, and I’m already sitting in West Lafayette, Indiana for the start of the 2010 Computers and Writing Conference. I’d say this is a GREAT start for summer 2010. I decided to make a Wiffiti board for C&W this year...I like that this blog post will now be dynamic!

Oh, What a Wonderful Day in San Jose

2010-05-06T02:52:00Z

I’m sitting at San Jose International Airport waiting to go home to Phoenix after a full day at San Jose State University. The director of their Center for Faculty Development asked me to keynote (present a one hour presentation and a one hour workshop) for their Spring Forum (see the program attachment below). Thanks “super-secret” nmc folks for suggesting me! Ultimately, I had a blast and it feels like most of the participants had a good time and will be playing with a few new technologies this summer (especially Diigo and MindMeister).
I’m a little tired, I was up polishing (oh, you know me, blatantly finishing) my presentation early this morning (participants commented on the time/date stamp of some of the work...damn social bookmarking...PP doesn’t show your last time/date stamp during the presentation!). Since I’m too tired to be doing “real” work (you know all the grading I’m behind on), I figured I’d do a little reflection of what went down.
I was definitely 100% prepared for the first “presentation.” By the time I started the program was 10-15 minutes behind and so I got cut off a little at the end (which means I actually was close to planning correctly, I’ve almost always got too much stuff). I presented the full first talk from Glogster.

I’m going to have to get one of those airpads to present from since I insist on presenting from stuff that does not run from a remote slide advancer and I had to direct someone to click links for me (the speaker stand was at the side of the room). We spent a chunk of time on the 21st Century Skills/Literacies mindmap (see below) I made and then rushed through the Diigo List. During the workshop hour, we spent most of the time getting people up and running with a Diigo account and then I quickly showed some examples of using Wikis and MindMaps.

I started a new workshop wiki resource for the workshop; however, didn’t get much of it up and running. I know some more will fill out for the MCLI pre-conference workshops week after next and it will be fully fleshed out in time for Educause next October. I have to admit; however, I’m proud of the banner art!
http://www.committedtechnofile.com/images/uploads/springforum2010.pdfhttp://www.committedtechnofile.com/images/uploads/springforum2010.pdf