Teaching in Higher Ed

Three lessons my children have taught me about teaching

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I had lunch with a former colleague at Strawberry Farms here in Irvine, CA, recently. What a great opportunity to admire the beautiful flowers that surround the place (see photo), despite the otherwise dreary day. If any of you reading this are locals and want an amazing salad, you can't go wrong with their chicken Waldorf.

flowers

 

My lunch companion has children that are 17 and 19, while our kids are two and just four months old. In the course of our conversation, my friend and I lamented about the physical demands that young children take in stark contrast to the cognitive challenges that older kids bring.

The process of parenting can be the great educator: always challenging and always providing new opportunities for learning. Here are three lessons my children have taught me about teaching:

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Still questioning the effectiveness of rubrics?

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Ever since I first read the book Introduction to Rubrics: An Assessment Tool to Save Grading Time, Convey Effective Feedback, and Promote Student Learning, I was hooked.

However, I am surrounded by colleagues who not only don't see value in them, but think they are a deterrent to teaching. Their concerns range from what I call the supreme court method of assessment (“I'll know it when I see it) to the “sink or swim” mentality that they say will help prepare our students for corporate life.

I see… If there are awful managers out there who don't communicate their expectations well, we should definitely employ their methods in our teaching process…

arrowpavement

 

It doesn't take long to find a poor quality rubric, which certainly contributes to the concerns about their validity. Grant Wiggins stresses the importance of having “intelligent versus thoughtless” rubrics. It takes time to craft a rubric that truly assessed learning and, over time, increases the quality of student work. A rubric should provide the means to assess quality in differing degrees. If what is being described is a binary characteristic (the student either included it, or didn't), the proper term is checklist, not rubric (Wiggins).

If you're reading this post and have attempted to use rubrics well, but still aren't sure you've capitalized on their benefits, this is the right place for you. Here are ways to get more out of rubrics by capturing, curating, and creating them:

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How to leverage the bookmarks you’ve saved

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I've been teaching the practice of Personal Knowledge Management to my doctoral students this term. One thing I didn't anticipate was just how challenging it would be for some of them to select tools to use in the process. I didn't want to dictate that they had to use particular apps, but I'm thinking that I need to create an “essentials” or “basics” set to provide for those on the lower end of the digital literacy spectrum.

computeroutside

 

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How to leverage the bookmarks you've saved

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I've been teaching the practice of Personal Knowledge Management to my doctoral students this term. One thing I didn't anticipate was just how challenging it would be for some of them to select tools to use in the process. I didn't want to dictate that they had to use particular apps, but I'm thinking that I need to create an “essentials” or “basics” set to provide for those on the lower end of the digital literacy spectrum.

computeroutside

 

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Personal knowledge management online modules and articles

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As a part of a doctoral class that I’m teaching, we’ve been engaging in the subject of personal knowledge management (PKM). I created three modules for the course, which I’ve made available to anyone who cares to watch, in the open spirit of PKM.

connections

PKM Module

1) An introduction to personal knowledge management

PKM Articles and Blogs from Students

The doctoral cohort is beginning to explore PKM on their own, now. They have found some terrific blogs and articles on the subject, which really exemplifies the positive attributes of the final stage of PKM. Below are some of the articles they shared that caught my attention.

“Working out loud”: Your personal content strategy, by John Stepper (www.twitter.com/johnstepper)

http://johnstepper.com/2012/05/26/working-out-loud-your-personal-content-strategy/

Stepper challenges people to work beyond the two most common objections to implementing a PKM: lack of adequate time and uncertainty as to what to post. He provides a definition for “working out loud” (originally introduced by Bryce Williams) as: “Narrating your work + observable work.”

“Being able to work out loud allows employees to make connections – finding people and content relevant to their work – like never before. (Stepper, 2012).

Why PKM? by Harold Jarche (www.twitter.com/hjarche)

While I link to many articles and videos by Harold Jarche in the class, this is one I hadn’t referenced. The student who posted it said it really filled in the holes for her and helped bring new understanding to the practice of PKM. Jarche argues why PKM is essential in today’s networked era. Work is no longer standardized, but instead customized, and requires people to “constantly improve their talents and focus on initiative and creativity” (Jarche, 2014).

Let me know if you have any good resources on PKM in your archives, or if you enjoyed watching the online modules.