Is There Life Beyond The Lecture?

“Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.” Chinese Proverb

Some faculty are wonderful, engaging lecturers. Some are not.

Regardless, the classroom lecture continues to be the dominant form of instruction in the college classroom today–even though all the pedagogical research I have read shows that this is NOT the best way to teach–if you want students to remember what they are learning after the class is over.

In his article “Exploding the Lecture,” Steve Kolowich examines the example and strategies of a charismatic lecturer who has turned to creating online videos. Students watch Mike Garver’s lectures on their own time and as often as necessary then come to class where they have time to discuss, engage and apply the ideas in large and small groups. Kolowich writes:

Garver remembers his supervisor affirming the young lecturer’s confidence — before blowing it apart. “He basically said, ‘Mike, that was a great lecture. Have you ever heard of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning?’ ” Garver had not. His supervisor explained Benjamin Bloom’s 1956 formulation, which divides learning into higher and lower orders and emphasizes the importance of putting learned ideas to work.

“Even though your lecture was spectacular,” Garver recalls his mentor saying, “you’re down here at the bottom of Bloom’s Taxonomy.” He challenged Garver to infuse higher orders of learning into his teaching methodology. “I have been chasing that dream ever since,” Garver says.

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/11/15/professor-tries-improving-lectures-removing-them-class#ixzz1dtMOR1RT
Inside Higher Ed

I too have been chasing that dream. I knew from my own educational experience that most lectures made me sleepy and that even taking good notes didn’t mean I didn’t retain the material. I learned best and most deeply by “doing” something with the material: talking about it in groups, presenting it to the class, writing about it, applying it in a service learning context, using it for problem solving.

Until recently, it was relatively easy for my students and I to hold seminars in class to discuss material by moving our desks into a large circle or smaller groups. Unfortunately, new buildings at the college where I teach cram as many students as possible into the classrooms using tables that go from one end of the room almost all the way to the other making it very difficult for us to do anything other than sit in rows at the long tables.

And I am finding, when students are in those rows, it is easy just to stay on the stage.

What teaching strategies work for you to retain information from classes beyond the final exam? What classes do you remember the most? What information from a class have you used and how did you attain that information?

(Note to my English 2 students: you can read and respond to this blog post and to the article referenced for one of your 20 reading responses. Remember to use quotes and cite your sources.)

Cultural Artifact Assignment: connects students with their own & other cultural stories

Education is all a matter of building bridges. –Ralph Ellison

Insight, I believe, refers to the depth of understanding that comes by setting experiences, yours and mine, familiar and exotic, new and old, side by side, learning by letting them speak to one another. –Mary Catherine Bateson.

Real education should consist of drawing the goodness and the best out of our own students.  What better books can there be than the book of humanity?  –Cesar Chavez

The more deeply you understand other people, the more you will appreciate them, the more reverent you will feel about them.  To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.–Stephen Covey

Two weeks ago, I was asked to take over as a long term sub for an instructor who had a medical emergency. I was able to meet with the instructor, get copies of her syllabus, texts, and scores for the students etc.

It was up to me to figure out how to combine her teaching style with mine in a way that would equal a smooth transition and success for her students.

The first class I taught the students how to do Natalie Goldberg style writing practice and we held a council so I could learn from the students what was working for them and what they needed from the class. I then incorporated what I learned from them into a few changes in the syllabus, specifically in the essay assignments and the deadlines.

Since I don’t know the students at all, they barely know each other, and I think forming a community is of the utmost importance to build the trust required to work together in seminar discussions and on writing projects as well as for other reasons discussed in the link below, our first assignment is the Cultural Artifacts one described here: http://whisperdownthewritealley.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/class-activity-invites-students-to-share-food-stories-about-their-culture/

Usually this assignment does not include a formal essay but again this isn’t a typical class. So I adapted a personal narrative assignment to the task; it’s posted below for those students who need to refer to it or for other faculty who may be curious about it. The students will also be writing an argument that analyzes a text and writing a research paper.

Jamie Oliver’s TED Talk: A Food Revolution

This semester, my college students and I discussed the Triple Bottom Line, a bottom line for businesses that goes beyond PROFIT to include people and the planet.

During the first third of the semester, we focused on the “people” part of the equation. Next, we looked at “food” as a way of seeing what we’re doing to the planet. Finally, for profit, we did some problem-posing and most of the students drew on their service learning experiences for their research papers to name, reflect and act on a problem.

Service learning goes beyond community service or volunteering. Students who engage in service learning maintain a reflective journal about what they do and what they’ve learned and to do research related to their service learning site.

As the semester comes to a close, I thought I’d post this TED Talk from Jamie Oliver–someone who has certainly made a name for himself when it comes to solving the problems related to diet related diseases in the US.

Here are some of my notes that I took while watching the above video:

Diet related disease is the biggest killer in the United States today, says Jamie Oliver, and we need a revolution. People are dying needlessly from obsesity and food related diseases.

Obesity costs 10% of health care bills and in less than 10 years this cost will double.

How to eat to save your life?

1) Avoid Fast food

2) Avoid Processed foods, eat instead fresh foods

3) Watch Portion size

4) Watch labeling

Home is not where food culture is created any more. So where will kids learn about food? asks Jamie Oliver. School? Where kids have flavored milk 2x a week? Chocolate milk has the same amount of sugar in it as a soda. What can we do? he asks.

Here are some of Jamie Oliver’s suggestions on how to decrease diet related diseases:

1) Have a “food ambassador” in every grocery store where someone will teach people how to cook

2) Fast food has to be part of the solution. We needed to be weaned off all the fat and sugar.

3) Kids at school need fresh food cooked on site, and that children know how to cook.

4) Corporations need to feed their employees responsibly.

Revolutionary if you ask me. Even more revolutionary if people get on board!

New Spice Guy Gets It On In The Library

Some good advice here, New Spice Guy–thanks!

I CAN HAS REZEARCH PAPAR?

I found this image on danah boyd’s blog apophonia; it originally came from  here. I figured my summer school students could use a laugh about now…

Blogger danah boyd was just named as the smartest academic in tech. She’s a researcher at Microsoft Research New England and a Fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society who received her PhD from the School of Information at UC-Berkeley and now lives in Boston, MA with her cat (which is NOT pictured at left). Buzzwords in her world include: public/private, identity, context, youth culture, social network sites, social media. She blogs to express random thoughts about whatever she’s thinking.

So I’m now following her on twitter and intend to keep tabs on her blog as well.

How To Do Academic Research: UW Librarians Go Gaga

What else is there to say except this is a great introduction to library research AND to grad school shenanigans.

University students: want to win a trip to Africa?

NICHOLAS KRISTOF wants to take YOU to Africa!

Nick Kristof wrote in his Sunday column about his 2010 Win-a-Trip contest where he’ll take a university student with him on a reporting trip to Africa, giving that student a chance to blog for nytimes.com and to file videos to The Times and Youtube.

According to Kristof, the contest is open to students at American universities – either undergraduates or graduate students – who are 18 years old or over. Consult the full rules for more about eligibility. To apply write an essay of up to 700 words, or a video of up to three minutes, or both. Send the essay to winatrip@nytimes.com. Post the video Youtube www.youtube.com/NicholasKristof, next to the video invitation for applications. Explain why you should be picked to go.

The Center for Global Development will narrow applications down to a group of finalists from which Kristof and assistant Natasha Yefimov will pick a winner. Key attributes include: someone with excellent communication skills, who can blog and vlog (video blog) in ways that will capture the interest of other students. Experience blogging, vlogging or journalism should be mentioned as well as anything else special.Previous winners include
–  journalism student  Casey Parks who had never been outside the U.S. and had grown up poor, in the deep South.
–medical student Leana Wen and teacher Will Okun,  a superb, funny writer and a talented still photographer
– Paul Bowers  a thoughtful and sizzling writer with superb recommendations

The application deadline is a minute before midnight, Eastern Time, on Monday, Jan 18; the winner will be chosen by February and travel commences in April, May or June and will last about 10 days.

Just in case you don’t win, Kristof suggests exploring the following opportunities: Self-Employed Women’s Association of India and BRAC in Bangladesh,  both accept some volunteers. Those interest in health, might go to the Edna Adan Maternity Hospital in Somaliland, Africa. Teach English to brothel children in Calcutta at an anti-trafficking organization called New Light, run by Urmi Basu or contact World Teach that can connect you to possibilities to teach English abroad, from Namibia to Micronesia.

Read the complete column.

Be a Hopenhagen Ambassador in Copenhagen for the UN Climate Conference Dec. 12-19

Hopenhagen Ambassador Contest: HuffPost Citizen Journalist Will Win A Trip To Copenhagen

WHAT: Hopenhagen is sending a HuffPost citizen journalist to Copenhagen for the climate conference as the Hopenhagen Ambassador, to represent the global nation of people who are hopeful that leaders will come to an agreement.

 

THE PRIZ E: The winner will receive a trip to Copenhagen from December 12-19th! This will include airfare, accommodation, press accreditation for the UN conference, Media training with HuffPost Citizen journalism editor Mat t Palevsky, HuffPost blogging privileges, and a flip camera to record events .

But with great privilege comes great responsibility:

The duties of the Hopenhagen Ambassador will include:

Representing the people of Hopenhagen to the media and at official events throughout the week, reporting on events in blogs and videos posts for HuffPost while in Copenhagen, doing celebrity interviews, and spreading the message of hope throughout his or her personal and social networks.

WHO: Anyone over 18 can enter the contest — you just need to upload a one minute campaign video for why you should elected ambassador. click here for the full contest rules.

Watch this video for more information on what we’re looking for.

WOW!! Should I go for it?? Should you?? Automatic A if you win!

Toni Morrison’s “Beloved:” some ideas to consider & some questions to ask

Some ideas to consider and some questions to ask when reading Part One of Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Thanks goes to Stanford’s Great Works Program and to the observations of UCSC Professor Paul Skenazy.

Basic timeline:  Sethe came to Sweet Home at 13, chose Halle at 14, and was married to Halle for six years bearing two sons and one daughter by the time she is 20 and escapes Sweet Home pregnant with a second daughter in 1855 to live at 124 Bluestone Road outside Cincinnati, Ohio.

In the beginning of the novel, when Paul D. from Sweet Home turns up 18 years later, Sethe is 38 and her youngest daughter Denver is 18.

1. Consider the epigraphs (read the Wikipedia definition here.) Review the first episode of Beloved carefully, and discuss your reactions to it. What expectations does the opening scene raise for the work to follow

2. Consider the novel’s complex structure. Why does Morrison choose this particular way of telling Sethe’s story? What does the way the story is told suggest about Morrison’s view of the human mind and its workings?

3. Slave narratives, such as Frederick Douglass’s autobiography, are the starting point of the African-American literary tradition. One of the biggest themes in Frederick Douglass’s story is the question of his name, or his identity. How does this issue relate to Beloved? If you are familiar with slave narratives, can you find ways that Morrison refers to, uses, or reworks the slave narrative tradition in Beloved?

4. Morrison makes a point of including traditional, folkloric, non-literary African-American culture in Beloved, some of which is derived from ancient African roots. What is the effect of this inclusion?

5. Among other things, Beloved is a ghost story. What are the special problems for writer and reader in having a ghost featured as a main character?

6. Give some thought to the presence of (and commentary on) white people in the novel. Why does the author make the choices she does in her presentations of whites?

7.  What have you observed about how and where Morrison uses the words “niggers”? Blacks? Negroes?

8. Part 1 is bracketed by two comings and goings: Paul D. and Beloved. What do you make of this? What might bracket Parts 2 and 3?

9. Early in the Part 1, Amy Denver tells Sethe, “Anything dead coming back to life hurts” (page 35 in my edition). How does this foreshadow much of the novel?

10. One site explains Sethe’s “chokecherry tree” this way: “Upon Sethe’s back is a maze of scars, referred to by Paul D as a “chokecherry tree.” It is the remains of an operation schoolteacher performed upon her back in an effort to determine how much she resembled an animal. The tree, which is ever-present but can never be seen, is symbolic of the burden which Sethe carries. It is her past, and it is the prejudice of white men against her. It is a mark made by people who believed her to be an animal.” What do you think of this analysis?

Some ideas to consider and some questions to ask when reading Parts Two and Three of Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Choose one question to be an “expert” on and prepare to lead a discussion about it.

SPOILER ALERT!! If you haven’t finished Parts Two and Three, go no further!

According to the website Ohio History Central, Margaret Garner escaped slavery with her husband and children, but a group of slave owners found the family shortly thereafter: “Before the slaveholders captured the runaways, Margaret Garner used a butcher knife to kill her young daughter. Garner also tried to kill her other children, but she was unsuccessful in her attempt. Garner did not want her children returned to a life of slavery. Margaret Garner’s story of her willingness to kill her own child to prevent her from being returned to a life in bondage received national attention. The story of Margaret Garner was the basis of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel Beloved by Ohio native Toni Morrison.”

1.    Now that you’ve completed the novel, review the first episode of Beloved carefully, and discuss your reactions to it again. How does it function in relation to book as a whole?

2.    What judgments does Toni Morrison make on Sethe’s killing of her daughter? How does Sethe’s community judge her? How does Paul D. judge her? How does she judge herself? How do you judge her?

3.    Give some thought to the presence of (and commentary on) white people in the novel. Why does the author make the choices she does in her presentations of whites?

4.    Reflect on the detailed attention that Morrison gives to experiences that will certainly claim your attention (and will probably shock and disturb you): Paul D. on the chain gang, locked in the box; Paul’s experience of the bit; the milking of Sethe; School Teacher’s recording of the slaves’ animal characteristics; Sixo’s death. What is the effect of those experiences, on those who live them and on us as readers?

5.    What’s the significance of the number 124? Of the little “i” ?

6.     Toward the end of Part 2, Morrison uses some unusual narrative devices. Take note of who is the narrator of each of the “sections” or chapters in Part 2 and who’s perspective does the narration come from. In the chapter full of short sentences starting with “you” or “I” or “we,” who is speaking? Why do you think Morrison writes in this way?

7.    When you finish the book, note your reaction to the last passage. How do you feel about the ending? Why do you suppose the book concludes (or doesn’t conclude) in this way?

8.    The novel asks many questions, among them, what it means to be a “man,” to be human, and what it means to be “free.” What do you think it takes to be human? What does it mean to be free?

Conceptual Poetry & Flarf: Kenneth Goldsmith explains 2 controversial poetry movements

New in Conceptual Poetry & Flarf : Kenny Goldsmith Strikes Again!

Last June, I attended a Conceptual Poetry Conference at the University of Arizona Tucson. Now, a year later, Kenneth Goldsmith has edited the current issue of Poetry, Flarf and Conceptual Writing in Poetry Magazine : Harriet the Blog …published by the Poetry Foundation, much of which is also available on-line at Harriet the Blog (Flarf and Conceptual Writing in Poetry Magazine : Harriet the Blog …) and written the following essay,

Flarf is Dionysus. Conceptual Writing is Apollo.

An introduction to the 21st Century’s most controversial poetry movements.

In this essay, Goldsmith asks,

With so much available language, does anyone really need to write more? Instead, let’s just process what exists. Language as matter; language as material. How much did you say that paragraph weighed?

Our immersive digital environment demands new responses from writers. What does it mean to be a poet in the Internet age?

His answer includes:

These two movements, Flarf and Conceptual Writing, each formed over the past five years, are direct investigations to that end. And as different as they are, they have surprisingly come up with a set of similar solutions.

What is conceptual poetry? Goldsmith offers up a primer in this extensive pdf here. In his Poetry essay, he compares and contrasts Flarf with Conceptual Writing:

Yet for as much as the two movements have in common, they are very different. Unlike Conceptual Writing, where procedure may have as much to do with meaning as the form and content, Flarf is quasi-procedural and improvisatory. Many of the poems are “sculpted” from the results of Internet searches, often using words and phrases that the poet has gleaned from poems posted by other poets to the Flarflist e-mail listserv. By contrast Conceptual Writers try to emulate the workings and processes of the machine, feeling that the results will be good if the concept and execution of the poetic machine are good; there is no tolerance for improvisation or spontaneity.

Flarf plays Dionysus to Conceptual Writing’s Apollo. Flarf uses traditional poetic tropes (“taste” and “subjectivity”) and forms (stanza and verse) to turn these conventions inside out. Conceptual Writing rarely “looks” like poetry and uses its own subjectivity to construct a linguistic machine that words may be poured into; it cares little for the outcome. Flarf is hilarious. Conceptual Writing is dry.

During my stay in Tucson and after, I wrote a series of posts about my experiences there and my attempts to understand this kind of poetry better which you can find at the end of this post.

In Tucson, I met many of the poets Goldsmith mentions in his essay and pdf or features in this issue, including LA poet, Vanessa Place who wrote the poem below. (Please note: I am struggling to get the stanza breaks to “stick;” you may choose to read and view the poem Miss Scarlett here.)

Miss Scarlett

by Vanessa Place

Miss Scarlett, effen we kain git de doctah

w’en Miss Melly’s time come, doan you bodder

Ah kin manage. Ah knows all ’bout birthin.

Ain’ mah ma a midwife? Ain’ she raise me

ter be a midwife, too? Jes’ you leave it

ter me. She warn’t dar. Well’m, Dey Cookie say

Miss Meade done got wud early dis mawnin’

dat young Mist’ Phil done been shot an’ Miss Meade

she tuck de cah’ige an’ Ole Talbot an’

Besty an’ dey done gone ter fotch him home.

Cookie say he bad hurt an’ Miss Meade ain’

gwin ter be studyin’ ’bout comin’ up

hyah. Dey ain’ dar, Miss Scarlett. Ah drapped in

ter pass time of de day wid Mammy on

mah way home.

Dey’s doen gone. House all locked up.

Spec dey’s at de horsepittle.

Miss Elsing ober at de horsepittle.

Dey Cookie ’lows a whole lot of wounded

sojers come in on de early train. Cookie fixin’

soup ter tek over dar. She say—Yas’m

Gawdlmighty, Miss Scarlett! De Yankees

ain’ at Tara, s dey? Gawdlmighty,

Miss Scarlett! Whut’ll dey do ter Maw?

Dey’s fightin’ at Jonesboro, Miss Scarlett!

Dey say our gempumus is gittin’ beat.

Oh, Gawd, Miss Scarlett! Whut’ll happen ter

Maw an’ Poke? Oh, Gawd, Miss Scarlett! Whut’ll happen

ter us effen de Yankees gits hyah? Oh,

Gawd—Ah ain’ nebber seed him, Miss Scarlett.

No’m, he ain’ at de horsepittle.

Miss Merriwether

an’ Miss Elsing ain’ dar needer.

A man he tole me de doctah down

by de car shed

wid the wounded

sojers jes’ come in frum Jonesboro, but

Miss Scarlett, Ah wuz sceered ter go down dar ter

de shed—dey’s folkses dyin’ down dar. Ah’s

sceered of daid folkses—Miss Scarlett, fo’ Gawd, Ah

couldn’ sceercely git one of dem ter read

yo’ note. Dey wukin’ in de horsepittle

lak dey all done gone crazy. One doctah

he say ter me, “Damn yo’ hide! Doan you come

roun’ hyah bodderi’ me ’bout babies w’en

we got a mess of men dyin’

hyah. Git some woman ter he’p you.” An’ den

Ah went aroun’ an’ about an’ ask fer news

lak you done tole me an’ dey all say “fightin’

at Jonesboro” an’ Ah—

Is her time nigh, Miss Scarlett?

Is de doctah come?

Gawd, Miss Scarlett! Miss Melly bad off!

Fo’ Gawd, Miss Scarlett—

Fo’ Gawd, Miss Scarlett!

We’s got ter have a doctah.

Ah—Ah—

Miss Scarlett,

Ah doan know nutin’ ‘bout bringin’ babies.

NOTES: Taken from Prissy’s famous scene in the movie version of Gone with the Wind, Place phonetically transcribes the “unreliable” slave’s words, which are then set in Miltonic couplets. Through the simple act of transcription, Place inverts our relationship to Margaret Mitchell’s best-selling and beloved American epic by prioritizing the formal aspects of language over Mitchell’s famous narrative. With this deconstructive move, Place illuminates the many subtexts embedded in the text concerning plays of power, gender, race, and authorship. By ventriloquizing the slave’s voice as well as Mitchell’s, Place also sets into motion a nexus of questions regarding authorship, leading one to wonder: who is pulling whose strings?

Source: Poetry (July/August 2009).

POET

Vanessa Place

Vanessa Place is a writer, lawyer, and co-director of Les Figues Press.

Below are links to posts I wrote about the Conceptual Poetry Symposium in Tucson last June.

Conceptual Poetry Conference: now on-line

Friday, June 13th, 2008

various texts re’d at the conceptual poetry shindig

Thursday, June 5th, 2008

Conceptual Poetry Conference: a poem w/constraint pt 2 (Day 3)

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

Conceptual Poetry Conference: a poem w/constraint pt 1 (Days 1&2)

Monday, June 2nd, 2008

what is conceptual poetry? some notes from the conference 2008

Monday, June 2nd, 2008

Laynie introduces me as the poet who

Sunday, June 1st, 2008

an invitation

Saturday, May 31st, 2008