Teaching things you don’t know

16. August 2010 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

My teaching career is filled with being given a class to teach mere weeks before classes begin in an unfamiliar area.  In fact, my career began with my taking over a class for a classmate in which he had selected his books already.  One or two of the books’ authors I was familiar with, but hadn’t read the specific book, and other authors I’d never heard of.  And then, of course, was the fact that I’d never once been in front of a classroom.  I had to rely on my experience teaching my stuffed animals.  I actually did fine in that class even though I was only a step or two ahead of the students.  In grad school that trend continued somewhat as I taught classes where the book and sometimes the syllabus were dictated by the department.  When we first moved here, I was assigned to teach a course whose theme was race and racism.  I thought it was hilarious that they wanted a white girl from the south to teach a collection of students from all kinds of backgrounds about race.  But, it turned out, I had a lot to draw on in my personal experience and it had been an issue I’d tackled more than once in my life.

Last spring, I was thrown into a class teaching pre-service science teachers without knowing anything about a) science or b) K-12 science curriculum or standards.  Again, I did fine.  My real topic was teaching itself, not science or standards or anything like that.

And this year, of course, it’s a whole new ball of wax as I jump into a middle school classroom.  But the subject matter for those classes is familiar.  It’s been a matter of figuring out what is age-appropriate, what we can accomplish in a ridiculously short time period (both from a class period standpoint and a number of classes standpoint), and what might meet the needs of current and future classes in terms of skills that students need.   I feel pretty confident about what I have sketched out for those classes, though I’m under no impression that it’s perfect and won’t need some tweaking.  Friday, I met with the previous teacher of the “Art & Technology” class I’m teaching for upper school and boy, howdy, am I going to be thrown into something I don’t know much about.  Originally, before I met with the teacher, I had started looking at Processing, which is a programming language (simplified Java, really) that creates art.  I thought this would be a great way to kill two birds with one stone.  I had also applied for my very own MakerBot and had plans of doing some 3d art in addition to the Processing work. Turns out the class is really “Computer Graphics,” meaning mostly Adobe Illustrator.  Now I had the whole Adobe suite in my media lab and was familiar with everything in the package, but Illustrator was one thing I didn’t do much with at all.  I think I made a single poster for an event that I was hosting and that’s the extent of my experience.

Given my previous experiences of being set loose in unknown territory, I’m not that worried.  I’ll work my way through some tutorials, come up with some assignments, plan on relying a bit on the students, and it’ll all be okay.  But, I know part of the reason I’m in this boat in the first place is a common myth people have about technology-oriented/computing people.  There’s an idea that if you are tech-savvy in one area, you must be savvy in all areas and this just isn’t true.  I remember this used to happen to me on occasion, usually in informal settings.  I’d get asked about BluRay technology or DSL lines or a specific application.  I’d get a baffled look when I’d say that I didn’t know what they were talking about.  I could see their brains spinning: But wait, isn’t she the technology person? Possibly 20 or 30 years ago, there were people who knew a little bit about every available computer technology.  That’s because there wasn’t much of it.  PCs barely existed.  There was very little software for them.  Now, though? There are lots of different kinds of devices and software for every possible need.  There are special applications for different fields: graphic design, math, statistics, photo editing, video editing, web design, word processing, 3D rendering.  There are all kinds of applications I just don’t even use that much because I don’t need to.  If I were an artist or graphic designer, I’d be all over Illustrator, but my art skills stalled in about 3rd grade.  Give me some HTML and CSS to work with, though, and I’m a happy camper.

Because the book has been ordered, I’ll stick with teaching mostly Illustrator, though I plan to throw in the 3D stuff if I get it, and maybe some web design.  But I have two thoughts going forward.  One, I’m moving away from application-based teaching–that is teaching applications step by step and toward teaching computing–using computers to solve problems–and programming. In the younger grades, I have less of an issue with teaching applications.  I see teaching them as a gateway to learning more about how computers work and then to creating programs that do things.  Two, if we are going to continue to teach special applications–and I think for students interested in art, Illustrator makes a lot of sense–then we need to have people in the classroom who know that application well.  I know if I teach the class again, I will do Processing or something instead of teaching an application, but for now I’ll get creative within the given constraints.

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Educon Debrief

01. February 2010 · 1 comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

This past weekend, I attended Educon 2.2 in Philly, hosted by Chris Lehmann and the Science Leadership Academy.  I don’t have time for a huge post, so let me just make a couple of observations.  As far as I could tell, both by the sessions I attended and the overall list, there were very few presentations where people talked at you or went through a step-by-step how to.  The conversations that occurred, and they were conversations, were about big issues: what is professional development, what is the role of play in learning and how do we incorporate more into our teaching, what will schools of the future look like.  And it wasn’t presenters telling us what they thought about all of those things.  Instead, they had us talk to each other about them, recognizing that we all have ideas and expertise to share.  The more the session was about us talking to each other, the more I liked it.  I liked hearing from other people and meeting other people.  I made some very nice and quite unexpected connections.

I had this weird sensation for much of the time as I shifted roles from teacher of teachers to teacher to parent.  I had some interesting conversations around getting parents involved beyond bake sales.  My frustration over the lack of transparency in my kids’ classrooms found a voice and a sympathetic ear.  I spent a lot of time with some colleagues from University of Mary Washington and we were marveling at how similar the conversations that were occurring were to those that occur around teaching in higher ed.  We also noted that more faculty should be knowledgeable about K-12 education beyond their own children’s.

If you’re involved in education at all, this is a conference I urge you to attend next year.  It is lively, informative and inspirational.  I couldn’t have picked a better way to spend my time this weekend.

It’s about the students, stupid

09. May 2008 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

Yesterday, I had the great pleasure of visiting the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. I’ve been following the development and progress of this schools via its principal, Chris Lehmann’s blog. I’m not a K-12 educator, but I like to frequently remind myself and others, that the students currently going through K-12 will eventually be our students and their expectations of higher education will be shaped by their K-12 experience. What I saw and heard in SLA is very different from what I’ve seen in my own kids’ suburban schools and even here at this small liberal arts college. The classrooms are active. The students all have laptops and are working in groups on projects–everything from writing up abstracts for science fair projects to creating documentaries for a history class. Even in classes where there was a teacher at the front of the room, the students were participating, being asked to participate, to ask questions, to answer questions, to think in different ways.

One of the teachers I met, Zac Chase, discussed several projects he’d done with his students that got them to engage with both reading material and with the real world, to make those connections between school and life that keep students seeing the point of this whole education thing. He had students read Their Eyes Were Watching God and, focusing on the theme of sacrifice, asked them to interview someone who had made sacrifices and create a “This American Life” like production. Many of them blew him and his students away (hopefully they’ll be public soon). Another project he did was the “Change the World Project,” where the kids picked a real-world problem to solve. Through this project, the kids learn research methods, writing skills, and more. And that more part says a lot, because often, the teachers and kids both are surprised by what they learn.

Afterwards, Chris and I talked a little about education, the changes that need to happen, and whether or not the model that SLA espouses will spread and whether there will be pressure on higher ed as a result. What Chris said was a bit depressing, but rang true to me. He said that the higher up the food chain, you go, the less it’s about the students. So, for example, he said that if you ask an elementary school teacher what they do, they say they teach 5th grade or whatever, the kids are very present. By the time you get to high school, teachers often say they teach physics, when really, they should say, I teach kids physics. The kids are the object, not the content. When you get to college, content becomes king. At R1′s, it’s really not about the kids. Teaching is foisted onto lower class labor. And that’s a real shame. And, further, Chris added, he saw little incentive for higher ed to change. And, deep in my heart, I knew it was true. Sure, there are lots of individuals trying to effect change, really focusing on the students, making teaching their primary focus, but it’s not enough to turn the aircraft carrier that is higher ed. Each institution is an equally large boat. So, really, it might be more like getting a huge formation of battleships to make a 90 degree turn. Not easy.

But still, I have to say I’m inspired by our students and I was inspired by the SLA students. There’s such potential there for change–for changing the world. As Chris said himself in a blog post, the kids are alright; it’s the grownups who are getting in the way.

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