Lifelong Learning Applies Here, Too

If I take nothing else away from this course, it's that teaching is an ever evolving practice - similar to MIS and technology disciplines. It's a worthwhile challenge, and it's not one we face alone. In addition to the excellent books and resources from this class (not to mention the people - you all have been fun getting to know), I have developed a personal learning environment to demonstrate where else I can learn about teaching as I continue in my degree program and start teaching.

This is not comprehensive, particularly on those that list individuals to whom I can turn for advice or help. However, this gives me a good starting point from where to grow and keep learning. With any luck, these resources will lead me to others that are also helpful in keeping abreast of changes in education and trends in teaching. I suppose it's good I enjoy learning and experimenting with new(-to-me) techniques.

Yet Another Fifty: A Book Review of "Classroom Assessment Techniques" by Angelo and Cross

Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers by Angelo and Cross is packed with many great suggestions on how teachers can assess themselves in regards to teaching. It subscribes to the idea that teaching does not occur independently of learning; thus, these techniques mostly rely on gathering feedback in various ways on if and what students are learning. Although some of these techniques may lend nicely to graded work (even if only for participation points), the authors stress that, when applied for the purposes of assessing the effectiveness of teaching, there should be no grade attached to the student feedback.

In addition to a plethora of examples demonstrating how a teacher might undergo an assessment cycle, the authors provide several tables before diving into the classroom assessment techniques (CATs) listing the CATs in various ways. The two I find the most useful are Table 6.2 (CATs recommended for different disciplines) and Table 6.3 (CATs clustered by teaching goal - such as higher-order thinking, basic academic success skills, and personal development). After the CATs are described in full, the authors provide some additional insights into using CATs, including various tables showing how teaching goals vary and are prioritized across disciplines.

I do like that the book includes the teaching goal inventory (TGI) in full; however, it reminds me of the learning goals inventory (LGI) we already completed in class. of the two, I think I prefer the latter. I find the clusters in the LGI more comprehensive and straightforward than in the TGI; I also feel the LGI is more student focused as it puts the emphasis on learning, whereas the TGI is more teacher focused. Perhaps they can be used in a complementary fashion (which may make an interesting book or article for anyone more interested in the subject), and it may be something I spend more time looking at later to really figure out if they're mostly the same or actually complementary.

Other than my uncertainty about the TGI versus the LGI, my one criticism of the text is that some of the CATs seem repetitive. There are a handful that are very similar with more subtle differences. I'm not sure we actually needed 50 CATs - though that seems to be a trend with the books this semester (50 Tips and Strategies from Barkely, 50 Student Engagement Techniques also from Barkley, 55 motivational strategies from Nilson). You would think 50 is a magical number...or that someone just really likes long lists.

Like with Barkley, I think each CAT could start with a succinct bullet list of here's what this is, how to use it, and why you'd use it; it would better facilitate quickly finding an appropriate option. Most of the descriptions convey this information pretty well, but some are very chatty and others are too succinct to be of much use. The plus side, though, is I have a short list of the ones I think may be useful when I start teaching (both as assessment of my effectiveness in teaching and as a, perhaps, biweekly check on student progress in the course). Some of the ones I've jotted down are:

• punctuated lectures
• applications card
• paper/project prospectus
• interest/knowledge/skills checklist
• group-work evaluations
• reading rating sheets
• everyday ethical dilemmas (this one I see more as being an assignment rather than an assessment as I'm not entirely sure how knowing the ethical leanings of students will assess my effectiveness as a teacher - if you have thoughts, leave a comment)
• concept Maps
• group instructional feedback technique

All in all, this is another book I will be keeping on my bookshelf for future use. There are tons of ideas for gathering feedback from the people it's perhaps most important to ask: the students.

"Let's see how we've come": Final Project Update, Vol. 3

I realize we don't need to do an update for this week because we are meeting Friday night to present our completed projects. However, I have not posted a link to my portfolio and felt that I should. So, without further ado:

Because I love a good Doctor Who reference.

My Teaching Portfolio.

Ta-Da! (Because I also love Disney movies and Stitch is adorable!)

It is currently complete, though there are aspects I will add over the next few years (in addition to updating it as I do my CV). Let me know what you think--either in the comments or Friday night. See you all then!

"Build Me Up, Buttercup": Final Project Update, Vol. 2

If you haven't guessed yet, I've started building my website. Google Sites, thus far, is really simple to use. I'm using new sites instead of classic because of the storage capabilities (new sites teams up with Google Docs for storage, whereas classic has rather small storage limits). There isn't a ton of design options--again, very simple--though it does offer an auto-contrast feature for text over images that maximizes readability that I'm very impressed with. Overall, I'm okay with limited design features because I want the site to be straightforward and professional with simple navigation.

The pages and the headers have already been set up (the above snippet is from the homepage); most of the header images are ones I've taken or someone else has taken and given to me. There is no link because there is no actual content in the website, yet. That's the next phase.

Speaking of content, that brings us to the more substantial aspect of my work this past week. I have finished (at least for the time being) the content for the portfolio. This included writing the last of the course descriptions, doing some editing, and identifying the documents to be hyperlinked for each course.

For the time being, I have decided not to include an introductory video of myself on the homepage, though I will probably select a few pictures to include throughout the site. I have also decided not to write a research statement at this time. After doing some research on research statements, and reading a couple of excellent examples from computer science (a related though different field), I determined I am not at a point where it would be worthwhile to write one. The two examples I found actually made me feel a bit like this, to be honest:

This isn't because I don't feel capable of writing one--and I did debate it for some time. It's because I don't have a clear research direction figured out yet. It's rather difficult to write about future directions when that path is still completely shrouded in fog. I have worked on a couple of promising projects that would lead in different directions, and I'm starting a literature review for a third possible path; as of right now, though, I'm still figuring it out. I'm okay with that, but it does mean my research statement would probably be very light and not very cohesive. As such, I'll list my ongoing research and conference publication; once I've identified a niche in which to generate a stream of research, I will write the research statement to include in my portfolio.

In closing, it's building and formatting for the next week (and the presentation...still need to figure out how I'm approaching that). It'll get done...it has to.

"I'm under construction, everyone/so you'll have to mind the mess": Final Project Update

Knowing myself, I have decided to start with the content of my teaching portfolio before starting into work on the website itself. So while I wish I could say this:

it's really the more tedious aspect of actually cobbling together what will populate the pages of my website once I get to that. There are plus sides, though, the primary one being I've been pretty productive at creating and assembling the content! (Yay weekly time set aside for writing projects!)

Here is what I've accomplished in terms of content:

• Updated CV (I hadn't looked at it since last spring and it needed some work...)
• Home page description written
• Teaching Philosophy Statement has been pulled from this blog and slightly revised
• Course list for all doctoral and relevant masters and undergraduate classes compiled
• Most of the course explanations (in terms of content and technologies covered in the course, brief final project description if applicable, and why it's included--for undergrad, mostly) have been written; I've also made notes of which documents will be included, if any
• Outline for the CV pages has been drafted (since I'm breaking that up over multiple pages for future ease of navigation)

So even though I'm still asking myself this:

(and that goes for my two papers that are still hollering for more attention as well...well, mostly the two papers), I am happy with the progress I've made. I'm hoping to finish the content and start into website design next week.