(I'm sorry about the formatting irregularities. I tried my best to rein them in, but apparently my digital literacy is a work in progress.)
Who Am I, Anyway?
My main vocation for most of my life has been that of reader. I turned my love of reading into a job during college. First, as a part-time employee at a small used book store. Then a full-time employee at a larger one. Then, manager of the same. And finally, I opened my own small used book store.
Unfortunately, as an occupation, bookselling has never paid enough. So, in 2008, ostensibly to patch up a lull in business, I landed a summer job with the English Language School in Bristol, Rhode Island on the Roger Williams campus. I had absolutely no teaching experience. That’s okay, they said. You’re hired. I soon found out that the “teaching” job I’d applied for was really the position of babysitter/clown for rich kids from other countries. I stuck with it though, turning it into a year round gig. I learned from more seasoned colleagues. I studied on my own, reading books and blogs and other online resources. I took a one-month intensive training course in Seattle. I boned up on my grammar and discovered that I had a knack (and genuine love) for knowing explicitly what I had seemingly always implicitly understood. Teaching grammar (but not arching my brow at “bad”examples of it) or better, learning different ways of getting my students to know it and know why or how it works, became a thrill to me.
I teach adults now, recent immigrants to this country. But as Prensky put it so well, most of my students are also digital immigrants: the older ones because of their age and the younger ones because of their lack of technological access. And I’m no different. I have to challenge myself to get involved with online resources that I am unfamiliar or uncomfortable with. But as Boyd has put it, the digital immigrant label doesn’t tell the whole story. Because while it’s true that my students may not have much interest in or experience with computers, they all have smart phones and they all use social media. Now, if I could only get them interested in reading...
What I Believe
I believe that learning happens when a person, let’s say a student, approaches the written word not with trepidation but with glee. The hardest thing for me to teach is reading. It’s hard to budget the time. It’s hard to find any appropriate texts. It’s hard to measure progress and success. It’s hard to know what the sticking points are. Speaking and writing produce output, they’re relatively easy to assess. Listening can be confirmed with an immediate question or simple observation. But reading is mysterious. And I’m not talking about reading out loud. There are ways to test that skill, like using a running record, but that’s different from reading reading. Even totally competent native speakers can stumble and stall while reading aloud. Because reading out loud is a type of performance, actually, and though it has value, I believe it can impede memory and understanding. When we read aloud, we are often too concerned with pronunciation, enunciation, and fluency that we can forget or even ignore comprehension. But reading to yourself, in your head, is, by its very nature, unobservable (unless you have an MRI in your classroom). And while comprehension tests can be useful, they won’t inspire anyone to read or learn, and they shouldn’t steer the ship. Robinson’s position supports this. He said, “The emphasis on standardized testing has tended to encourage passivity and not activity.” Reading and learning to read better are not passive pursuits!
What I’ve Learned and What I Know
Besides what I’ve alluded to earlier, here are my key take-aways from the readings and lessons in this course.Let’s start with Wesch. We all know that his approach to learning requires taking risks, not only in regard to what a teacher teaches but how. His method, his whole philosophy turns traditional teaching on its head. He wants to allow students to help one another to attain a level of understanding. He wants them to see the classroom differently, literally (by positioning themselves away from the podium) and figuratively. He wants them outside of the classroom altogether if need be, learning to their strengths and not having to mindlessly submit to the teacher’s of the curriculum’s arbitrary standards.
In Wesch’s youtube video, A Vision of Students Today, one of the student’s holds up signs saying something like only a small fraction of her readings are relevant to her life and fewer than half of them are even completed.
Another student held up a sign that declared he paid hundreds of dollars for textbooks he never read. These students may have once believed that reading is fun and interesting, but the texts they are given at university how they are used or not used by the professors is not supporting that belief.
Sinek, though I have many misgivings with his delivery and demeanor, has brought up a very good and perhaps very obvious point, which is that a student (or really anyone) will not “buy your product” (let us imagine the product, here, is “learning” or “reading” and that the “buy”-ing refers to “accepting or understanding”) unless they know the why of what you are doing, or perhaps even better put, the reason for the lesson.
Most teachers know this already, either through their learning or their instinct. For every lesson, the objective must be explicit. We write it on the whiteboard. We say it out loud, several times. And as far as reading goes, Sinek’s point is helpful to a point. I can teach the text (what) and the mechanics (how) but if my students don’t get why they are reading, or more broadly, why reading is fun, then their comprehension and their motivation will suffer.
There is one last important take-away from I’d like to mention and that’s Noon’s Model of Technological Proficiency and, more importantly, where I see myself on his scale. When I first examined it (a mere week ago), I saw myself falling somewhere between Technotraditionalist(level 3) and Technoconstructivist(level 4). But after some serious reflection, I’ve decided to place myself one rung lower; that is, between Technocrat(2) and Technotraditionalist(3). “Why,” he asks himself rhetorically?" Well, when I really thought about my “go to” teaching methods, whether quick activities or week-long projects, I usually rely on minds, mouths, and hands. When I do incorporate something digital, it’s utilized more as research or finding background. Because I am, in Noon’s words, “unsure of [technology’s] overall dependability or usefulness,” I often feel overwhelmed when trying to imagine a real lesson in which learning will happen that involves digital media in a more central role (like creating a Flipgrid video).
Sinek, though I have many misgivings with his delivery and demeanor, has brought up a very good and perhaps very obvious point, which is that a student (or really anyone) will not “buy your product” (let us imagine the product, here, is “learning” or “reading” and that the “buy”-ing refers to “accepting or understanding”) unless they know the why of what you are doing, or perhaps even better put, the reason for the lesson.
Most teachers know this already, either through their learning or their instinct. For every lesson, the objective must be explicit. We write it on the whiteboard. We say it out loud, several times. And as far as reading goes, Sinek’s point is helpful to a point. I can teach the text (what) and the mechanics (how) but if my students don’t get why they are reading, or more broadly, why reading is fun, then their comprehension and their motivation will suffer.
There is one last important take-away from I’d like to mention and that’s Noon’s Model of Technological Proficiency and, more importantly, where I see myself on his scale. When I first examined it (a mere week ago), I saw myself falling somewhere between Technotraditionalist(level 3) and Technoconstructivist(level 4). But after some serious reflection, I’ve decided to place myself one rung lower; that is, between Technocrat(2) and Technotraditionalist(3). “Why,” he asks himself rhetorically?" Well, when I really thought about my “go to” teaching methods, whether quick activities or week-long projects, I usually rely on minds, mouths, and hands. When I do incorporate something digital, it’s utilized more as research or finding background. Because I am, in Noon’s words, “unsure of [technology’s] overall dependability or usefulness,” I often feel overwhelmed when trying to imagine a real lesson in which learning will happen that involves digital media in a more central role (like creating a Flipgrid video).
So What Am I Going to Change?
This, I think, was the most difficult section of the narrative because I feel like I have already discussed this at length in my Final Project and Pecha Kucha. And you may be thinking at this point, Well, if you’ve already done it, how could it be hard? I don’t like to repeat myself (though that doesn’t always stop me from doing so) and I’ve been struggling with finding a new way to say what I’ve already said, in other words (literally), to paraphrase what I’ve said before.
So instead, I’ll link my Final Project here which will give you the chance to read through the original. In it, you'll also find more on what I believe about teaching and learning. And let's not forget a link to the Final Project Rubric. It was great working with all of you, and I wish all the best. Have a great summah!
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