Milestones

Today I had my 2nd portfolio evaluation. In my program, students all prepare an electronic portfolio [mine is here] to track their growth and development. We must each pass three portfolio meetings with our advising committee, and demonstrate that we are making progress towards a dissertation. This whole process is a really wonderful way of both marking progress and forcing us to stop and think both reflectively and analytically about our goals and research interests. It is, essentially, what we do instead of comps, comprehensive exams, that are still prevalent in some disciplines. That is an over-simplification, though, as both the process of preparing the portfolio and the periodic evaluations, are far more than mere assessment–the growth is largely in the doing.

As a result of working on my own portfolio, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to incorporate the use of non-test based assessment and evaluation in my classes. This summer I experimented with having two classes keep a writing portfolio. At the midterm and end of the courses, the students looked over their portfolios and answered questions about how they had improved in their writing, and set goals for themselves moving forward. I’m somewhat lukewarm on the results. Some of the students really got into it, and showed that they were able to really reflect on their writing; others simply mirrored the comments that I had given them on their essays. And then there were the students who hadn’t turned in any work at the midterm–or even the end of the class–and of course it was quite difficult for them to reflect on evidence that simply wasn’t there. I haven’t had a chance to really think about the whole experiment and how I could have scaffolded the activity better or more clearly modeled what I was hoping they would do with their portfolio reflections.

I am not using portfolios this semester, mostly because I didn’t want to continue with it without taking time to reflect on what worked and what didn’t, and to make improvements. I might return to it with the graduate classes I teach; I think perhaps that trying to learn to critically reflect, and to articulate those reflections, is a lot to ask of students who are also English language learners, unless I am able to figure out how to better prepare and support them through the task.

It might not LOOK like work…

As we eke into mid-semester crunch, I’m going to steal some words about academic writing from Harmonia’s Necklace:

I realize that most people don’t understand the type of intense work this sort of writing requires. And they don’t realize that while reading and writing are things I’ve always done well, that doesn’t mean that these particular reading and writing activities are easy for me. No, I can’t just crank out a dissertation like I use to crank out papers the night before they were due when I was in high school. Just doesn’t work that way.

Now, if I could only print this out and tape it to every available surface for the 48 hours prior to a paper deadline. In truth, though, I can’t complain–I think my family actually does understand and respect the fact that I often do have to do work instead of making dinner, refereeing the kids, cleaning up…

But, in happier news, I have a committee (yay!) and I have a first portfolio meeting all but set (just waiting on one to commit), and I’m actually up to speed on grading, um, sort of, and pretty much up to speed in prep. Getting observed tomorrow in my freshman comp-esque class, so still perfecting the materials for that. I will be so relieved to be on the 2nd iteration of this course; starting a new class (well, new to me) from scratch is such a lot of work.

Overall, I’m hanging in there. By the skin of my teeth. I do feel like my work is giving me so many ripe opportunities for reflection about my teaching and my research interests, if I only had an extra day a week to actually think about any of it. Much less improve. But, there’s always the summer!

Last Day of Summer

For me, school starts tomorrow. In a last minute waffling, I’m now signed up for 4 classes, with the intention of dropping one once I figure out which one to drop. At the last minute I added instructional design, thinking that it’s a pretty  practical choice as an elective. I’m sure I’ll go back, though, to my original schedule, after viewing the monster syllabus for the instruction design class. Not only are there many, many assignments (which is a different thing than a lot of work; I don’t mind the work, but having something due every 3 days is a little much), but the word “deliverable” popped up a little too often for my sanity. It sounds like the class is going to be more about the project management side–and the teamwork side,which, UGH, I do not like teams–than the theory side. Perhaps that only makes sense in instructional design, that it be more about the doing of it. I just can’t shake the heebie-jeebies that the word “deliverable” gives me. Scars of former employment under a wannabe fed to whom every activity was a deliverable. Personally, I don’t care for the noun-isation of verbs (haha, at least not institutionally, since I obviously have no compunction about making up my own words), but even more I don’t care for the “run everything as a business” mentality that this particular individual embraced. So, to me, the contant use of the D-word is a little warning bell that my philosophy of education and the philosophy of this particular instructor might not match very well. That’s not to say that you can’t learn from people you disagree with, but if their philosophy dictates the work (the “learning experiences”) you undertake, and you are at odds with that underlying philosophy, well, that seems to be a recipe for being annoyed and frustrated all semester.

Plus, I’ve already bought the books for the other class–the one I would keep if I dropped the instruction design class. But, we’ll see ow the first week goes!

A (Different) Good Argument for Universal Health Care

One of the smartest (education-related) reasons for supporting universal health care coverage came from Dean Dad’s recent post:

My proposal for long-term prosperity: combine an educated population with national health insurance (since going without health insurance is a colossal barrier to starting a new business) and a focus on providing the kinds of public goods that lead to all manner of positive externalities – basic research, mass transit, that sort of thing. If that sounds a bit Scandinavian, well, Norway and Sweden aren’t doing too badly these days. Iceland followed our model instead, and effectively collapsed. In places with plenty of smart people running around, where the cost of failure isn’t so awful, it’s not shocking that Nokias and Ericssons pop up. Here, we get Wal-Mart. We can train people to work at Wal-Mart, and there may be times when that’s the least-bad short-term option. But it’s not the same thing.

I thought this was interesting; I hadn’t thought about the implications of universal access to health care for people who stay in their jobs because of the benefits, such as health insurance, who might prefer to go out on their own and do something different. As the bringing-home-the-benefits spouse, I personally would love to have health care for my family that wasn’t tied to my job. Then maybe grad students like me wouldn’t need to work full-time on top of going to school full-time; or at least we’d have the option of taking a GRAship and maybe a little teaching on the side to make it through school.

A True Life Case of Synchrondipity…

So, last night was the last class of the semester for one of my courses. We were capping off the course by discussing our final papers–which I undoubtedly should be writing right now, rather than chatting here. But I digress–and the prof. asked me to talk about mine. Which, okay, I had already talked about mine last week, but I’m going to take it as a compliment that he wants to hear more about it. So I’m talking about how I’m writing about the “borderlands” concept as being not only a geo-political space but also a psycho-social space, and why this is important (if you want to know, I’m happy to share the paper. You know, once it’s done!), blah blah blah…and then, out of nowhere, he asks, “So it the overlap of cultures, languages, peoples, etc. a type of synchronicity?” The whole class waited with bated (or, more likely, yawning) breath while I tried to come up with a good, scholarly answer. While trying hard not to blurt out, “Hey! That’s my blog!” Which probably would not have earned me any points, but perhaps a few snickers.

Now I’m thinking, though…what if he was on to something? There’s something teasing at me…ah, probably just my un-written paper with its siren call: Come wriiiiiite me! I’m due Moooondaaaay! WRIIIITE MEEEEE!

Tension/Ambiguity

In one of my classes this term, there has been some tension around expectations. These tensions have bubbled to the surface in various ways, and last night–in the absence of the professor, but in the presence of his selected stand-in–we processed and discussed our (collective) concerns about the course. For two hours.

The biggest concern, well, the biggest one directly related to the course–was the syllabus. Strictly speaking, it not being clear enough. When you get a group full of former- and current-teachers in a room together and tell them that they are getting a grade at the end, well, they want clarity. They want rubrics. They want agendas. They want clearly listed readings and other assignments. As much as teachers live in ambiguity in their daily school lives, I have found that teachers as students are not very good with ambiguity. So, we you set up a class format that is a “seminar,” whatever that means to the different individuals involved, and the expectations are, shall we say, loosey-goosey, well, it takes a really good kind of chemistry to keep that group knitted together. And–and I suggested this last night–we really don’t seem to have that chemistry. I think–personally, I feel–that we found some of that connection last night that had been missing. Maybe it was solidarity in catharsis. Maybe it was being able to step out from under the pressure of the coursework. (books to read! papers to write! presentations to prep!)

All in all, it’s never boring…

Herding Cats

Give control over to the students. It’s about herding cats–you want to keep them roughly in the same direction and keep them out of the trees.

Learner-centered theory and practice in distance education, Thomas M. Duffy & Jamie R. Kirkley

April, Come She Will

I can hardly–in fact, I can’t at all–believe it’s April already. Not in the least because Turtle turns 4 this weekend, but also because there are only 4 weeks left in the semester. Which means I need to write an average of 18.5 pages a week, or 2.64 pages a day, for the next 4 weeks. I’m sure some of you out there are scoffing. That’s still less than 100 pages in the next month, that’s nothing! And I’m sure once I’m in my dissertation, it will seem like nothing. But when you only have maybe, MAYBE, 2 hours a night, and the lure of springtime weather on the weekends, well…it makes buckling down that much harder. Of course, we leave for Turkey the day after finals are due, for 3 whole weeks, so that looming vacation does make concentration even harder, when in between thoughts of CRT come, “Should I pack jeans? Or just all black–the better to coordinate anyway? Is it better to pack too much–we will, technically, have 8 checkable bags between the 4 of us–or too little, knowing that we’ll have to change plans with two toddlers and all our carry-ons in tow?” (I am imagining Istanbul on a par with New York or Paris in terms of beautiful people, and don’t want to be too much the laide americaine.)

Any thoughts? Three weeks in Istanbul, with a 4 year and and a 2 1/2 year old–what to do? What to see? Where to go? Where to buy loads of Turkish-English kids books (for all of us) and texts in English on education in Turkey/the region for me?

Officially Official…

Now that I’ve been accepted into the doctoral program (yay!), and I’ve started planning out, oh, the next 5 years of my life, I’m feeling a bit bemused. I was giving myself a pep talk in the car on the way to get the kids yesterday, and made the mistake of saying, “When you finish the program in 5 years (that’s my estimate), Kerem will be…8 YEARS OLD!?” I almost drove off the road. How will I possibly have an 8 year old boy in only 5 years?

This train of thought was supposed to be reaffirmation that I was in the perfect place and time to go back to school–after the kids are born, so there’s no breast-feeding, waking up at night, weekly doctors visits, pregnancy exhaustion, etc. to worry about. That phase is over. But it’s before the kids are into soccer and music and sleepovers and summer camps and all those “big kid” things–so although Kerem’s just started school, it’s school “light,” with minimal scheduling required from me except making sure he has a lunch every day. All this is supposed to be a sign that this is the best, PERFECT time in my life to be going back to school.

That is, until I start thinking about how many classes I need to take, and how many nights I won’t be home for dinner and/or bedtime (probably twice a week) and multiply that by how long I’ll be in school (12 semesters x 15 weeks x 2 nights a week = 360) and figure out that it’s a whole year of nights that I won’t be home!

And then it’s time to rush home to my babies and enjoy the nights that I DO have with them!

Where did July go?

Well, I can’t speak for you, but I can tell you where MY July went…to school! After 4 years I’m back in school, courtesy of the lovely free tuition benefit I’m so lucky to have. Last class is tomorrow night, and while I’ve been enjoying it, I think the end can’t come soon enough for daddy, Turtle, and Baby Bug. Especially daddy! He’s done an amazing, amazing job at picking up the slack–dinnertimes, bedtimes, keeping babies occupied while mommy does homework–everything. Now, someone other than me can put them to bed! Ahhh, the freedom…

In addition to the excitement of heading back to school (3 credits gained), WW has been going well (16 pounds lost), and we have the excitement of heading to Charleston (SC) for the wedding of a dear friend this weekend. Not just the happiness of attending her wedding, but a full weekend–2 DAYS and 2 NIGHTS–sans babies. I am perhaps more excited about this than I should be. But, oh! we get to get dressed up and dance and go out to dinner and walk around Charleston and sleep in and talk…all without interruptions, diapers, pleas for more milk, cleaning up spilt milk from leaky sippy cups, cajoling babies to eat, being awoken at the crack of dawn…!

And, by Sunday evening, we’ll be aching to see them again.