Thoughts:
1. Have to change where I place the whole service learning project. I have to have it all up front when they are engaged in it and into it. Once they are in the field, all they want is lesson planning, methods and strategies. They do not want service learning.
2. I do need to create it as choice. I think a good option, that would meet the same need, is to create a portfolio of community partners for them in a particular topic...and perhaps even in the broad range of their topic. They would have to make the contacts and see if this is a viable choice. They would have to fill out a sheet to that they check off to see if the place is a good community partner.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
IRB done and handed in for review...cannot imagine how many Marc has to read?
Here it is, my IRB agreement thus far...
Here is my survey: pre and post are identical...
I used a lot of materials from the FLC and the coordinator. I am not great at creating instruments, and these were fantastic...in comparison! I am excited.
I still need to boost up my citations etc...but I actually feel like I might just do some research that leads to a pub, and this is exciting, since I have not engaged in that process since I got to SSU...and it was such a big part of my past positions. It is exciting also as I am getting closer to the land of going up for promotion and tenure. Boy would it feel good to have some publications!
I do have to say that this whole FLC thing is fantastic for me. I am having the opportunity to be part of a community that really is helping me shape my teaching as well as my research, in a field I feel passionate about. It is also motivating me with the deadlines, like this IRB one, to be on top of it! I just would never get around to this, and finally I am, YAY. I am beyond grateful to have gotten involved with this and am sad this is the last year. I am meeting folks from around campus, which is awesome, and I feel like I am more part of this whole SSU community.
Here is my survey: pre and post are identical...
I used a lot of materials from the FLC and the coordinator. I am not great at creating instruments, and these were fantastic...in comparison! I am excited.
I still need to boost up my citations etc...but I actually feel like I might just do some research that leads to a pub, and this is exciting, since I have not engaged in that process since I got to SSU...and it was such a big part of my past positions. It is exciting also as I am getting closer to the land of going up for promotion and tenure. Boy would it feel good to have some publications!
I do have to say that this whole FLC thing is fantastic for me. I am having the opportunity to be part of a community that really is helping me shape my teaching as well as my research, in a field I feel passionate about. It is also motivating me with the deadlines, like this IRB one, to be on top of it! I just would never get around to this, and finally I am, YAY. I am beyond grateful to have gotten involved with this and am sad this is the last year. I am meeting folks from around campus, which is awesome, and I feel like I am more part of this whole SSU community.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
IRB and my project
OK here we go, about to take on the writing of my IRB application and I am nervous. I do not have any idea what to do here, but tomorrow hopefully if I have something of worth, then I will be able to get good feedback, and the good news is, then I am on track with the FLC timeline. yikes. Amazing how this research piece gets me all squirrely inside!
current thoughts on my project and course
Positives:
- students are actually connecting the dots this semester for the first time ever between the NCSS goals of social studies education and these current event projects. I think it is because I actually had them explicitly make these connections by having them read articles I obtained at the NCSS conference on citizenship government and civic duty and also remembering the branches of government etc...and really the biggest thing is these governing agencies, which it all kind of comes down to. They get involved with their project and find out who these agencies are and it gives them a better context for remembering how these branches work. I think it connects them to content as well as why they are doing these projects
- I think that I could have them do their projects earlier: I think the service learning ideas are awesome at the beginning of the semester but by the time they are supposed to go out and do them, they lose interest. I think that this is something about how the course work builds in block and it might be more helpful to do these early on.
- The other thing I could do, which I am hesitant to do, but could, is to have them all do something to do with food. Have food be the running theme and they could choose what they want to do with this theme, for instance they could go into GMO etc or go another route. Then I could set us up to do a whole class project at green valley. I know this is what my FLC would like me to do since they really buy into the defn of service learning as something that the faculty member kind of sets up etc. I really have bought into the notion it should 100% come from the student. I also have bought into the idea that they should be the ones to set it up since when they teach they should set it up.
- OK if I continue with having them set it up, then I should have them assess whether or not they met the needs of the community they served, and set up a questionnaire for them to ask their people who they served...the only thing is those who did a beach clean up etc, I wonder about that...and how they could do that?
PLanning my FLC project from June 2011 and planning for Nov 28 meeting
- List several things you can put into your portfolio that will demonstrate to an outside reader what you do now and the types of results you obtain: I would like to do a blog. (which I began, whew, somewhat on it). I would like to reflect on the blog and let my students view it too to provide feedback. I could link resources etc.Link student's blogs from my class. Link webct threads somehow but keeping it anonymous? Include survey results. Have students in their blogs focus on NCSS goals of citizenship and civic duty and thoughts. Have them also do blogs where they apply social studies concepts to service learning. read articles we did in class, which I also did, where they read up on citizenship and connected their topic to this concept.
- List 2-3 things that I do not currently collect that could help me: I could collect surveys...and actually learn how to construct a better survey. Have several checkpoints. Mid semester evals and long term surveys to see if they implement service learning in their own classrooms. IRB for future research and focus groups.
- Thinking about changes that I would like to implement: link it better to teaching social studies (which fall2011 feedback in their blogs indicate they get why they did these projects and it feels connected! which rocks.Teach a total day on how to teach with service learning in their own classes, more in depth...unlike what i do now but more like the MACC workshops, showing them ideas and then giving them to them...and do this after they do their projects. My idea for next semester is to have them do their projects in the Beginning, WHEN they are not as busy.
Teaching philosophy
From Job searchs in the past:
From my dossier:
From my dossier:
I entered my courses at SSU blending my pedagogical and philosophical goals along with the needs of SSU and North Shore Boston culture. The core of my educational beliefs revolves around:
· Experiential education: A hands on, minds on philosophy, where the students engage in authentic problem solving, models of teaching, and critical thinking.
· Social constructivism: A scaffolding approach used to teach concepts, where I build upon students' prior knowledge. Peer communication, dyad's, team work, group work, and interaction are at the cornerstone of my teaching style, consistent with the social construction of knowledge.
· Integration of technology: I use a technological approach to facilitate communication with and among students. Students integrate new technology in their performance assessments, while increasing their comfort level with new developments in the technological field.
· Model lifelong learning: I am enthusiastically committed to the profession of teaching, and I continuously learn new instructional strategies as I deepen my knowledge of the course content.
· Place based education: Threaded throughout my service, scholarship and teaching is my commitment to place based pedagogy, an approach which gears curriculum toward inquiry on a local level, bridging the gap between schools and their communities.
· Service Learning and citizen participation: This pedagogy has slowly threaded itself into not only my assignments, but also my teaching philosophy, as foundational to being an active participant in the community process. Training teachers how to teach has become interwoven with the need to train teachers to be engaged in community.
· Availability for students: My availability to students outside of class is evident via email, appointments, WEBCT, and office hours. Availability creates positive rapport, approachability, and a general sense of care and support.
The student evaluations have been positive and encouraging. The student feedback keeps me focused on my ever evolving approach to my teaching structure, focus, and assignments. I continue to become increasingly comfortable at SSU and have developed a strong commitment to the university, my colleagues, and the student population.
Monday, October 17, 2011
thoughts on pedagogy in general
One thing I have been feeling is defensive about my approach to service learning, since there is this emphasis on community partners, and in my class the emphasis is more on the topic, the issue, the goals of the class:
1. teaching students to integrate service learning into their own teaching strategies in the future as classroom teachers
2. to be an active participating citizens.
and part of this is USING STUDENT VOICE to find an issue and explore it and then do service around that topic and then reflect.
I do want to enhance my relationship with the community partner, don't get me wrong, but i think in some ways there is a continuum on this and the goals of the class differ from person to person.
so for me: my class is a methods class.
and among the various teaching strategies, service learning is ONE.
One analogy that came up today was on line teaching. That we all have taught a course and then started teaching it on line and when we taught it on line, we had a BIG learning curve, realizing we could no longer teach it the same way but rather a NEW way on line, but meeting the same outcomes and objectives.
service learning is another way to do this...
we can use it as a pedagogy, only I am using so many pedagogy's that this is not able to emerge as the only one.
But for me the emphasis has been on the value of STUDENT VOICE and that doing a project around something you are passionate about naturally is very important, and important for when they teach.
but I could put more emphasis on COMMUNITY PARTNERS. but not sure how to go about that.
Thought on my own class, and the evolution of it all as I began embarking on the whole MA compact grant on service learning. I started with 1.5 days dedicated...realizing that did not work, and it has evolved over time to really become integrated...more so each semester.
Like this semester including more about CITIZENSHIP AND GOVERNMENT and action...then critical attributes and procedural and informational knowledge.
Then making letter writing not service learning but a requirement in general for folks to get involved and take some political action...(that has to be cinched up and more clear).
Now, I would like to have them focus on sharing their community partner somehow...and create some kind of questionnaire to ask their community partner how it went...as a participant, but also if they were teaching, what would that partner want...I think if THEY ask these questions, this might actually get them more engaged in that process? I don't know.
the idea that emerged last week was CHOICE and letting students choose between the service learning and another project. I like this idea but also am not sure how it would pan out...what would the other choice be?
One thing that I think would be good to say to them, and Ann said this tonight "teachers should remain teachable" . This came up the other day when a student said to me "yea i like our class but i would like more resources and we have focused a lot on social justice but she would like to see more topics covered and so forth...and resources...which gets me thinking, i should.
I had that whole idea of teaching, but lesson planning is taking over. Hopefully after tomorrow we can start working more on resources and that sort of thing.
The last thought from today was changing my course...getting art OUT of it, regardless of NCATE since it DOES NOT HAPPEN there and increasing the notion of civic duty and citizenship. I would like to propose this change.
LAST thing, is the possibility of having them all watch food inc in the beginning and all of us doing the same project and all of us going to the food farm green whatever to do their project and eat their food etc.
1. teaching students to integrate service learning into their own teaching strategies in the future as classroom teachers
2. to be an active participating citizens.
and part of this is USING STUDENT VOICE to find an issue and explore it and then do service around that topic and then reflect.
I do want to enhance my relationship with the community partner, don't get me wrong, but i think in some ways there is a continuum on this and the goals of the class differ from person to person.
so for me: my class is a methods class.
and among the various teaching strategies, service learning is ONE.
One analogy that came up today was on line teaching. That we all have taught a course and then started teaching it on line and when we taught it on line, we had a BIG learning curve, realizing we could no longer teach it the same way but rather a NEW way on line, but meeting the same outcomes and objectives.
service learning is another way to do this...
we can use it as a pedagogy, only I am using so many pedagogy's that this is not able to emerge as the only one.
But for me the emphasis has been on the value of STUDENT VOICE and that doing a project around something you are passionate about naturally is very important, and important for when they teach.
but I could put more emphasis on COMMUNITY PARTNERS. but not sure how to go about that.
Thought on my own class, and the evolution of it all as I began embarking on the whole MA compact grant on service learning. I started with 1.5 days dedicated...realizing that did not work, and it has evolved over time to really become integrated...more so each semester.
Like this semester including more about CITIZENSHIP AND GOVERNMENT and action...then critical attributes and procedural and informational knowledge.
Then making letter writing not service learning but a requirement in general for folks to get involved and take some political action...(that has to be cinched up and more clear).
Now, I would like to have them focus on sharing their community partner somehow...and create some kind of questionnaire to ask their community partner how it went...as a participant, but also if they were teaching, what would that partner want...I think if THEY ask these questions, this might actually get them more engaged in that process? I don't know.
the idea that emerged last week was CHOICE and letting students choose between the service learning and another project. I like this idea but also am not sure how it would pan out...what would the other choice be?
One thing that I think would be good to say to them, and Ann said this tonight "teachers should remain teachable" . This came up the other day when a student said to me "yea i like our class but i would like more resources and we have focused a lot on social justice but she would like to see more topics covered and so forth...and resources...which gets me thinking, i should.
I had that whole idea of teaching, but lesson planning is taking over. Hopefully after tomorrow we can start working more on resources and that sort of thing.
The last thought from today was changing my course...getting art OUT of it, regardless of NCATE since it DOES NOT HAPPEN there and increasing the notion of civic duty and citizenship. I would like to propose this change.
LAST thing, is the possibility of having them all watch food inc in the beginning and all of us doing the same project and all of us going to the food farm green whatever to do their project and eat their food etc.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
The beginnings.
We had our second official faculty learning community meeting yesterday.
I facilitated a discussion, albeit brief, on 'LEARNING THEORY" from our "service learning toolkit" book.
We were not clear yet on agenda setting and facilitation, so I was asked to put that together, but the group leaders decided that we will not do that again in the future and they will do the agenda setting. I think we are getting more clear on roles and all that jazz as a community.
The agenda I set forth (with everyone's contributions of course):
We got through agenda topics 1-2 and 3.
What I got out of the discussion:
1. MAKE SERVICE LEARNING OPTIONAL. I have had this as a course requirement and had not considered making it optional. A colleague said she made it optional and was surprised when more than half her students opted for the service learning component. I makes me want to think this through and I actually think that this would be fantastic, but I would have to come up with some alternative assignment that would be equally challenging and educative. It is really hard to think of taking this component out because it actually is a teaching strategy I am trying to teach, as well as build active participating citizens...(DUAL GOAL). I am not sure this can work.
2. COLLECT DATA FROM COMMUNITY PARTNERS. Since I provide the students with places to go, but really have them make the cold calls, and while I do some leg work on building the community partners, I want them to be part of this process...(since they will have to do this when they are teachers), I need a way to really see if the community is being served by their service. I need to collect some data on this, not only how the students contact them, but then also if the students were helpful.
3. REFLECTION: how we use reflection. Are we helping students shape their minds with reflection or just letting them have a free for all. So this got me thinking about protocol with reflection, and how to use it better. We discussed the example from the book about creating multi-cultural attitudes and helping shape these...and the discussion was around how we frame experiences, and have "preps" (ala DEWEY) without maybe even acknowledging that we are doing that...and also how I do the "observation/ inference" thing in my class to make sure students are aware of their biases...and how we do this for teaching service, but I do not do this for the service learning component...AND to make sure they are really identifying their own biases and prejudices based on their experiences.
4. USING the bias thing that one colleague mentioned that assesses people's biases...I really want to get my hands on this. It is a bias test...she posted this website to check out: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/ Click the demonstration option not the research option for the various tests.
I facilitated a discussion, albeit brief, on 'LEARNING THEORY" from our "service learning toolkit" book.
We were not clear yet on agenda setting and facilitation, so I was asked to put that together, but the group leaders decided that we will not do that again in the future and they will do the agenda setting. I think we are getting more clear on roles and all that jazz as a community.
The agenda I set forth (with everyone's contributions of course):
October 3, 2011 Service learning Faculty Learning Group Meeting
Time: 3-4:30 Central Campus
AGENDA
1. Ch 1 review with Eric
2. Ch 2 review with Anneliese
3. Intro to service learning person: Nicole. She will introduce herself and show us on line resources
4. Sharing out syllabi and projects and ideas.
5. Sharing resources
6. If time: maybe review timelines of IRB and portfolio’s etc.
What I got out of the discussion:
1. MAKE SERVICE LEARNING OPTIONAL. I have had this as a course requirement and had not considered making it optional. A colleague said she made it optional and was surprised when more than half her students opted for the service learning component. I makes me want to think this through and I actually think that this would be fantastic, but I would have to come up with some alternative assignment that would be equally challenging and educative. It is really hard to think of taking this component out because it actually is a teaching strategy I am trying to teach, as well as build active participating citizens...(DUAL GOAL). I am not sure this can work.
2. COLLECT DATA FROM COMMUNITY PARTNERS. Since I provide the students with places to go, but really have them make the cold calls, and while I do some leg work on building the community partners, I want them to be part of this process...(since they will have to do this when they are teachers), I need a way to really see if the community is being served by their service. I need to collect some data on this, not only how the students contact them, but then also if the students were helpful.
3. REFLECTION: how we use reflection. Are we helping students shape their minds with reflection or just letting them have a free for all. So this got me thinking about protocol with reflection, and how to use it better. We discussed the example from the book about creating multi-cultural attitudes and helping shape these...and the discussion was around how we frame experiences, and have "preps" (ala DEWEY) without maybe even acknowledging that we are doing that...and also how I do the "observation/ inference" thing in my class to make sure students are aware of their biases...and how we do this for teaching service, but I do not do this for the service learning component...AND to make sure they are really identifying their own biases and prejudices based on their experiences.
4. USING the bias thing that one colleague mentioned that assesses people's biases...I really want to get my hands on this. It is a bias test...she posted this website to check out: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/ Click the demonstration option not the research option for the various tests.
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