I have always been a reflective learner and thinker. When I began teaching, I had a long drive to and from work, and I used that 45 minutes to think on the day and its lessons–my lessons–and how students had learned or become engaged. So when reflecting became a mandatory part of our teacher portfolio each year, I thought No problem. This is amazing. And did I ever reflect. I liked knowing that the person who evaluated me was getting to see such a valuable piece of teaching that was beyond the reach of a classroom observation. And I’ll just say right now, this is one reason why [NERD ALERT] I like writing my IDP. I want my colleagues and evaluators to know more about my teaching. Reflection is a critical part of teaching that takes place all behind the scenes.
And this takes me to professional development. I’ve always liked professional development, including the time we played with marbles or had to put on skits and even the time I had one of my most embarrassing moments with all the English teachers in the district present. Nope, not getting that one out of me. But the key to professional development, for me anyway, is having time to process all the learning, to really anchor it in with my current knowledge and understanding. I’m sorry to say I haven’t always had that time. I’m lucky to have been able to work in two districts that so value professional development and really lucky that the second one allows me more time to do the reflecting.
So when I attended Mary and Jennifer’s LearnShop on Friday–Developmental Education: Teaching Learning Strategies and Critical Thinking–I was happy to get time to think and reflect during the time there, on the drive home, and over the course of the weekend. I already applied what I learned to one of my courses. As my friend Alisa Cooper said, “Learning is my passion…[and]…I want to learn new things.” I will continue to take advantage of as much professional development as I can and, if able, share it with people who want to hear about it.
All posts by Beth Eyres
The Curse of Week Four
What is it about week four? I arrived at work bright and early on Monday, eagerly anticipating the day. But it just felt odd. Stressful? Already? It’s only Monday, I thought, determined to figure out why this week had me on edge.
There were a few pieces of old business hanging over from the previous week: the Write6x6 blog post (ahem), some work coming in from students, some planning I had not finished. And there were thoughts of what I had to do coming up, one item not until April that I was worried about. Then there’s that one troublesome student who seems determined not to learn from me all while I try desperately to learn from her in hopes I can actually find a sneaky way to teach her. Maybe all of this unease is the settling in of the semester for all of us, students included. Yep, the semester really did start. Yep, weekends are now mostly about grading or doing homework. Maybe now is the time to really work on balance. Yes, today I’ll work on balance and get rid of some of this unease.
This plan might have panned out at some point had Wednesday, the day some refer to as hump day, allowed me to have the time to think about balance. Instead my wife texted me to say we were overdrawn in the checking account (we just got paid last week). “What happened?” I texted. “We’re supposed to be rich.”
“I don’t know. I lost track. Bills. Students loans. I bought some clothes.”
Dollar signs appeared before my eyes. I imagined trucks pulling up in front of the house, delivering racks of clothes. How much could someone spend on new outfits?
This bump in the hump was just a bit of a slow down midweek, but it was not awful, just perplexing.
Shortly after arriving home, later than usual, I greeted the animals with sweet talk and lots of pets. It was just a few moments later that I realized our cute and sweet Lila was having another bout of diarrhea. It wouldn’t be so bad if she weren’t long haired and if she didn’t curl her tail under herself in the catbox. I grabbed for some paper towels and then grabbed her tail–it’s never a good idea to grab a cat’s tail. She
tried to run, and she hissed. Her hind claws caught my toes which were only protected by socks, one of which has a hole in the toe I noticed.
This was a job that needed more than just a dampened half paper towel. I grabbed and wetted a wash cloth and went in again. After much hiding under tables, running, hissing, and clawing–both of us–I got her to a spot where I could really hold down her tail and wash it, and surprisingly she let me do it. I think she was just tired. She’s having a week four, too.
I’m not sure I’m the only one having a week four, but it is certainly my challenge to work out the rough spots this week. I need to find a way to sand down the edges. There are two things that sometimes work for me:
1. Read a book that has a little depth. Right now I’m reading When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions by Sue Monk Kidd. It feels a little heavy for what may just be a strange week, but books like this challenge me to wonder about the big picture and, in doing so, I can generally put into perspective the little things.
2. Do a brain dump and prioritize. There’s a formula I use for this. (I’ve had students do this at high stress times of the semester, too. Takes about ten minutes in class, maybe a few more if you talk about it.) Here are the steps. Math ahead.
a. List everything you can think of that you have to do that you can’t stop thinking about. (Here’s where I’d make my list and actually put down that thing I have to do in April.)
b. Give everything a number from 1-4 based on when it has to be done (1=in the next day, 2= in a few days, 3=within two weeks, 4=long way off). Rule? You may not give everything a 1. Rule? Don’t put down eating or sleeping.
c. Give everything another number from 1-4 based on how serious the consequences are if you don’t do it (1=jobs lost, people die, you get the idea; 2=serious, but not life altering; 3=even less serious; 4=who cares?).
d. Multiply those two numbers together to give all items a new and final number.
e. Rewrite the items from 1-? and then cut the list in half.
f. Work on the top half. Forget about the bottom half for now.
This might seem obvious to everyone else, but I find it really helps me to focus, and maybe that is the key to conquering the curse of week four–to focus on what really matters and let the little things go.
Making a difference. Difference. Different.
Making a difference.
Difference.
Different.
When I think of all the people I encounter, I realize they all have made some difference in my life:
- My colleagues challenge me to rethink my practice. They do so in a lot of ways but one way is simply by sharing their own practices. They share difference.
- My spouse shares an insight from her readings, and I learn something new and make a slight adjustment to my thoughts about life and how we live it.
- My friends share themselves and time with me, further encouraging me to be present and not bury myself in work.
If I turn this around and think about the difference I make as a teacher, simply due to the volume of students I have had pass through my classroom, I realize the potential for making a difference is dramatic. If my math is right, I’ve taught about 4,000 students. Now that’s no Taylor-Swift-Twitter-numbers, but I’ve also spent 45-180 hours with each of these people. And if I taught them more than
one semester or year or coached them, add even more hours to that. That is a lot of time being present with someone. It’s hard not to make some kind of difference in all that time.
In the smallest way possible, I hope to make a difference in teaching my students how to write. But what they take from these efforts of mine will vary. A couple weeks ago, I ran into a student from last semester who thanked me profusely for helping her during that class. She assured me that she felt really good in her current class because of all that I asked her to work on. I was surprised when her eyes welled up with tears, and I thought, Wow, she took way more from my class than I could ever plan for.
In a more personal way, I try to recommend my students for items they may find personally interesting. I’ve sent two returning students over to Debbie to discuss the honors program, and both of them are now taking honors courses. I like to recommend scholarships to students and even assist them with their applications if needed. I’ve written countless letters of recommendation, most recently for a student who wants to participate in a Study Abroad. Even when students are not successful, I believe what I have written about them has the potential to make a difference in how they perceive themselves.
I think I make the most difference in people’s lives in my role as a teacher, but all of this “difference” spins out of relationships. Relationships matter, and they give us a chance to become more reflective and to grow in knowledge and experience.
What the Kittens Teach Me
I lost my long time, super sweet cat about six months ago, and I knew I would eventually get
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| The kittens: Lady Bug and Lila |
another cat. When the Humane Society had their special “adopt a cat” deal, I thought, This is a sign. So I went early one day, and I was happy to see a crowd there adopting cats and kittens. Most of the cats were sleeping or huddled into the corners of their tiny metallic cages. These two? They were playing, chasing their tails, chasing each other, and even playing in the litter box. They seemed to have no idea the miserable situation they were in. Lesson One: Play. No matter what life throws at you, play. I am happy to say they are still playing. I’m trying to play more, too.
Lady Bug and Lila think I’m their mom since I feed them, pet them, and talk sweetly to them. So it’s no big deal to them to wake me in the middle of the night, crawl onto my chest, and begin purring. They need some attention and affection (and probably want more food). Lesson Two: Patience. It’s so hard to get mad at a purring kitten in the middle of the night.
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| Papi and Lady Bug |
The kittens are blending in to the family quite well. They have a dog to contend with, Papi. They seem to be co-existing splendidly; in fact, Lady Bug really likes Papi and will rub up against him, purring. She’ll even lie next to him. Lesson Three: Be friendly to everyone. Lesson Four: Cuddle.
In Between
I heard one time that people go through one major change every ten years. The idea is proving true for me. The most recent change I experienced (and am experiencing) was leaving a job I had for 23 years to come to GCC. To say that I was rooted in that location, tied to the people, traditions, and processes would be an understatement. I started and grew my career there, and I involved myself in as many parts of campus and district life as I could, from sponsoring clubs and coaching sports to helping teachers experiencing discipline and being an officer in the teachers’ association. To come to GCC meant leaving the familiar and comfortable for something different, something new.
Being in that state of unfamiliarity is a strange place to be. It sparked reflection about the big questions in life. It jostled my confidence a time or two. Sometimes those things happen and cause a change. In this case, the change provoked what I can only call growth.
By far the biggest assistance I’ve had in this change has been through my colleagues, the opportunities I’ve experienced, and our students. My colleagues have accepted me with the friendliness of a thousand Quokkas.
I’ve attended conferences that have allowed me to stretch my classroom practices. Finally, teaching is teaching, and while students are students, the ones at GCC are particularly friendly, eager to meet their goals, and, though a little concerned, generally optimistic about their futures. I’m optimistic, too.
Jin Xiang
Teaching vs. Learning: Something I Learned
I can’t recall the particular moment that I learned this. More than likely the discovery came over time and, like most things we learn, once we learn it, there’s no unlearning or going back. What did I learn? That just because I taught it, it doesn’t mean they learned it. You might be thinking Duh. Believe me, I wish I could have learned this very early in my career, but teaching has really changed over the last 25 years because students and our world have changed. And I never learned this in my education classes when I was in college. This was something I learned out of experience and probably a change in state standards, but it did take awhile to sink in. When it did, my practice changed.
Now, I teach composition, so there is a significant skill based component to that course. It’s built for teach, formative assess, reteach and clarify, formative assess, remediate with a few students, assess. It’s built for returning to concepts, so that the competencies are revisited and revisited, and by the end of the course, students can really bring research and synthesis and citation and format all together to create something of which they can be proud.
“I taught that” was replaced with “my students learned ______.”
Professional Development Potpourri
There are so many ways to get professional development, and I make use of as many of them as possible. For the very literal, there is the popular conference. Conferences can be found all over the globe and on myriad topics from The University of Hertfordshire’s Open Graves, Open Minds: “The Company of Wolves’: Sociality, Animality, and Subjectivity in Literary and Cultural Narratives–Werewolves, Shapeshifters, and Feral Humans to “WIRED & INSPIRED: The Intelligent Use of Technology in Higher Education” to the University of Roehampton’s single day “Daughter of Fangdom: A Conference of Women and the Television Vampire.” I just finished attending the second one in my list, and my brain is overflowing with ideas. I sat in structured sessions, took notes, and brainstormed ideas. I will take back my learning and slowly begin to implement some of the ideas.
I also enjoy the professional development that takes place between colleagues who work on studying/learning something together. For example, I once participated in a year long book group where we read books about the Millennials because we wanted to understand our students better. Books we read and discussed included Nurture Shock and Generation Me. Our discussions included ways our lessons may/may not be working for this generation’s students. This professional development was small group, and we created the focus based on what our interests were and where our struggles existed. The conversations were thoughtful and paced to our needs. My attitudes toward my students changed, and I adapted my lessons to my audience.
Then, for me, there is another valuable method of gaining professional development: independent reading and studying. This can range from really good short articles to books on both pedagogy and content. I find a lot of these readings from Twitter where I follow people/organizations who tweet about education, composition, or literature. The best education ones I follow include Higher Ed Chat, Mark Barnes, Diane Ravitch, and Edudemic. For research and citation, I follow Easybib. For my literature interests, particularly gothic literature, I follow Bernice Murphy, Linnie Blake, Gothic MMU, Xavier Aldana Reyes, and Irish Gothic Journal. These readings happen at times when I have a spare few minutes–enough time to read a linked article. I try to immediately make a connection to something I’m doing in class. Many times Twitter provides a breathtaking synchronicity with what I’m working on or a quick idea for new ways to start class.
I have a lot I could say about planned or spontaneous conversations with colleagues. I find myself listening to their words long after we’ve parted and reflecting on my practice in light of a single tidbit or two they have generously shared with me.
I believe professional development is learning, and learning can take place in many ways.
Tapping in to Social Media
I remember when I first started using Twitter. I was hesitant. I was still unsure what the hashtags were for. I had a hard time reading tweets that seemed filled with random bits of information and came across as disjointed. Okay, I still have problems with those. But I started using it primarily as a classroom tool and as a way to get my students interested in all things Englishy and to see that there are many ways to use Twitter and ethical ways to behave on Twitter. So when I mentioned using the OED in the classroom, I also shared that the OED tweets a Word of the Day. When I taught colons, I challenged my students to tweet a sentence with a colon in it and tag me.
@MsEyres I only like to read books that involve the muder of my favorite characters: Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, and The Book Thief.
— Inquisitor Nicole
@MsEyres gosh darn it, I knew I mispelled something!! I meant to type “murder”. Whoops…
— Inquisitor Nicole
What I love about that one besides her reading list is that she goes back to correct an error unrelated to the colon, prompting discussions about editing and not hitting “post” quite so rapidly and maybe also learning how to forgive ourselves for making silly errors.
Now that I’m at GCC, I’m testing the waters with how I can continue to use Twitter for both research possibilities and engagement. I started simply by having them tweet on paper one thing they had learned in class that day and include any hashtags they wanted. Here is one I got from a student who doesn’t even have a Twitter account:
“‘OMG’ Dude, proper summarizing has never been simpler. Equation for summaries: Context + Introduce sources/give credentials + main points = BA summary. #Propersummary”
I love this one because he applied the learning to another subject, and now I have a math equation I can use to show how to properly integrate a summary into student writing. Here’s what I think happens when using Twitter (or maybe any other social media) with students: We speak a common language, and that creates connections and engagement.
The Inverse Power of Praise
I decided to share this concept with some of my students because I remember how powerfully it struck me. Praising kids can have a negative effect on their intellectual performance and motivation as they grow older. Why did this strike such a reaction in me? As a teacher I thought of all the times I had simply said “good job” or something similar on a task as if the task were over, and there was no more learning to be gained. I wondered if I had inadvertently fed into what my students already believed about themselves–that they were either smart or dumb, and that was it. I started reflecting on what I thought about learning. I started changing how I responded to my students, mostly honors classes at the time. These were students who had most likely had been told they were really smart for most of their lives. I started praising their efforts, the small victories they made, particularly in their writing instead of making general comments of praise that weren’t really helpful and did not refer to the process of learning. I tried to shift the focus in my classroom to the process instead of just the outcome. I can’t really know what sort of difference it might have made. I can only hope that it helped in a small way. I am grateful to have read Po Bronson’s book, Nurture Shock: New Thinking About Children, in which “The Inverse Power of Praise” is a chapter. At the very least it got me thinking, and at its best, it made me a better teacher.
For my students I was hoping they would reflect on their own upbringings or consider how they speak to their own children or younger siblings or other relatives. And reading the article did cause a lot of reflection. A side benefit was that many of them realized how important their words can be, a definite win in an English class.
Week of Accountability ’15 Teaching Tip: What just happened?
At the beginning of most class periods, I had out a small sheet of scrap paper to every student. It’s about 1/4 of an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper. At the beginning of the semester they always ask, “What’s this for?” As we get farther on, they stop asking, they might groan, or if I do not give them one that day, they may ask for one! In the last few minutes of class, I always ask students to write something for me:
1. something they learned
2. something that is not clear
3. a question
4. the topic they are writing on
5. a working thesis
6. the title of a good source they found
7. a short rhetorical analysis
This could be anything, and it can serve several purposes: to keep them engaged for what’s coming up, as formative assessment, as communication between us (often I respond and pass it back the next class period). Students who do not like to raise a hand in class feel heard and get questions answered. It’s a quick way for me to see what they get, the direction in which they are going, and to know which students may need extra visiting during the next class.