Write6x6

CTLE and other Random Thoughts about Professional Development

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At GCC, I would have to say, without a doubt, that the CTLE is my “jam.” It is my go-to for training, for questions about Canvas, for how to design pretty email messages, for ensuring my syllabus is up to spec, and for designing new curriculum. Now that I think about it, I don’t know what I would do if we did not have this significant training platform available to us. So kudos to the CTLE gang!

I thoroughly enjoyed the carpool-karaoke-style-discussion about neurodivergence with Lisa and Beth. I’ll be honest, that is a new word for me and it was great to listen to two people talking openly about living with ADHD. I learned that empathy and scaffolding concepts are handy tools to have in your classroom. I enjoyed the creativity of the video recording and editing, and it reminded me that learning can happen in many ways. I appreciate humor because it breaks down many learning barriers.

In addition to attending conferences and webinars in the field of exercise and wellness, I find it critical to have a physical book to read and an audio book to enjoy in the car or during walks with the dog. I find that these books can be on any interesting topic ranging from autobiographies of rockstars, to historical fiction, to fantasy. My rule is that every other read should be about a topic that is related to health and wellness so that I can stay current. In summary, reading is critical for the brain and for learning in general.

The most important thing I do to help me be better at my job as a college instructor is that I make time for exercise. Exercise is medicine for the brain. If you don’t believe me, ask your Chat GPT to tell you all about BDNF.

In summary, call your local CTLE professional, listen to fun podcasts, go to conferences, read real and audible books, and move your body often!

Write6x6

My Learning Network

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I recently had a quick getaway to Borealis Basecamp, which is located about an hour outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. My lifelong friends and I were there to celebrate one of our crew’s 60th birthday and, of course, chase aurora borealis shows.

These gals are my learning network. Together we have traveled far and wide to learn new things while enjoying each other’s company. We have gone on long distance hikes in Ireland, France, Spain, and Portugal. We’ve hiked the Grand Canyon three times together. We feverishly share books, most recently Lessons in Chemistry. This trip was one more opportunity to add to our collective knowledge banks.

And sure, I learned a lot on this trip about the aurora borealis, (perhaps most notably that’s it’s not as easy to spot as shown in the movies!) I learned interesting facts about the boreal forest biome in general as well as the Alaskan pipeline. I learned about the sport of sled dog racing and the lifestyles of caribou.

But perhaps the most powerful learning was not factual in nature. On one day we went on a 6-hour snowmobile tour, which, before we left, I calculated would be about 5 hours and 59 minutes too long.

I wasn’t far off. I am a careful person by nature, and fear had it’s death grip on me as I tried to maneuver the machine without toppling over into a snow bank at best or a tree at worst. But my friends helped me with tips such as leaning away from a fall and using the palm of my hand on the throttle. They coached and cheered me on.

I had a flash of how I encourage my students all the time to take risks and be unafraid of mistakes. I soon realized that I often do so from a lofty perch. This experience reminded of how much I live in my comfort zone and how branching out and trying new things can make me stronger. How pushing myself in this way can help me handle more mundane fears in life, such as initiating a difficult conversation or saying no in certain situations.

I would lie if I said that I learned to love snowmobiling and mastered the beastly machine. I did not technically like a lot of it. But now that it is in my rear-view mirror, I am extremely glad I did it. This is an example of the vast hidden curriculum of traveling with my adventurous learning network.

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Teaching to Excite

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From our prompts, I found myself thinking about one of my favorite teachers. I thought my first favorite teacher would probably have a lot to do with discovering the fun of learning – and I was enthusiastic about learning right from the start. So, Mrs. Salter, my third grade teacher, came to mind, who introduced me to Brighty of the Grand Canyon, (whose shiny nose I have now seen and touched on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon – shiny because of all of the little kids and grown kids who have touched the wonderful nose that Marguerite Henry brought to life for so many) and Misty of Chincoteague Island, another of the many Henry books. But then I realized, I started with books much earlier than that, and I really should give credit to someone who taught me, but was not considered my teacher – my father’s roommate from college – Jim Jensen, who ultimately became a college professor in English.

I always enjoyed having Jim visit. He drove a Karmann Ghia, which I thought was very exotic, and to an extent, still do. Every time he came to our house and visited my parents, both of whom he knew from high school, if not earlier, he always brought me a book as a present. Nothing fancy but a Golden Book of some sort, and I ended up putting my name in all of my books even though I technically did not know how to write yet. I always started with the verticals and the slants and horizontal lines were added more creatively.

Yup, looking below, I knew I’d get mixed up from the first to the second N but after I had done it, I’d know it was wrong. Somehow, I couldn’t cross the vertical lines correctly twice in a row. I had no control or memory of how to do it at that age. And then the E had several lines across it, going down, but I never knew quite how many. More than two, but, in this example, obviously five was too many.

Anyway, Jim got to sleep on an air mattress in our attic, which I also thought was very exotic. I also noticed that when I looked at the air mattress in the morning it no longer had any air in it – so thinking back, it was probably the worst possible “bed” for comfort and little more than sleeping on the floor.

Learning What to and Not to Do

It wasn’t until I moved to Arizona that I heard the word Lifelong Learner, but knew that I was one, but had never heard the expression. It was something that I suggest to all of my students. You are not just learning in this class. You are always learning, and you will learn from every job or opportunity you have whether or not you like that job – so pay attention. Coming from so many different jobs over the years, retail sales, draftsman, receptionist, manager, editor, teacher, word processor, musician, and writer, among other jobs that I don’t even remember – I did know one thing – food service would be a disaster – so I never attempted that. The important thing was that I always paid attention, even if it meant that I would learn not to do something in a particular way because it didn’t make sense to do it the way “they” were doing it.

Favorite Authors

I appreciate some of our 6×6 authors mentioning Ray Bradbury. I went through as much of his stuff as I could find when I was younger, and loved being reminded of that journey, including “Fahrenheit 451,” among others. I’ve tried to read everyone’s work in 6×6 this spring because I’ve felt in previous years people weren’t trying to read each other’s works. I decided to make sure that I did. It’s the spirit of the thing.

I’ve mentioned a few of my favorite current authors, Louise Penny, a Canadian author, who created a wonderful arc between a number of books, to tell a much larger story, Mick Herron, of Slough Horses or Slough House fame, I’ve read even more arcs from his books, and the way he can create an introduction using a spirit is beyond inspirational. If I could write a book, I’d like to write like he writes, but I don’t think I have the talent. He also has short stories that are part of that very large arc, so I really have to pay attention when I read him because he uses so many word references to the back story of characters. My favorite line of his was when an individual was trying to dial a phone in an emergency and he created this beautiful play on words, “his fingers felt like thumbs, his thumbs like bananas.” Who hasn’t been there! Malcolm Gladwell can tell you why we can be “all thumbs” when the going gets tough – it’s psychological! John Camp (I mentioned his pen name in a different writing, but his Pulitzer is under this name), from the St. Paul Pioneer Press, whose works I simply devour – I can’t put them down. I have to re-read them later because I try to read to go to sleep, but find myself still reading at 3 a.m.! I’ve read ALL of his books. Michael Connelly is another fabulous writer. I started with the Bosch books, and have since read all of his books twice. That got me through a broken shoulder where I was in bed for the better part of three months.

I no longer put my name on the inside of books, written correctly or not, and most of what I now read is in a Kindle because my hands and neck can’t tolerate holding large books anymore. We all make adjustments; some are just to allow us to continue reading more and more from those that first introduced us to the excitement of books and learning and where authors can take us on their journeys – Berlin, London, Toronto, Brittany – and I didn’t even mention that French author, or the English one, that put Provence on everyone’s map!

Write6x6

An AI Story: What the AI Can’t Do

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 Since generative AI hit the scene, I've gone through several phases: 

  1. It's too overwhelming to think about and what the hell is the point of teaching anything anymore? This phase is known to me as my teaching crisis. Over my 30-some-year career, these have periodically plagued me. I've managed to get out of each of these usually by waiting it out or reprogramming how I think of the thing that got me into it. 

  2. Maybe I can use this? This phase is where I am really tentative. My brain takes time to process by doing a lot of reading and studying. I might attend webinars or learn from my colleagues.

  3. I think I'm all in. In this final phase, I really start to embrace the thing that started the crisis.

Something happened in my life between phases 2 and 3 when it comes to generative AI. I was eagerly reading about AI news daily, playing with various tools regularly, using it as an assistant, and starting to enter the embracing phase and even planning an upcoming AI-themed composition course.

Then my mom had open heart surgery, and I left to take care of her for a month over the winter break. Where before I had been using Perplexity to learn more about her condition, I was now calling the triage nurses to ask questions about her immediate care, and I called them a lot. I was answering the door to her physical therapist, Lori, or the nurse in charge of her case, Brenda who was there when we had to call 911. For four weeks, I did not think about AI.

 ChatGPT didn't help me at all, and it didn't help any of the people helping me who had to rely on their excellent training to troubleshoot in the moment. It couldn't give me a reassuring look or meet me just outside the door to have a private chat. It couldn't take the car to the garage to get it checked out and ready to make it through winter. It didn't take me out for a beer like my brother did. I didn't expect it to do any of those things. I also didn't miss it for a month. 




 

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My Journey to Higher Ed in a Tracksuit

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This week’s Write 6 x 6 options were quite a struggle for me. My competitive nature was not going to allow me to skip this week. I am not an expert in neurodiversity or DEI, although I have had some exposure in my classrooms. I simply need to read those submissions coming in from my expert peers. So that left me with identifying a movie or TV show representing my journey to higher ed.

After much deliberation, Ted Lasso was where my mind rested.

While Ted Lasso travelled from the USA to England, I headed west from Ireland to the good ole US of A. While Ted was not actually a soccer coach, he used his knowledge of American Football to rally his fictitious British professional soccer team to success.

While I knew absolutely nothing about higher ed before crossing the pond, I took my experience of competitive swimming and a high school education and I figured out a path to a masters degree in Physical Education, and ultimately a lifetime of community college instruction.

While Ted had to adapt to a new language that was still English, I also experienced many humor-filled situations where a biscuit is not actually a biscuit!

I still scratch my head and wonder how I got here. I had two absolute career “no-nos” when I finished high school in Ireland. I did not want to teach and I certainly did not want to be a PE teacher. While I am not exactly a PE teacher, I am essentially teaching future fitness trainers and health professionals about how to safely and effectively prepare bodies and minds for optimal health and fitness.

When Ted left his family back home in the US for his big adventure, I felt his loneliness as he tried his best to fit in with new colleagues in a new culture. Ted wore his signature tracksuit to work on most days, and that is generally my attire, and has been since the the ’80’s.

I think I may just have stumbled upon an idea for my future novel.

Ain’t nothing to it but to do it!

professional development, Write6x6

Who Wants to Go to Space Camp?

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I’m not a space nerd. I’ve had absolutely no interest in space or science for that matter my whole life. But if you have a good friend like Sian Proctor, you kind of get dragged into it a little. I watched her takeoff into space in a rocket ship, build cool things on a reality TV show and live on a Mars simulation for a summer. None of those things are anything I would ever want to do. Nope. Not me.

But Dr. Proctor is cool and we started teaching together at SMCC 25 years ago, so when she asked me for help I always try my best to help out, even if that means flying to Alabama to attend Space Camp. Yep. I went to adult Space Camp last summer and I was sure I would not like it.

It was awesome! I had so much fun, and Sian is looking for some new faculty and students to go this summer with her foundation. All expenses paid. At Proctor Foundation for Art and Science, we are dedicated to bringing community college students and faculty on experiential journeys of scientific research and exploration. Our focus is on the BIPOC community: those who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color. Check out how to apply here: https://proctor.foundation/

And check out my adventure below.

Apply today or encourage your BIPOC students to apply. Or you can donate to the foundation. Applications are being accepted through the end of February. So hurry.

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Learning: The Infinite Journey

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Personally, I have always liked learning new things. I find challenging myself to grow to be rewarding. I embrace the value of lifelong learning in numerous ways. 

In my opinion, one of the key pieces to lifelong learning must be desire. In my personal life I have pushed myself to learn how to knit, change out a bathtub, use a jackhammer, install tile, put up drywall, install solid core doors, put up cabinets, and many other things. What is interesting is that most of these came from my internal desire to change things in my home or learn a new skill. 

Here are some pictures of the project I have taken on and learned from along the way (before on the left and after on the right):

My desire to learn things in my professional life is strong and I find it fun to learn new techniques and technologies to push my instruction and productivity. There is something very satisfying to me when I attempt a new activity with my students. The thrill of not knowing if the activity you built will be a smash hit or just a huge flop can be exciting both in a good and bad way. The suspense of not knowing can also add to the excitement. This semester I have changed my classroom yet again using strategies from Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics from Peter Liljedahl. 

Using strategies from the book, my students are randomly grouped into groups of three every class using a line up activity (Example: Second letter of their last name or distance they drove to campus). Then my students participate in a non curricular task which encourages them to think and has multiple options for solutions and strategies to solve. Once the task is completed they are then given curriculum tasks that are in line with the competences of the course. The students are standing at the boards the entire class with the purpose of problem solving and actively thinking about the task in front of them. 

This new take on my classroom has been invigorating and keeps me on my toes as much as my students. Everyday poses new ways of thinking and pushes everyone in the room to think, not just memorize. 

My desire to push myself out of my comfort zone and try new things has led to growth whether in trying something new and it working out or failing miserably, I am still growing and learning. I truly believe that this attitude helps me be a better teacher and colleague. 

GCC  fosters opportunities for life-long learning in our community. How do you embrace the value of life-long learning? Write about the importance of continuous professional development in your role here at GCC and share your personal experiences and growth.

Write6x6

My Office Accoutrements

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I was on a Zoom call recently when someone looked at my background and said “Is that real?” We were in the process of setting up, and getting our meeting started so I didn’t realize she was talking to me, so I didn’t answer. (“You talkin’ to me?!”) But I digress.

As a matter of fact, my Zoom background isn’t a background at all. It is my office. It took years to learn that others used something similar as a background. In my office I have books. Behind me (while I’m sitting here writing this) looms a large two-tier floor to ceiling bookcase, and that was what she was seeing. But that was only one wall. I have two more walls of bookcases. In fact, my home is filled with books, and books, and books. Outside my office I have more floor to ceiling bookcases, which house hundreds of my husband’s books. The ones in my office are textbooks, reference books, music scores, and books and anthologies of poetry (mostly public domain) of poems I use or have used in my music. Anything I’m currently reading in fiction, Mick Herron, Ann Cleeves, or John Sanford (you have to know that reference or you won’t get the fact that he’s a Pulitzer-prize winning reporter with over forty books); or non-fiction, Malcolm Gladwell, for example, is in my Kindle, quietly holding hundreds more books. I don’t read so much as devour. But again, I digress.

Where my office doesn’t have books I have artwork, mostly paintings by my mother, whose work I greatly admire, in oils, watercolors, or pastels. When we moved her out of her home recently, we had to deal with her office – her art room. I’ll never forget when I mentioned to my husband that my mother won “Best in Show,” he glibly shot back, “What breed did she register under?” because he knew she had a fistful of ribbons that she’d won in competitions over the years. Along with ribbons were paints, paint brushes, paintings, ideas for paintings, and books about painting. We soon realized this was part of a floating iceberg – there was more art and were more canvases squirreled away in other parts of the house! She is 91, and now living in an apartment. She went to an art class recently given at her facility but pretended not to know anything so as not to show anyone up. Very Minnesotan of her – not a surprise since she was born and raised there. But again, I digress.

I happen to be very visual – and visually pleasing things help me to write and think. Sometimes I’m not looking at something as much as staring, thinking of the words I’m trying to elicit from my sometimes-slow-as-molasses brain. On my desk is a two-foot-high sculpture which I lugged on a plane, stowed between my feet coming back from Houston. I love it and am happy I went to the trouble to get it to my very first office, and every subsequent office since.

Minnesota Nice

I have finally tucked my degrees on a wall next to the aforementioned large bookcase when I moved to Arizona, but you won’t see them front and center. They would only be slightly noticeable if you completely entered the room. So, if you just stick your head in you surely won’t see them. And on a Zoom call they’re just out of focus enough that you can’t read them either. (That’s so “Minnesota” of me. You work your buns off only to place your degrees in a spot that people “might” see, but again, they “might not.” So, that’s being very Minnesotan, understated, but still honest, a bit like my mother, an award-winning artist but not about to show up a budding volunteer art teacher who was providing the little art class to other ninety-year-olds.) Again, digressing…

Office Particulars

I, too, have a stack of legal pads – I love legal pads (but prefer other colors to yellow if I have the option) and love to write things down. It’s a mnemonic, a memory tool, and I’m an inveterate doodler as well. So, somehow between the computer, the occasionally working printer – which is virtually brand new – and my legal pads I get my work completed. They all sit happily or grumpily on my desk (depending on threatening deadlines) along with a calendar of course deadlines, which week we happen to be in, and what my students’ imminent deadlines are.

Technically I have two offices and three desks. Two desks at angles to each other, in beautiful cherry, a wood that is not currently in vogue, but I don’t care. A cherry drafting table sits downstairs and looks at me imploringly under heavy brows when I descend the staircase. It sits next to the grand piano. It used to scold me, but now we have an “understanding.” When I feel like using it – I do. First plan regarding moving in, do not dream of moving a grand piano upstairs! Very good plan. At least the piano doesn’t have an attitude.

I mentioned going through my mother’s artwork and her office. Unfortunately, there will come a time when someone has to do that for me – and my music. Hopefully I’ll get to it before then, but one never knows. There are copyrights involved so there is some consolation on getting something for their trouble. Some of my music is in the closet with extra shelving. Some of the music is in a computer on pdfs (which computer does that reside in is the real question), some hard copies in file folders based on a previous method of storage. We (my husband and I) are trying to decide the next best way to store scores, parts, and recordings that go with each piece when it needs to go out to performers or conductors. This decision came after spending Christmas Break frantically searching through several computers, other closets in other rooms which hold older pieces, not to mention downstairs near the piano, where it might have also been, in an effort to find my second string quartet and vocal chamber piece that had to be sent RIGHT NOW.

My office was better organized when I taught at Hamline University because I had a secretary and an honors student assistant. But that was many pieces ago and a different institution and state. I simply have more music, larger pieces, and need a new organizational system. But it’s the middle of the semester, I’m working on two CD projects, and helping my students with their deadlines. I’ve finally gotten a couple of these 6×6 writings under my belt, which I’ve been owing. My accoutrements are scowling a little less as I walk into the room. What I probably need for my office is an assistant or perhaps less judgmental furniture . . . but I digress.

Write6x6

NeuroDiversity – Changing Our World

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They told her that her organs were shutting down and at some point they would have to deliver the baby – no matter what. The answer to the question was that her life was to be spared – period – but they would hold off as long as they could because it was still too early.

Each nurse greeted the woman with “You will not seize on my shift!” and the woman thought, “I didn’t even know that was an option,” lying there, the clock not ticking but jumping hours, missing parts of days until they said, “Baby’s in trouble.” It was said, back then, surgeons had less than three minutes in this situation; I’ve heard from some it’s more like 90 seconds before things can go incredibly wrong. Timing is critical.

The baby remained in the hospital for three and a half months; first in the NICU, (the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, in an isolette) then the Special Care nursery – in an isolette without a top – now that he could regulate his temperature better. He never made it into the “regular” nursery – the one that everyone visits where they have balloons and ooh and aah over recent deliveries. “Ooh, I think she has your nose;” “No, I think he looks more like his father,” “Well, at least he doesn’t look like Aunt Edna!”

Fast forward down the road about twenty years. One of the doctors of this million dollar-March of Dimes baby (and yes, that’s probably what he cost – in 1990s dollars) mentioned that people (referring to colleges because the mother was having difficulty with the college’s Disability Services) would never know how far the boy had come because these individuals couldn’t imagine where his road had started at one pound five and one half ounces.

The starting point. . . How much one has been through and now that individual’s road with varying difficulties with sensory problems, learning, and communication issues, has led to the doorstep of a college. Speaking as a college professor, I’ve found that the colleges (and universities where I’ve taught) seem to concentrate on the doorstep. It’s easy not to admit someone, but to truly admit someone when that individual has special needs or is on the spectrum might be a better place to start on that road.

Not realizing how tremendously far an individual has come, remember, timing is critical, the obstacles overcome, the communication deficits struggled with and achieved is really where the conversation begins. The physicians know how incredibly smart that student is because of testing to the nth degree, witnessing the determination to achieve even while lying in an isolette trying simply to gain a few ounces. Remember, the next time someone shows up on your doorstep, that individual’s IQ might be equal to or higher than yours, but the road that person took may have been riddled with unbelievable obstacles and may have taken much longer to get to and through this doorstep. It won’t show in traditional ways.

“If we make it difficult, or at least, not any easier, maybe he’ll go away.” Is that how you want to be remembered – for making it difficult for someone else to learn? I’ve been surprised by unlikely sources as I witnessed this happen, but I believe we need to help people learn. I know that GCC has been very good in helping students, but I’m casting my net at a wider audience.

Dr. Temple Grandin, the gifted autistic author, scholar, and expert animal behaviorist, credits those with autism (just one of the many kinds of disabilities in our world) as the people who truly change our world through their new ideas. Think about it.

Remember the March of Dimes and Autism Awareness.

Dr. Anne Kilstofte volunteers with Silver Spur Therapeutic Riding Center of Cave Creek for children and adults with SPECIAL NEEDS and works very hard to ensure that her students’ disability needs are met in her Musicology classes at GCC. She is pictured below at a fundraiser for SSTRC with “Rhoney.”

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