A Term in Review: Spring, 2011

Another whirlwind experiment in teaching advanced writing has just concluded. Whew! It was invigorating. I've just completed teaching English 295, Writing about Literature in the Digital Age, at Brigham Young University (during May-June, 2011). Wanting to be true to my own principles about iteration and reflection, I'm setting down my observations here.

Academic blogs
Each student kept a research blog (here is the index). We used the blogger platform (with one exception), and this was more than adequate for new bloggers, which most of the students were. Beyond setup and platform-specific help, the students required instruction in blog rhetoric -- basic matters such as the frequency, length, and tone for blog posts. I urged them to draft publicly, to include a full record of their research and thinking, interspersed with matters of personal interest. The informal nature of the blogging, plus the regularity and brevity of the posts, combined with the way this accomodated interaction among them, between them and the instructor, and with the world at large -- made a huge difference in their concept of what writing is today, and in their idea of how literature can be relevant beyond the classroom to many diverse audiences.


eBook project
Together we created an eBook, Writing About Literature in the Digital Age. This was a great success. Students each contributed a chapter, derived from their research blogs. We divided into teams (editing, design, publishing, visual art, marketing, and education teams) and formally launched the eBook on June 15th. We skinned our knees a bit, but it met my goal of being an authentic project. It addresses current and important issues about the study of literature today, and it was published and marketed to people who were selected because students had researched the relevance of our content to those potential readers.

webinar
Using LearnCentral.org's platform for hosting free educational webinars, we conducted a webinar as our final exam, with each student briefly presenting about his/her chapter in the finished eBook, and then the various teams reporting on their aspect of creating the book. About 32 people attended (half being our students), and the chat stream was very lively as students interacted among themselves and with the diverse guests who attended. Now that it's been done once, we'll know now to schedule the webinar earlier so that it can be publicized along with LearnCentral's other free educational webinars to a large list of educators. Taylor Gilbert was the student who organized and moderated the webinar very successfully. I've embedded a one-minute video clip showing us in action during the webinar.

Are you engaged?

No, not that kind of engaged. I mean are you engaged in meaningful learning, sharing, and interacting? These are reasons to learn and use certain digital tools: they can increase our ability to do all of these. Of course, being an "engaged" student does not require anything electronic. The video I've embedded shows a prior student, Ashley, who has been out in the fields with women in India, engaged very meaningfully in their lives through a field study research project.

I am battling with how to figure out ways to get my students truly engaged -- and not just in special circumstances like studying abroad. I want them to buy in to what they are learning, take charge of their education, not be told what to do, and to take on meaningful projects that aren't dictated to them.

But there is opposition -- lots of it.

We are fighting against entrenched habits from an older paradigm of learning -- one that is based upon learning as a largely isolated affair (when it is now both possible and preferable to be learning collaboratively and interactively).

We are fighting the inertia of students not being expected to demonstrate their learning except through formal knowledge products (such as research papers) or formal evaluations (exams and grades).

We are also fighting the near universal acceptance of school being insulated. Apparently, schooling is legit only if it keeps students in controlled environments, far from active, authentic engagement beyond the classroom walls.