My Baseline Evidence is not an artifact, so much as a description of my previous practices. I have always believed that the best teachers are the ones who are constantly adding to their stockpile of knowledge, both in content and pedagogy. However, I definitely spent too much time on moving forward, and very little time on looking back. "Looking back," I thought, "is too close to stagnation." This can be seen in the fact that I never re-used lesson plans from year to year. "Let the lazy teachers re-use materials. I welcome the hard work of creating new lesson each year!" What I failed to recognize was that failing to look back is as ugly a teaching mistake as standing still. Without looking back, I was only creating new for the sake of new, and not as a way to solve the problems of the old. Without looking back, I was falling into many of the same pitfalls, year after year. Without looking back, I wasn't really moving my teaching forward, at all. I was standing still.
Note on Artifacts: While the intent of this rubric item was to discuss the results of an Action Research paper, I did not complete my proposed research (for PDF of my research proposal for the use of an EU wall, go here). Professor Pitts, the professor for the second of the two education classes gave us an option to conduct multiple smaller research and inquiry tasks, in place of the one large research project, for which I had written a research proposal for the first of the two education classes. I chose this option, because I felt it would give me a chance to expose myself to more varied areas of learning and experience in science education. For instance, I had a chance to write a repsonse to a moderated blog (see Artifact #1), which is something that I would not have had the time, or even thought to do, if I had chosen to focus just on completing the research in my research proposal. Subsequently, I did not complete the actual research at that time, although I did incorporate the proposed techniques into my classroom. Unfortunately, I was not given science classes to teach this year, due to the course demands, and the roster of available teachers, so I was not able to conduct the research this year, either. I do plan, in the future, to try and establish some formal research to try and quantify the efficacy of the technique.
Artifact #1: CSSE Article Blog Response (for entire document in html, click here)
In EDUC 636, Professor Pitts gave us the opportunity to write Blog Responses to the online periodical for Cultural Studies of Science Education. This is a moderated blog, and at the point of writing this initial reflection, my blog response has not been submitted, but I hope to submit it. In addition, Professor Pitts plans to forward my response to the author of the article to which I responded, Kashi Dinghra, for comments.
The article that I chose "Towards science educational spaces as dynamic and coauthored communities of practice," by Kashi Dinghra (2007), was a review of several papers that discussed the importance of including students in developing the language and culture of learning in the science classroom. I was particularly interested in reading this article, because I have often noticed that students tend to fall into one of two categories--either they love science, or they loathe it. The students that love science tend to have an easier time learning new concepts, and the ones that loathe it have a mental block, and find it very difficult to learn new concepts. I hoped to learn how to be able to get those in the latter category more involved and desirable of BECOMING involved in the learning process. Furthermore, I felt that examining this article would help me examine my personal feelings and personal approach to crafting the culture of the classroom.
The only word that can describe my reaction at the time is ambivalence. On one hand, I agreed whole-heartedly with what Dinghra and the other authors. I absolutely agreed that it is important to include students in the creation of the learning space, the learning language and the learning experience. The authors have the results to show the increased learning and understanding of the students who are part of this type of learning environment. On the other hand, it seemed (then, and now) that district administrators and NCLB place such demands and strictures on teachers, there is no time to let the students be a part of, essentially, developing their own curricula, particularly since the demands and strictures seem to be in direct opposition to what is required in allowing students increased control over their learning experience. My blog response discusses this class of pedagogies.
There is one portion of the blog that, more than any other portion of it, highlights this conflict. Here is an image of that portion:
Despite my initial ambivalence, I do believe in what is presented in the article, and this is the reason I chose this as an artifact. I think the best way to say it is that even though this is not close to my current reality, it reflects what I should, and now choose to, strive for. It is, perhaps, the very controversial and adversarial nature (with district administrators, not with students) of adopting this type of classroom that can introduce a dynamism to the classroom that is the engine of much scientific research and discovery. I have always felt that this is the way I should be running my classes. I now have literature, with research and data, that supports this belief.
I have never before thought to try and get any of my scholarly writing published. If I am successful, this will be a first for me. Even trying to get it published is a first for me. More important, however, is that the idea of involving students in the development of the language and culture in the classroom, while not new to me, is now clearer and more defined. Even though in my blog response I questioned the feasibility of doing these things in the classroom, given the constraints placed on teachers by their districts, who are in turn constrained by NCLB, I think that the ultimate goal should be to involve students in creating their own learning experience and learning environment. Studies show that this is what is effective, and as educators, we should be adopting what is most effective for our students. I plan to employ these techniques in my next classroom, write papers about the results, and let the data speak for itself. Perhaps if more teachers take this stance (and the researchers, as I stated in my blog response, as well), then more district administrators and lawmakers will have to listen to us. In fact, in Artifact #2, I discuss the use of Cogenerative Dialogues as a mode of further involving the students in the development of the culture in the classroom, as well as the improvement of my own instruction.
Artifact #2: Cogenerative Dialogues
This is a description of the process that I currently use in having cogenerative dialogues with my students.
Step One - Break the class into groups of 4 to 5 students.
Step Two - Establish a schedule for the dialogues, with one group per class per week, every other month.
Step Three - Administer a short survey to the entire class to establish predominant concerns/kudos.
Step Four - Hold cogenerative dialogue with the questions focussing on gaining information and suggestions around the surveyed concerns/kudos.
Step Five - Introduce in the next class certain changes, based on the CD. If it is a specific procedural change, I mention that it is a change owed to the CD.
This was one of the most difficult steps for me to take, as a teacher. However, because of my new understanding of the importance of including students in the development of the classroom culture, I knew it was critical I do so. In the past, I had limited my involvement of the students in the development of classroom culture to having classroom-developed norms, and an end-of-class survey (to which I rarely paid more than passing attention). I knew that taking this step would be difficult, and possibly painful, considering I would be forcing myself to examine my own teaching practices, through the eyes of the students, several times a week, multiple times through the year. Again, however, I knew it had to be done for me to TRULY begin to move forward in my teaching skills, rather than just laterally, or not at all.
In the end, it was so successful, that I made the schedule of cogenerative dialogues more rigorous, and I now hold them with all my classes, multiple times a year. The students were amazed that a teacher of theirs was actually interested in what they had to say about the classroom and (even crazier!) her teaching techniques. They were further amazed when I put into action some of their suggestions. For instance, in one cogenerative dialogue the students said that they preferred to placed in groups, rather than being given a choice of group members. I had assumed they would rather work with their friends, but the cogenerative dialogue revealed that many students preferred teacher-made groups, because a) they didn't have to worry about being "odd man out" and b) they didn't always want to work with their friends, especially if their friends tended to be lazy, or shirkers. While they may have voiced resistance in class to teacher-made groups, in reality, they felt that teacher-made groupings relieved a lot of social pressure. I immediately switched to teacher-made groups, and when the students complained, I just shrugged my shoulders, knowing that it was (secretly) what they wanted. Later, many of the students thanked me for making the change.
Primarily, the cogenerative dialogues indicate a change from waiting until the end of the year for feedback that I didn't really pay much attention to, to a mode of ongoing feedback, that demands immediate reflection and change. In the past, I would never have known about the group-picking problem until the end of the year, when it would have been too late to do anything about it. With the cogenerative dialogues, I can diagnose problems, almost on the spot, and take corrective action. The immediacy and intimacy of the group-setting of the cogenerative dialogues forces me to listen, and forces me to take action. Any failure to enact positive change could be seen by the students as a betrayal of their openness and honesty in the cogenerative dialogues, which would, in turn, engender deserved hostility. I am a much better teacher now that I am forced to look at my teaching practices on a regular basis, not just once a year.