Reflections on the Challenge

I am amazed that I succeeded in writing nine posts. There were times when I thought I wasn't going to be able to provide a quality post with the time constraints in the middle of the semester. I will confess it was worth the frustration to put my thoughts on the ether. And, boy, was I embarrassed by the typos--most produced in the rush of the moment, others from simple carelessness!

Time was indeed the crucial issue. At first, the topics came easily with each new issue that arose in my classes or in my teaching. By the end, I was mentally scrounging to think of something to reflect upon. Then when I found a topic, I had to consider potential links, photos, cartoons, etc. Thus, each post needed to be invented by the Thursday before and often took at least four edits.

I liked the challenge, but nine weeks in the middle of the semester was difficult. Because I am a "Golden Retriever" personality, once I got started there was no way I was going to quit, even if it meant a late night or pushing aside some other responsibility. Ask my husband...or my dogs! Seriously, how important can laundry be when weighed in the balance against insights and creativity? Of course, there are some responsibilities for which I am always finding excuses to delay.

Actually, this exercise reminded me of an earlier time when I used to write my reflections at the end of each semester. In these reflections, I would analyze what worked, what didn't, and what needed to be changed. Often I would include ideas for the next semester. Unfortunately, I had given up on this practice about three years ago because life kept getting in the way. It seemed that when each semester ended, I was already rushing into the next phase in life, whether that be the holidays or family demands during the summer. I was especially surprised and chagrined this semester when I tackled my "to do" filing about two weeks ago. At the bottom of the stack were items from last spring. Yes, indeed, six months later I was finally getting my filing done. This example, and the dust upon my desk and shelves, reflects how I have difficulty choosing the most important over the most immediate.

Like my students, I often need a deadline to ensure things get done in a timely manner. Thus, I appreciated the challenge of the imposed deadlines, but I recommend that the challenge be shorter than nine weeks. We have come to that time in the semester when students are stressed by the looming end of term with its major projects and finals. This is when I know I need to be as patient as possible to provide a sense of level-headed sanity in the midst of their chaos, but if I am as stressed as they, patience is in short supply.

I want to thank Todd for setting up the challenge, and for all of the awesome goodies along the way. I hope more instructors will get involve next time because I really appreciated the opportunity to read about what others were thinking and experiencing in their teaching. Thanks to you all who participated! I learned a lot from your musings, and I was challenged to examine and rethink what I have been doing in the classroom.

Real College?

This week I received the following excuse for late homework via email : "I apologize for missing class I just have not been feeling well the last month or so- must be the adjustment to a different climate or withdrawal from the social life of a real college" (emphasis mine). I must admit that my first reaction was anger at the insult to Yavapai College. I was further incensed by the implications that if YC was not a "real" college then perhaps this student was not seeing me as a "real" professor and the rest of the people in his class as "real" college students, all of which has been reflected from time to time in his classroom demeanor. I am assuming that in his mind a real college has to be a university, and that most likely on the East Coast. Although I know this student had been attending such a real college, I do not know what brought him to Prescott and how he ended up choosing to take a 100-level class. 



Once I began thinking about the privileged experience of a university, I realized how thankful I am that I teach at a community college. The open door philosophy of a community college provides many opportunities that a four-year college does not, and as an instructor I get to interact with students each semester who would not, could not, or may never go to a university.

Having attended community college myself, I know the benefit of being able to explore options for majors without having to go into debt.  I was able to take many classes from Sociology to Marine Biology as I tried to determine my direction. I did not officially declare a major until I transferred to a university in Texas. In fact, I don't believe universities should demand that incoming freshmen declare a major. When my daughter applied to Cal Poly as an architecture major, she was told that if she tried to switch majors within the first year, she was not guaranteed continued acceptance at the college.  She was also turned down at other schools because of limited space within the architecture programs even though she would have been a highly qualified student for the college in general. At University of Arizona, it only took her one semester to figure out she did not like architecture.  Who knows what might have happened to her college career at one of those other universities. As an instructor, I encourage my students to take full advantage of their community college experience to try different classes that they might not initially find attractive.

Another reason I enjoy teaching at a community college, especially 0-level classes, is that I get to interact with students who would never have thought to apply to a "real" college. Granted, not all students who enter our 0-level classes will succeed in college, which makes teaching at this level a bit messy and sometimes discouraging, but if students can test into the classes, they get to try. It doesn't matter if they flunked out or dropped out of high school. It doesn't matter if they hated school before. It doesn't matter if they were hidden away in some special program.  It doesn't matter if life obstacles or their own choices took them on a detour for any amount of time.  Here at the community college they get to try. And if they succeed, they may choose to pursue a degree. My husband flunked out his first year at Fresno State University and ended up enlisting in the Air Force. After completing his tour of duty, he registered at a community college on the GI Bill. When he transferred back into Fresno State, his GPA was 4.0. All he needed was some maturity, life experience, and a second chance.  Haven't we all worked with students for whom one success becomes the impetus for reaching beyond what they originally dreamed possible? Some students discover for the first time that they are quite intelligent and talented. In fact, in my class with the East Coast student, I have several students who are just as bright as he, and Yavapai College is giving them an opportunity that they could have never afforded at his prior school. 

As I reflected this week about teaching at our college, I realized that all my frustrating moments are worth it as I participate in the lives of students who gain the confidence to strive for greater goals. Yes, as an instructor for required and/or remedial classes, I often face students who don't want to be there, and I may deal with students who resent their placement and students who hate English classes. Sometimes getting them to do their assignments or to participate in class feels like futility epitomized. However, as the semester continues and some figure out what college is all about, I get to see the light bulbs go on, which makes all the extra effort and energy worth it. Even though I have some students who are not going to succeed every semester, I also have others who started out with failing grades but end up doing really well. 

I guess I don't teach at a "real" college according to some, but I get to teach people who might have never envisioned themselves as students before.  At our not-so-real college, students experience the rigors of college with a lot less expense and a lot more individual support. I am proud to be a part of that.

Writing toThink

I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh 

I have taught the same course, ENG 140, online and face to face for the pasts three years. As I developed the online course, I tried to ensure that the students in both deliver modes would receive similar experiences. One of the ways I accomplish this is through weekly discussion boards that mirror the small and large group discussions I have in class. In the online class, students are required to post at least a paragraph to the discussion prompt, and they must respond to two other students in a way that furthers the conversation. In my face to face class, I give the students the prompt orally and have them discuss their answers in small groups before they reported out to the larger context.  It didn't take long before I noticed an interesting trend:

• The online students are forced to participate if they want to receive their points. The classroom students can keep quiet during a small group discussion, and some participants defer to the  outspoken or dominant students.
• The online students tend to express and explain their thoughts more clearly. More original thought is presented, and once students become more comfortable with each other, better questions and challenges occur when responding to their fellow students.
• The weaker online students eventually begin to mimic those students with the best posts; I don't know yet whether this is because of the modeling of a good post or because of not wanting to do a poor job in front of their fellow students. 

In response to this, I have incorporated more pre-discussion writing in my classroom. This gives the quiet students time to process their thoughts before they are challenged to participate, and I find that all of the students take the prompts more thoughtfully. As a result, the small group discussion are becoming more dynamic, and the large group discussions are taking on new dimensions. 

For example, in my STU 150 class, as we were working through Bloom's Taxonomy, I wanted students to experience higher levels of thinking. We began with an old picture of the rapper 50 Cent (similar to the one at the left). In the photo I used in class, 50 Cent is seated with one hand holding drugs, the other throwing bullets at the camera. I first asked the individual students to write down five observations about what they saw in the photo. Then they had to write five more. And again. Second, they had to infer what 50 Cent was thinking based upon the expression on his face. Finally, they had to consider how this rapper would define "masculine" or "manhood." Once they had written their responses, they were put in groups  to share their answers. Interestingly, at least one student in each group had either knowledge about the rapper's background or about the kind of bullets shown in the photo that provided more details for our analysis.  When we gathered back in the larger group, more and more ideas popcorned around the room as we examined our evaluations and analysis. All the while, we related our responses to the choices made by the rapper and the photographer in the photo shoot, including both the props and the background, to determine the intent behind the image. What I thought was going to be a quick exercise in critical thinking ended up with an in-depth discussion that took over 30 minutes. I don't think the discussion would have been as lively if students weren't given the time to think on their own first.

David Miller writes: "...Vincent Ruggiero draws an interesting distinction between two methods of

thinking: "the production of ideas (creative thinking) [that is] accomplished by widening your focus and looking at many possibilities," and "the evaluation of ideas (critical thinking) [that is] accomplished by

narrowing your focus, sorting out the ideas you've generated, and identifying the almost reasonable ones." He goes on to assert that "both processes are natural activities for human beings" (3). If both of these practices are natural activities, why, then, do so many developmental students find it difficult to think either creatively or critically? I must contend that most of these students are fully capable of thinking at a critical level. However, in many cases, I feel that they are not fully aware of the fact that they are able to think this way; furthermore, they do not understand how they can get from the superficial state in which we most often function to the metacognitive state they must acquire to function in the academy. We tell them all the time that they need to "think critically." What we often fail to do is show them how." Through having my students respond to writing prompts that ask them to evaluate, infer, and analyze, they are learning to move beyond basic knowledge and comprehension to more complex kinds of thinking."

Creative and critical thinking is what I want my students to practice in our discussions about anything we read, and in the past some of those discussions have fallen flat, no matter how creative the prompts, especially in my 0-level classes. Having students write first provides several benefits to small group discussions. The sleepy students get to take the time to rev up their brain cells with pen and paper. The shy students get to practice their thinking before they open their mouths. The biased students get to channel and recognize their closed-minded thinking.  All the students are challenged to support their thinking from what they have read or elsewhere; thus, mere opinions aren't enough.  In fact, I like to time the writing so that students are forced to write more than they originally planned.  I instruct them, "If you run out of things to write, simply write 'blah blah blah' continually until your brain gets bored." Very few students have had to resort to that, but many have confessed to realizing how much further they could go with their thinking. 

Because I have found this writing promotes deeper thinking, I am considering including a journal in all my reading classes. I have not formulated yet how this will work, but since I already require reader responses as homework for everything we read, I think this journal might become a reflective piece that students can revisit to see how their critical thinking skills have developed over the semester. Stay tuned...as I ponder the possibilities.