voxygen.net » Pedagogy

Where’s Neil Postman when you need him?

~LS~ — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 01:22:35 +0000

I’m contemplating teaching Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death in my Introduction to Humanities class this semester, particularly Chapter 4 (“The Typographic Mind”). I don’t feel like scanning the chapter and I couldn’t find a pdf or doc online to use. Then it occurred to me that my students in all likelihood won’t read anything anyway, so why waste time scanning a document in the first place. I began to look for Sparknotes. I know, I’m bankrupt as an educator. At least I opted not to show the seventh grade history teacher’s youtube version of the Renaissance. I should get props for that.

Anyway, in my surfing, I ran into an amusing exchange on a forum. I don’t think the people involved were amused. I was, though, but in a depressing and ironic way. The exchange is started by a desperate student trying to locate a free copy of the [...]

Ten Tech Gratitudes for 2010

~LS~ — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 07:52:49 +0000

(In no particular order)

1. Droid

I bought my Droid in November 2009 and it has changed how I interact with people, sometime for the worse, but usually for the better. On the one hand, even though I’m a technophile, I really don’t like the 24/7 culture of new communication technology. When I first got a cell phone, I only used it to call out and only for emergencies. Now, the convenience and entertainment value of a smart phone make me wonder why I went so long without one. I still have a bad habit of leaving my ringer off, missing calls, and forgetting all about the phone’s existence. But there have been so many situations where the cell phone saved me many hassles and headaches.

2. Palm Pre free WiFi hotspot from Verizon

You can’t go wrong with free wifi.

3. Audible.com

Essential for long trips. I’m working my [...]

Pecha Kucha in Public Speaking

~LS~ — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 15:11:39 +0000

I have always hated using PowerPoint in speeches. Always. I suspect many speech teachers feel the same. PowerPoint becomes a teleprompter and it defeats the purpose of giving a speech. Last semester, I taught Business Communication for the first time in my entire teaching career. In thinking through that class, I felt obligated to teach PowerPoint since it’s expected in the business world. Also, on the POD listserv, there’ve been some discussions and sharing about visual resources. Those two things motivated to teach PowerPoint and to do it well. As a result of my explorations, I learned some very interesting things that I experimented with this semester.

One thing I incorporated is a Pecha Kucha format speech (you can use Prezi too, though). It was designed by American architects in Japan who realized that any time you give a designer the microphone, they go on and on [...]

On Office Hours and Better Teaching

~LS~ — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 14:20:49 +0000

Teaching at BRCC has been a constant challenge, one I’ve blogged about regularly. I’ve struggled to adapt to an entirely different audience than I taught for nearly two decades when I taught at R1 universities. The disparities are glaring and I confront the effects of institutionalized racism, poverty, declining education, and dropped literacy rates that are compounded by multiple generations of institutional and personal neglect. I try to maintain academic standards in a situation where those standards guarantee the failure of two-thirds of my students. It has been a true learning experience for me, one that stretches my teaching abilities, drains my hope, and empties my bag of teaching tricks on a daily basis. Still, I find it joyful, rewarding, and I know that what I do makes a difference in some of my students’ lives in ways that other forms of activism cannot. When compared to teaching at universities, [...]

Cultural Identity Activity

~LS~ — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:56:32 +0000

Since teaching at BRCC I have struggled with introducing issues of racism and other identity categories into the classroom. Given the diversity of the campus population, I’m not sure why. As I posted previously, the responses to racial topics are completely unpredictable.

Last semester, for instance, my students claimed that black people really do like fried chicken. Although part of that discussion was intentional provocation on some of the students’ part, I think many genuinely bought into the stereotype.

Perhaps my difficulties derive from the increasing hostility in conservative rhetoric toward people of color. The “love it or leave it,” English-only mentality is surprisingly prevalent. Although many, many white students don’t fall into this category, there are enough of them to make conversations tense and uncomfortable.

If the students of color (predominantly black, though we’re seeing a rise in other minorities) aren’t comfortable enough to [...]

Black doll white doll

~LS~ — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:11:03 +0000

Today in class I showed a clip from A Girl Like Me, a documentary made by a 17 year old young woman who revisits the Black Doll White Doll test. The test asks black children to choose between a white doll and a black doll, asking questions such as “which doll is the prettiest” (they pick the white doll), “which doll is the nicest” (they pick the white doll), and “which doll is the most like you” (they flounder and then pick the black doll). Watching black children struggle with those questions is very sad. I show this video in class when we talk about the relationship between perception, the self, and communication.

What always amazes me about this video is the responses that it provokes. Sometimes students completely shut down and getting them to talk is impossible. Sometimes students [...]

Public speaking activity – first week of class

~LS~ — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:03:50 +0000

I’ve twice used the following activity to open the semester and both times it was quite successful. I discovered the general idea by surfing around and I wish I could remember the site so I could acknowledge the creator whose idea I extended.

I have students search the web for public speaking classes, seminars, and workshops. Their task is to find the cheapest possible public speaking lessons but the caveat is that the courses cannot be from a college or university type program (such as continuing ed, University of Phoenix, whatever). Once they find a class, they need to identify the cost, hours to complete, assignments, topics covered, credentials of the instructor, and whether or not there’s an opportunity for practice and evaluation.

During class, we then review the courses they’ve discovered. There are a handful under a thousand dollars but usually the cost at least that much per person. [...]

Teaching evaluations

~LS~ — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 20:34:03 +0000

I got my teaching evaluations back yesterday.

I have been thinking lately about faculty reviews and teaching evaluations because they are such an issue at school lately. Our student ratings are incorporated in our annual reviews, so the numbers count in our overall annual evaluation by the school administration. Now, on the one hand, this doesn’t actually mean much since there’s no material reward for a good review these days and no one’s job is threatened by an average review.

My questions have been running the course of how pointless and aggravating teaching evaluations often are yet how my happiness is still tied to them. Frankly, I’m not sure what teaching evaluations mean. In the ideal sense, they measure whether or not your teaching is effective. Even though I have a strong philosophy about what I consider good teaching, I still question who knows what way is best? Commitment to [...]

Spaghetti marshmellow towers

~LS~ — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 06:51:05 +0000

In order to analyze teamwork, I have the students in my classes do various silly activities that I’ve stolen from people or from websites here and there. One of my favorite is the spaghetti marshmellow tower. After building the tower, the students then analyze their role in their group. So the way the tower works is that students must “buy” their materials (spaghetti = 10 ¢, large marshmellow = 25¢, small marshmellow = 5¢). The tallest tower wins, the cheapest breaks a tie. The rules are that the tower must support a ping pong ball at the top and the tower must be free standing long enough for me to measure it. Often the groups get competitive with each other, which makes it entertaining and messier.

My business communication students this semester built the tallest towers yet. Both were over 25 inches if memory serves. They were solid structures, too. [...]

BRCC Broken Record

~LS~ — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:16:50 +0000

On impulse, I searched my blog for all references to BRCC. The search was actually motivated by a desire to see how badly I was trashing my place of employment. As it turns out, not so bad. What I noticed, though, is a broken record rant and so I’ve decided I need to do something about this.

My perpetual rant is a complaint about a particular set of behaviors common to many BRCC students, specifically absenteeism and the failure to turn in work. It’s obvious to me after reviewing my posts that I cannot wrap my brain around this problem. I’ve tried to be proactive about it but my solutions produce epic fails.

Last semester I had a particularly problematic class. (I got barely a 3.0 in my evals from that class, incidentally, my lowest evar). It was so difficult to manage that I even posted on the