Meeting #3     5/29/2020

For our third meeting we discussed the brief chapter “Conversation.” Guiding questions to consider ahead of time were:

• What is your response to hooks’ view of the role of conversation in the classroom?
• Are there ways to create spaces for meaningful conversation when enacting distance learning?
• Are there approaches you’ve implemented this semester that allow the benefits of conversation to be a part of your classes?

We had a lively discussion about whether and in what ways the conversations that take place during face to face to instruction can or should be replicated on line. Some participants worked, this semester, to use the technological tools available to them as best they could to try to replicate the exchanges of experiences, ideas, and observations that take place during in person conversations in the classroom. Others put their energies into scaffolding student collaborations that are more specific to a remote learning environment, such as use of google docs and Discussion Board. One participant commented that, “You can’t grow a plant on-line.” Others noted that, even facilitating discussions via video meetings was just not the same as the “carnival of the classroom” which, at its best, can be so generative of intellectual inspiration for students.

Along with this more general discussion of pedagogical philosophy, some specific ideas for effective on-line practices were shared, including:

• Assign roles to small groups
• Place students in ongoing groups based on their availability
• Have groups create and share a final product – e.g. a googledoc, PowerPoint, etc.
• Have different students be responsible for leading discussions each week
• Take pieces of a conversation and make a record of them in a googledoc
• Have students work on a writing assignment after they’ve had a conversation about it
• Use Zoom breakout rooms as well as techniques such as, “Think, Pair, Share” and “Turn and Talk.” Such strategies are especially helpful to students who may be reluctant to speak in a large group.

For our second meeting we discussed the brief chapter “Engaged Pedagogy.” Guiding questions to consider ahead of time were:

• hooks states that, “Engaged pedagogy begins with the assumption that we learn best when there is an interactive relationship between student and teacher.” and that, “…the classroom functions … like a cooperative where everyone contributes to make sure all resources are being used, to ensure the optimal learning well-being of everyone.”
  • What is your response to hooks’ view of an optimal learning environment?
  • What are the implications of our current “distance learning” mode for enacting engaged pedagogy?

Over the course of this meeting, several participants shared methods and strategies they’d been using to foster classroom community, to create opportunities for students to work collaboratively, and to integrate students’ unique identities and personal expression into course activities and assignments. Some of the ideas shared were:

• In a bio class – students are Citizen Scientists. Small groups collect and analyze data; they work from shared Excel documents.
• In a children’s literature class – the professor texts students a video of herself reading a book aloud each week, then students create videos of themselves reading aloud and share them with the class
• In an early childhood music education class – students are invited to bring their own young family members to join in a weekly Zoom sing along.
• Other strategies included: assigning and exchanging lots of personal writing, participating in surveys about personal interests and experiences, using Zoom breakout rooms, using googledocs and Bb Discussion Board, creating class Facebook pages, and students and instructors posting videos on Bb in order to introduce themselves

We also discussed how our institutional context impacts our work. Some participants felt that there should be more support for faculty to create their own platforms, rather than having to deal with the limitations of Blackboard. Some voiced the perspective that faculty are not adequately perceived by administration as having useful knowledge about how our college can and should approach distance learning. The issue was also raised of a lack of structures that invite communication and collaboration between faculty and advisors, even though advisors know their students well.

Following this meeting, a number of resources related to the discussion were shared:

• A guide to incorporating social/emotional learning into the college classroom, from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology
• A New York Times article from an anthropology professor at Queens College:  “What We Lose When We Go from Classroom to Zoom”
• An article in Liberal Education, from group member Professor Jason Leggett, about how collaboration can drive virtual spaces
• An open courseware website from MIT that makes the materials used in the teaching of MIT’s subjects available on the Web

Meeting #1     5/1/2020

For our first meeting we discussed the brief chapter “Critical Thinking.” Guiding questions to consider ahead of time were:

• How do you respond to hooks’ definition of critical thinking?
• How do you respond to hooks’ characterization of the rewards and challenges for faculty of teaching critical thinking?
• How do you respond to hooks’ characterization of the rewards and challenges for students of becoming critical thinkers?
• What are the possibilities and limitations of our present “distance learning” model for offering instruction that fosters critical thinking?

This first discussion centered around some of the observations and concerns of faculty requiring students to write research papers as one of the main projects for their courses. Some faculty were struggling with how to reproduce the scaffolds they offer during face-to-face class time in the distance-learning environment. This is important because few students enter our courses with a solid understanding of the purpose and organization of a research paper. Descriptions were shared during the meeting of students struggling with how to write up data that had been collected and faculty concerns that students didn’t really have a personal investment in the projects, and were put off by the lack of a place for personal voice in this kind of writing.

One notion we considered was if, sometimes, there are other writing formats, besides a formal research paper that would make more sense to assign because they allow students to process and communicate what they’ve learned in a more engaging, authentic way. Suggestions for formats for writing that might better incorporate students’ personal voices and that they may become more personally invested in, included: web pages, blogs, zines, letters, and articles. These formats have clearer real world purposes and allow for authentic exchanges with real readers.