Mar
Critical Reflection #2: Exploring learning in higher ed
Whenever one is writing/dancing/expressing their critical review, it is a good idea to note your mood. Just helps you later to put into context the tone and content of what you say.
My mood right now is: 
Overtired~ Humidity + Heat of tarmac + Busy day = Losing it!
My core class has so much reading! Like being an undergrad again. This is good in that I can be more in tune with the students who use my services. It has been almost 5 years since I’ve been a formal student.
Week 1 was all about the Theme, Exploring the Self. And today’s post is about the reading by Beth Heimbecker, Changing Ourselves: A Gaze in the Mirror.
- Understanding ourselves= understanding curriculum for students
- “How do I think and feel?” –> reveals challenges for students when asked same question
- Giving choice does not equal giving control
This reminds me of Sun Tzu’s advice, that to first understand another we must first understand ourselves. Sitting here having to think and feel about how I think and feel about this paper is a challenge! And not just because I am tired. I must slow down and really consider what I am saying, and why and how this impacts on other beliefs and values that I have.
That the task is highly relevant to my professional development and business vision goals, is what keeps me motivated. This supports literature that encourages making the curriculum relevant to the student. From a humanistic perspective too, slowing myself down to get in touch with what I am actually saying, can help me to identify methods of encouraging similar behaviours from students.
I like that Heimbecker notes that [she] was not giving her students control over their writing, when providing the with a choice of topic. Once as an undergrad, a lecturer asked us if we wanted a structured approach to an essay or to decide for ourselves how to present the material. I was one of the few that gave a response; mine was “decide for myself”. Later in the week I went to discuss with the lecturer my ideas. It became clear that what was wanted was the material presented in a particular way. Disappointed I asked for more input so that I could get started.Now the lecturer seemed disappointed that I was not “walking my talk”. However, the students that didn’t follow a structured approach were marked low~ because as said after the assignments were handed back: I wanted to see how you would write it so I knew how to correct you.
To me this was crazy~ it was like asking us to build a house of our choice, and then critiquing it based on a criterion that we weren’t made aware of. Many students were disillusioned from this point on. Our trust in the lecturer was definitly lowered and the goal of class and assessment was now focused on “get the grade to pass”, not engage in joyful understanding of the task.
- A sense of community is essential for learning to occur
- The teacher’s role is not about monitoring
- Task engagement –> learning
Makes sense. We are socialized (normally) within a community. Taking on the role of monitor is not why I became interested in teaching at a very young age (in Grade 6 I was appointed temp teacher to Grade 1 & 2s occasionally, my principal really fostered my love of sharing and engaging others in tasks). I want to be able to help others to understand materials so that they can reach their academic and career goals. My only agenda is meeting their needs and expectations as learners in ways that compliment community identified needs.
- Day-to-day scenarios give potential for learning
Right on! How else can material be made relevant and give myself and other students the opportunity to apply new knoweldge.
- Articulation –> meaning making
- Writing and speaking is for communication, as well as to demonstrate knoweldge.
Articulation means I need to slow down and really think about what I am saying. I am not just talking for the sake of talking. I become aware of the contradictions I make, and why sometimes this is necessary for meaning to be created. To be able to say what it is I am really trying to say. Sometimes this cannot happen in one conversation~ I need to go away and think about things or just experience the world and something clicks and I’m like~ this is what I meant when I said …yadda yadda.
- Student engagement is not about control
- Teacher critical reflection –> sense making of the classroom + life
- Critical reflection is relevant because one is learning about oneself
- Negotiated curriculum can –> more relevant material –> enhanced curriculum
- Control = the transmission model, where students are receptacles
- Top-down teaching does not engage students with the task
From my experiences with top-down (control) models of teaching, students seek to please the lecturer and engagement with the actual learning material is low. Which is ironic considering that so many of my lecturers talked about doing away with the jug-and-mug model.
- Hypotheses are about meaning making
- Builds on what has come before
- Contextually based
- “…be quiet and let them be”
What a challenge to most Western education approaches.
- The other side of the looking glass (Wendy Peters-Epps)
- Focus in uncommon sense~ the Dark Side
- Learning is the focus, not teaching
So gel with this concept. Love the metaphor~ dark does not mean ignorant; simply another way of understanding. And without the two sides, something is missing.
- Examine how I learn, as well as how I teach
Again, echoes of Sun Tzu.
- Writing can be a risky business
- Putting oneself out there
No point living in fear, or staying within one square. The only way I and other students can become better thinksers and writers, is to think and write.
- Become aware “of my own curriculum” (Connelly and Clandinin, 1998)
- More than intellectual analysis of a student; rather a human response to a student
- Empathy of their learner frustrations
I like the idea of not standing back from a person (in this case a student) and just pointing the finger, or analysing with no reference to myself in the picture. Maybe I need to read more Sun Tzu tonight, because his writings keep popping into my head as I write. From a spiritual perspective, I am not separate from the students. And what I see in them I need to own within myself first. How else am I recognising it? And ignoring a compassionate and human response to their learning needs and expectations would have me feeling self-important, closed-minded and hubris.
My life is most meaningful when I get over myself, and get out of the way when others are communicating their selves to me.
What are your reflections on this topic?
