Brief Summit Highlights: "cultural models" from Thursday morning (signal + reaction to signal = a person's cultural model or C.M.; an example would be hospital + faint = Billy's C.M. / English class + boring = typical students C.M.) ... talking with Tom Steen (from UND) at lunch today about students in a positive way... from the conversation with him & during my presentation = reflecting more with students by surveying them about: why they approach the course differently than other students or how they approach the class blogs or if they read my teaching blog and what they take away from that...

Dang it. Dang it. Dang it.
So, the Pecha Kucha PPT is finished; HOWEVER, it's SO   B O R I N G .
It needs some spice in it. Spunk. Intrigue. Laughter.
SOMETHING.
I fear it is too serious.
And I don't know if I can "talk though it"
like I've seen with other pecha kuchas.
DANG IT.
Well, I guess that's what revision is for, right?
Didn't I have some grading to do today? Whoops.

From one of my favorite blogs...
by an administrator (SEE, everyone reflects and blogs!)...
“When you’re green you grow, when you’re ripe you rot.”
“If you aren’t learning, you shouldn’t be teaching.”
Teachers are in the business of passing knowledge along to their students. So, should they not also be in the business of gaining new knowledge and insight from every source possible. Teachers need to be individuals that thrive on knowledge and allow their own curiosity to lead them down new avenues.

Ever been walking up some stairs, realized you were concentrating on those steps, and then almost trip yourself because you were thinking too hard about walking up some stairs? That would be my thought process at work, probably daily.

So, yesterday afternoon, I had a GREAT pick-our-brains session with Anne (earlier in the day, a thought-filled lunch with Ronda). It was nice to reflect with someone who could say, "Oh, that's not going to work for me, but kudos to you." I reflected upon reflection... gee, so much of my past weeks have focused around reflection. The GPACW presentation could be a "I'm going to wing it" presentation & it'd still work. Reflection is like that.

More talk of reflection, from a portfolio I found online? (Gerriets Portfolio): "My experience in this teaching circle illustrates my habit of reflective practice; I teach, and then try to make sense of it, often with informal writing in a journal to test out my ideas and see what really works."

"But generally anything that produces spontaneous student praise is worth keeping, and things that get mentioned positively on feedback tools likewise. But paradoxically, things that are most resisted are also to be examined carefully, as they may be the thing really worth doing because it's hard. So this suggests that the bits they don't mention are most suspect."

"I think most teachers have a tendency to have a feeling that something 'worked' when they feel energized. And that isn't trivial and shouldn't be dismissed." "And there is some value in doing things that make me excited, that make me want to go to class."

"[...] because learning is complicated, and just because they didn't learn exactly what you thought they would on exactly your timetable doesn't mean they haven't learned or that nothing happened."

"Theoretical consistency: For me, this is pretty important. I've encountered a number of practices that didn't work for me until I could learn how to make sense of them with the rest of what I do, or how to integrate them into my overall philosophy." This is crucial; not everyone should use others' activities or assignments. They may not fit into every philosophy or teaching method.

*It's crucial to ask yourself: "Why am I doing this?"

So, I've started my pecha kucha PPT, and I am unsure how to go about it all. I'll be honest; I'm lost. So, I just started putting quotes and blog entries on slides, hoping I'll be able to organize it nicely later. And towards the end, I got to thinking - "What's the point? So what?" as Kevin/Betsy would say. I think my point is that we don't reflect & we need to do more of it JUST like our students do. And I think the sub-point may be to allow ourselves to be fallible. How many teachers are willing to fail? How many tidy up their conversations in the "lounge" so they look like they have it all together? Not only do I think my teaching blog is one of Kinsey's answers, but I think the presentation can get at more than just recording one's thoughts - it could bring up questions about being an "expert" in one's field. If we feel we "know it all" & we get into a routine, does that help our students? I say, "No." I have a feeling this may cause a mini-uproar at the conference. Perhaps?

I think I need to extend my research to any articles about those teachers who give the monologues, those who haven't "stuck with the times." The one quote on my wall from Kimberly Moritz (high school principal, Gowanda School District) would be a start; her blog had a lot of great reflection that I may be able to use. So far, I'm using Kinsey's article that jump-started this whole dang sequence of thoughts & the article from The Positivity Blog about why it's important to record one's thoughts/write things down.

Perhaps, at the end, I need reflective assignments (the application behind the theory?) to add to the presentation. It'll end up under 7 minutes anyhow... and I have a few reflective assignments and ideas for future ones - possibilities. Maybe I could even ask the audience to participate: what reflective assignments do they implement or have they implemented? Maybe I could ask them to share moments where they felt fallible? I don't know.

Heck, maybe this blog (for the last X amount of weeks) could be the presenation alone. Funny. Presenting on reflection by showing off the reflection that was done for the presentation. Sounds BLASPHEMOUS.

A super smart, super innovative buddy of mine up at my alma mater wrote a response to the post below on Facebook:

Kalamazoo – we need to get students to reflect – Kinsey would say: but what about teachers? Dr. Richman: Why do you do what you do? Reflect on it. Walking by an office: “Oh, don’t do that.” -> Monologues & advice to students, same to other faculty. What is the right way to instruct anything? Attendance policies: Why do we have one when students, in my class particularly, fail themselves by missing daily work? Why not reflect on why students wouldn’t want to come to class? If we have interesting classrooms or content or have daily work, why do we need an attendance policy? Can we have a conversation about this instead of a monologue about how we have to pin students down? We want students to make connections, reflect on how pieces of information interconnect within ideas. Why is it not a great idea to show them our own reflections? Links back to showing them our own writing (Writing teachers should be writers.) [This small post reminds me of that piece I had my 110 students read – how the writer connected two unlike situations about two places’ workers.]

[Burning the candle at both ends? Check.
I haven't dreamed lately, nor have I gotten up in the middle of the night these last few days/weeks. I have literally been pooping myself out, physically & mentally.]

I read the most intriguing essay last night... it really got me thinking about teaching and reflecting and conversations that are had in "faculty lounges." The essay came out of the September 2007 TETYC (of course), and the author/writer stated something pretty true for me - teachers "work in isolation from our colleagues, sharing little of our experience beyond the extraordinary" like the tough student or the plagiarized paper or the whatever. He (Kinsey McKinney) mentions too that these typical conversations usually lead faculty members to advice sessions or monologues (some teacher always has it "figured out") instead of reflection(s). He recalls when a writer (Sommers) from the March issue of TETYC stated that we give "true accounts" in our conversations of what happens in the classroom rather than the tidied versions. Why are we so afraid to look like we haven't quite figured it out yet? Why can't we just reflect on our practice without judgment from others? Why must we always have the answer?

And those, in my opinion, who think they have figured it out, have possibly subtracted all flexibility and creativity out of their classrooms and pedagogy, so much so that they've used the same syllabi semester after semester. Is it still working? According to them, those who give the monologues & advice, yes they have. Huh.

I'd like to reply to the author of that piece by showing him my reflection tool - this blog. I know I don't know it all, but I am okay with that. I like having something to strive for, something that challenges me daily.

Another connection I made in the piece: He mentions Randy Bass' call for teachers to believe "in the visibility and viability of teaching problems that can be investigated as scholarship, and not merely for the purpose of 'fixing' them" and that correlated, for me, to Deb Tannen's view of how men report-talk & women rapport-talk. When it comes to what's happening in the classroom, we need to be more women-talk-like and reflect on it instead of just stating the facts as men-talk would suggest. Don't fix it (as men would like to do, usually), but reflect on why it's working or not working. It's not a perfect comparison, but it's the connection that popped into my head while reading.

Other items to note:
= The What Works For Me & Instructional Notes = aren't a conversation. "It's a monologue on how to be an excellent teacher, when some days I'm just trying to figure out how I could forget to teach thesis statements" (25).
= "We don't know what we know until" we blog it.
= "Let's truly welcome one another into our fallible classrooms and revel in the unpredictability of our work" (27).

On a much more positive & factual note: I am teaching Creative Writing 292 this spring! I am so thrilled. I've found the textbooks that tickle my fancy (Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction by Perl & Schwartz... The New Well-Tempered Sentence by Gordon). What's even better? The book, Valley (see my left side list of literature to read), is something I may copy pieces of for the course... it's a wonderful mish-mash of genres and creativity.

Not that this summer school course has been tiring/dreadful/stressful at all, but I'll be glad to put in my grades tomorrow morning (or tonight) into PeopleSoft and just be DONE with it. One bonus about teaching: there are obvious start and end dates to everything. Well, one is always continually learning (duh), but there are beginnings and endings to semesters and courses, which I like & need. I need to be stopped. I need reflection points.

Sidenote: I filled out a registration form so I can take World Religions (200-level) on our campus this fall. It looks like I won't have an overload class (6 instead of the usual 5), so I am going to reward myself by taking my own class. It's free anyhow, and it's something I've always wanted to take but could never fit in.

So, I made a list. For the next few crazy days. Will I follow it? That is good question. Hopefully, I'll get done what I need to get done with the least amount of stress. Hopefully. I think it was a great plan to leave this weekend open for getting caught up on anything I needed to get caught up on. I have been traveling every which way for too many weekends, etc.

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After writing my entry yesterday (post 1pm class), I had a great bunch of presentations occur in my 2pm class (not only had they saved their songs correctly, but most of their PPTs focused on abstract issues). So much so that I asked the students to copy their PPTs to the main teacher station so I could transfer their PPT projects onto my little red USB (was on Sale for $14!). And then the 3pm had many successful PPTs too even though some of theirs may be considered less "deep" as far as stories/topics are concerned. With that said, I don't know if one can argue that a story about someone's life (including partying & girls) is less complex than a story about 9/11 or the war in Iraq. They are just different stories to tell. Some, I think, would judge harshly, but when if a teacher were to step back, he/she would see that each student is using the same process and the same strategies to organize.

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And speaking of organizing, I need to organize my things better. I have a few filing cabinets; they should be filled properly with folders I can grab on a whim. I now have things listed generally, and I think those need to change into more specific units. Over break, I will have to devise a better organization system... a folder for the PPT Project, a folder for Introductory Days (those first few days of each semester), a folder for REVISION exercises, a folder for INTRO PARA ideas, etc. Be more specific. Just as I used to be a wordy writer and then changed into a more technical writer, I also need to change from general folders and piles to more specific ones. It'll be helpful in the end. Oh, and I should go through my USBs and desktop folders (both office computer & iBook) and delete old versions, etc.