{"id":628,"date":"2008-09-28T22:02:47","date_gmt":"2008-09-29T03:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/?p=628"},"modified":"2008-09-28T22:02:47","modified_gmt":"2008-09-29T03:02:47","slug":"my-first-classroom-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/my-first-classroom-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"My first classroom visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the lovely and somewhat daunting aspects of a new job is all the new “first times” in what is inescapably a rookie year. Thank goodness for beginner’s luck, which I certainly had when Steve Davis, winner of Baylor’s 2008 Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching<\/a>, invited me to visit his seminar in science education. This group of undergraduates and graduate students is spending the semester thinking about improving science education in higher ed. and in K-12. They’re also thinking about the exciting possibilities opened up by undergraduate research, an area in which Steve has accomplished great results at his home university, Pepperdine. I saw Steve’s presentation on his SURB (Summer Undergraduate Research in Biology program<\/a> earlier this month, roughly ten days into my new job, and I was deeply impressed by the program and by Steve’s wise and passionate presentation. (More on both of those in a future post.) So I was excited and honored by the chance to be in his class and lead a discussion among his students.<\/p>\n

The primary purpose of my visit was to tell the students about the new Baylor Academy for Teaching and Learning that I’m directing, and to field their questions and lead a discussion. As I often do, I decided to start with a provocative prompt and proceed from there. The prompt was Mike Wesch’s<\/a> “A Vision of Students Today<\/a>.” A couple of the students had seen the video before, but most hadn’t, and even the ones who’d seen it before seemed to find its energy and vision compelling. When the video was finished, I asked them to take out a piece of paper and spend just a few minutes jotting down what they would like their teachers to know about them as learners. You can see the results, just as they wrote them, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I found the class and the discussion very stimulating, very thought-provoking. I loved the students’ energy and openness. (Can you tell I’m pining for the classroom? Next term!) We spent a little time talking about the Academy directly, but most of the time we talked about the Academy by talking about their experience as learners (and for the grad students, as teachers) in higher education. I articulated the connection as best I could by explaining that my vision for the Academy was of a place that brought together many stories: from students, from faculty, from staff, all of us learners, all of us in some sense teachers as well. I told them I would tell their story on my blog. (I would have done this anyway, but the theme of telling the story has been much on my mind lately as I finish Orson Scott Card’s truly remarkable Speaker For The Dead<\/em>.) I told them that I hoped their story would be only the first of a long series of stories that we would tell each other at Baylor, thereby knitting ourselves together into an ever closer, ever more effective learning community.<\/p>\n

For the record, I think that if we get that part right at the Academy, the rest will follow–though that’s not to say there’s not a lot of work involved in getting “the rest” up and running, for there surely is.<\/p>\n

A few highlights from the session:<\/p>\n

One student had Googled me and found my blog. Another told me about how cell phones had become education tools in India. Another student talked passionately and knowledgeably about the need for authentic assessment. And these were only three of many memorable moments–memorable moments to follow up.<\/p>\n

We spent a good while discussing the price, role, and effectiveness of textbooks–no surprise, given how central they are to science education. In the Wesch video, one student holds up a sign about an expensive textbook that she’s never read, and her statement resonated with the group in a big way. Their questions spilled out. Why do we have textbooks? Why do we need textbooks? What kind of textbook is best? Can teachers not<\/em> assign textbooks if they don’t want to? (One student noted that teachers at Central Michigan are required to assign textbooks.) Why are they so expensive? Why does one get so little money on buyback? And so forth. I tried to talk about textbooks as a technology, one embedded with a curricular, financial, and teaching system, and one that embodied a great many assumptions about all of those systems that might well be challenged, or at least rethought. I was also mindful of the fascinating conversation on K-12 textbooks Mike Wesch had recently opened up on his blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The textbook discussion was merely one aspect of our larger discussion, however. That larger discussion was of course about learning: what constitutes real learning? how do we know when it’s happened? how do we foster understanding and insight and what Steve Davis so forcefully calls “transformative ideas” instead of concentrating almost all our efforts on “coverage” and factual memorization? Not that facts are unimportant–far from it. These are scientists, after all. But facts alone do not lead to transformative ideas. Steve Davis insists that other qualities matter as much or more than the ability to memorize facts: careful observation, fresh perspectives, “the eyes of an 18-year-old.” Steve also insists that data aren’t real unless they’re shared, presented, even published. He tells them that if the data aren’t shared, it’s as if the research never happened. Hence the writing assignment for the term is a grant proposal. He tells his students that some of those proposals could well be funded. In other words, he asks his students to write for a real audience, to work hard, and (this is the truly inspiring part) to prepare themselves for results far beyond their expectations.<\/p>\n

I’ll be following the class’s progress for the rest of the semester. I am convinced that their energy and insights will lead to some of those transformative ideas, and I’ll be cheering for them when that day comes. I have a stake in their success. Actually, we all do–but my visit made my investment more visible to me, as I hope this brief report has done for you.<\/p>\n

My heartfelt thanks to Steve for inviting me, and to the class for making my first time in the classroom at Baylor so rewarding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the lovely and somewhat daunting aspects of a new job is all the new “first times” in what is inescapably a rookie year. Thank goodness for beginner’s luck, which I certainly had when Steve Davis, winner of Baylor’s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4bHwM-a8","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}