Browse

An interesting piece this morning on Faculty Focus about using short (instructor) videos in our courses to both connect with students and reinforce learning goals each week. A direct link is below for anyone who is interested. While I have developed an extensive network of two-minute whiteboard animations since last summer as part of my online course modules, I must admit that the itch to develop short videos (that are more interesting than my old Prezi videos in use during the 2020-2021 AY...

An interesting piece this morning on Faculty Focus about using short (instructor) videos in our courses to both connect with students and reinforce learning goals each week. A direct link is below for anyone who is interested. While I have developed an extensive network of two-minute whiteboard animations since last summer as part of my online course modules, I must admit that the itch to develop short videos (that are more interesting than my old Prezi videos in use during the 2020-2021 AY) is once again present.

https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/online-course-delivery-and-instruction/video-killed-the-radio-star-text-based-instructional-methods/?st=FFdaily%3Bsc%3DFF211201%3Butm_term%3DFF211201&utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Video+Killed+the+R%CC%B7a%CC%B7d%CC%B7i%CC%B7o%CC%B7+S%CC%B7t%CC%B7a%CC%B7r%CC%B7+Text-based+Instructional+Methods&utm_campaign=FF211201

As part of my ongoing efforts to provide students with meaningful feedback on their individual reflections each week plus their three big collaborative projects AND get them to think about their approach to learning, I have used various open-ended metacognitive questions based on Bloom's revised taxonomy. Here is an useful link to ten such prompts from the Teach Thought website that I have used this semester, albeit in slightly modified form to move the questions away from simple yes-no answ...

As part of my ongoing efforts to provide students with meaningful feedback on their individual reflections each week plus their three big collaborative projects AND get them to think about their approach to learning, I have used various open-ended metacognitive questions based on Bloom's revised taxonomy. Here is an useful link to ten such prompts from the Teach Thought website that I have used this semester, albeit in slightly modified form to move the questions away from simple yes-no answers. See what you think.

https://www.teachthought.com/learning/metacognitive-prompts/

Michigan State University's own: James M. Lucas, Nicola Imbracsio, and Sheila Marquardt have shared an excellent resource on Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for educators entitled "Global DEI Models and Methods" (2021). The PDF of this resources is attached below.

Michigan State University's own: James M. Lucas, Nicola Imbracsio, and Sheila Marquardt have shared an excellent resource on Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for educators entitled "Global DEI Models and Methods" (2021). The PDF of this resources is attached below.

Everyone develops their own way of planning and mapping out a new course, but here is what has emerged for me during the last several years:

Week 1 -- Introductory Course Documents and Orientation

Week 2 -- Reading/Viewing A OR Reading/Viewing B
Individual Reflection #1 Submitted
Student Learning Teams Posted to D2L

Week 3 -- Reading/Viewing A OR Reading Viewing B
SLT Collaboration Begins
Individual Reflection #2 Submitted

Week 4 -- Reading/Viewing A OR Reading...

Everyone develops their own way of planning and mapping out a new course, but here is what has emerged for me during the last several years:

Week 1 -- Introductory Course Documents and Orientation

Week 2 -- Reading/Viewing A OR Reading/Viewing B
Individual Reflection #1 Submitted
Student Learning Teams Posted to D2L

Week 3 -- Reading/Viewing A OR Reading Viewing B
SLT Collaboration Begins
Individual Reflection #2 Submitted

Week 4 -- Reading/Viewing A OR Reading/Viewing B
SLT Collaboration
Individual Reflection #3 Submitted

Week 5 -- SLT Project #1 (Powtoon Animated Newscast Article Review OR YouTube Podcast)

Week 6 -- Reading/Viewing A OR Reading/Viewing B
SLT Collaboration
Individual Reflection #4 Submitted

Week 7 -- Reading/Viewing A OR Reading/Viewing B
SLT Collaboration
Individual Reflection #5 Submitted

Week 8 -- Reading/Viewing A OR Reading/Viewing B
SLT Collaboration
Individual Reflection #6 Submitted

Week 9 -- Reading/Viewing A OR Reading/Viewing B
SLT Collaboration
Individual Reflection #7 Submitted

Week 10 -- SLT Project #2 (Readers’ Guide Flipbook OR Infographic)

Week 11 -- Reading/Viewing A OR Reading/Viewing B
SLT Collaboration
Individual Reflection #8 Submitted

Week 12 -- Reading/Viewing A OR Reading/Viewing B
SLT Collaboration
Individual Reflection #9 Submitted

Week 13 -- Reading/Viewing A OR Reading/Viewing B
SLT Collaboration
Individual Reflection #10 Submitted

Week 14 -- SLT Project #3 (E-Poster OR Digital Scrapbook)

Week 15 -- Individual Semester Reflection Submitted by 11:59pm Friday



I am using this semester planning worksheet to nail things down (Finally!) for two new IAH courses that I'll teach in the spring. The first course is on modern Scandinavian and Nordic authors that begins with canonical dead white guys from the late 19th century (Ibsen and Strindberg), moves through the 20th century, and finishes with 21st century queer, indigenous Greenlandic writer Niviaq Korneliussen. Basically it takes students from the rise of modern drama and symbolism through High Modernism, Postmodernism, and into the post-postmodern as manifested in Scandinavian and Nordic literature. The second such course will feature global cinema directed by and/or about contemporary women and the issues they face around the world. Related readings will come from feminist film theory and texts on intersectionality. Everything from Laura Mulvey to Kimberle Crenshaw in other words.

Chapter 5: Notes and questions
1. Erasure: “We must engage in critical self-reflection about the conscious and unconscious ways higher education continues to participate in Native people’s erasure and develop decolonial engagement practices that foreground Native movements for cultural/political sovereignty and self-determination.”
2. Assimilation: “…the problematic goal of assimilation…”
3. Social Justice: “…scholars must work toward social change.”
4. Storying: “Stories are not separat...

Chapter 5: Notes and questions
1. Erasure: “We must engage in critical self-reflection about the conscious and unconscious ways higher education continues to participate in Native people’s erasure and develop decolonial engagement practices that foreground Native movements for cultural/political sovereignty and self-determination.”
2. Assimilation: “…the problematic goal of assimilation…”
3. Social Justice: “…scholars must work toward social change.”
4. Storying: “Stories are not separate from theory.”
5. Strategies offered:
a. Develop and Maintain Relationships with Indigenous Communities
i. Can a faculty member do this within their pedagogy? How?
ii. Can we encourage our students to do this in our classes/programs? How?
b. Honor Connections to Place
c. Build Community with Indigenous Students
d. Support and Protect Indigenous Student Cultural Practices
e. Foster Student Connections to Home Communities
f. Reframe Concepts of Student Engagement (WE, meaning the university community writ large, are the uninvited guests)

Chapter 6: Notes and Questions
1. “Whiteness is not a culture but a social concept”
2. “Critical White Studies”: ideas for how to use/introduce this to students? Will you? Why or why not? (“critically analyzing Whiteness and racial oppression from the habits and structures of the privileged group”)
3. In your current class design/structure, what ways could your own whiteness influence your students in invisible ways? Does it?
4. In your current class design/structure, what ways could your white students’ whiteness influence your POC, international students, etc… in invisible ways? Does it?
5. What aspects of “humanizing pedagogy” happen in your classes?
6. Have you ever shared your course design with a POC peer?
7. Thoughts of where “Nontraditional” white students (older students, part-time students, transfer students, commuter students, student-parents, veteran students (and I would argue other cross-sectional/intersectional identities of queerness, transgender students, religious minorities, disability, etc…)) and traditional white students INTERSECT or DIVERGE in terms of student success initiatives?

My background in Scandinavian languages and literature keeps rearing its head in various ways after many years. Specifically,when it comes to folklore, magical tales, and perilous journeys toward maturation. In a way, I have become a pedagogical Ashland, of sorts, since coming to MSU in 2015. My journey, an ongoing quest if you will, has been in trying to find that one magical key, which will unlock the enchanted door to greater student interest and involvement in their general education c...

My background in Scandinavian languages and literature keeps rearing its head in various ways after many years. Specifically,when it comes to folklore, magical tales, and perilous journeys toward maturation. In a way, I have become a pedagogical Ashland, of sorts, since coming to MSU in 2015. My journey, an ongoing quest if you will, has been in trying to find that one magical key, which will unlock the enchanted door to greater student interest and involvement in their general education course requirements.

Those of us who teach these courses know that, too often, many students view gen. ed. requirements as hoops to jump through. Something they must satisfy to graduate. Subjects that, they feel, have little to do with the real world, their intended majors, or envisioned careers. Scheduling and convenience more than genuine interest seem to be the determining factor for many students when they choose to enroll in such courses. Put the head down, muddle through, and get it done with as little effort as possible.

But there might be another way.

In my own ongoing quest to motivate and engage the students in my various IAH courses more effectively, I have come back to Bloom's Taxonomy again and again since first learning about it in the 2016-2017 Walter and Pauline Adams Academy cohort. More specifically, it is Bloom's Digital Taxonomy, revised by various scholars for use with 21st century students who exist in an increasingly digital world, that has been especially useful when it comes to designing assessments for my students.

For those who are interested, there are all kinds of sources online -- journal article pdfs, infographics, Youtube explainer videos, etc. -- that will be informative and helpful for anyone who might be interested in learning more. Just search for 'Bloom's Digital Taxonomy' on Google. It's that easy.

For my specific IAH courses, I organize my students into permanent student learning teams early each semester and ask them to create three collaborative projects (including a team reflection). These are due at the end of Week Five, Week 10, and Week 14. Right now, the projects include:

1) A TV Newscast/Talkshow Article Review Video in which teams are ask to locate, report on, review, and evaluate two recent journal articles pertinent to material read or viewed during the first few weeks of the course.

2) A Readers' Guide Digital Flipbook (using Flipsnack) that reviews and evaluates the usefulness of two books, two more recent journal articles, and two blogs or websites on gender and sexuality OR race and ethnicity within the context of specific course materials read or viewed during roughly the middle third of the course.

3) An Academic Poster (due at the end of Week 14) in which student teams revisit course materials and themes related to gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, and identity. In addition, students are asked to examine issues of power, marginalization, disparity, equity, etc. in those same sources and look at how these same issues affect our own societies/cultures of origin in the real world. Finally, student teams (in course as diverse as Film Noir of the 1940s and 50s, Horror Cinema, and the upcoming Contemporary Scandinavian and Nordic Authors) are asked to propose realistic, concrete solutions to the social problems facing us.


Anecdotally, student feedback has been largely very favorable so far. Based on remarks in their team reflections this semester (Fall 2021), students report that they enjoy these collaborative, creative projects and feel like they have considerable leeway to shape what their teams develop. Moreover, they also feel that they are learning quite a bit about the material presented as well as valuable 21st century employability skills in the process. Where their all important assignment grades are concerned, student learning teams in my courses are meeting or exceeding expectations with the work they have produced for the first two of three team projects this semester according to the grading rubrics currently in use.

Beginning in Spring 2022, I plan to give my student teams even more agency in choosing how they are assessed and will provide two possible options for each of the three collaborative projects. Right not, these will probably include:

Project #1 (Recent Journal Article Review and Evaluation)-- Powtoon Animated TV Newscast OR Infographic

Project #2 -- (Review and Evaluation of Digital Sources on Gender and Sexuality OR Race and Ethnicty in our specific course materials) a Digital Flipbook OR Podcast

Project #3 -- (Power, Marginality, Disparity, Equity in Course Materials and Real World of 21st Century Problem-Solving) an Interactive E-Poster OR Digital Scrapbook.

Through collaborative projects like these, I am attempting to motivate and engage the students in my IAH courses more effectively, help them to think more actively and critically about the material presented as well as the various social issues that continue to plague our world, and provide them with ample opportunity to cultivate essential skills that will enable their full participation in the globalized world and economy of the 21st century. Bloom's (Revised) Digital Taxonomy, among other resources, continues to facilitate my evolving thought about how best to reach late Gen Y and Gen Z students within a general education context.

If anyone would like to talk more about all of this, offer constructive feedback, or anything else, just drop me a line. I am always looking for those magic beans that will increase student motivation and engagement, and eager to learn more along the way. Bloom's Digital Taxonomy has certainly been one of my three magical helpers in the quest to to do that.

Takk skal dere ha!

Following a conversation I was part of yesterday about what inclusive teaching and learning practices might actually look like in a college classroom, I looked around at various other schools in the Big Ten and put together a list of interesting links attached below. Please have a closer look if you are thinking about how to incorporate inclusive practices into your own teaching. Or if you just want to check that you're on the right track already.

Following a conversation I was part of yesterday about what inclusive teaching and learning practices might actually look like in a college classroom, I looked around at various other schools in the Big Ten and put together a list of interesting links attached below. Please have a closer look if you are thinking about how to incorporate inclusive practices into your own teaching. Or if you just want to check that you're on the right track already.