I spent Summer 2016 with 36 travelers as we road tripped the Ultimate European Tour in our orange Contiki bus. With the exception of our round-trip flights from Athens to Cairo, we saw Europe through smudged coach windows and as pedestrians navigating foreign pavement. A graduation gift to myself, spending 9 weeks traveling provided me a learning opportunity more transformative than anything I had experienced prior. As I zipped up my backpack, I knew that when I returned to American soil, things would certainly feel different.
That June, I set out to expand my soul with the nutritious abundance of choices that exist just outside of our comfort zones. While exploring cities like Paris, Barcelona and Budapest, I learned about the ways globalization serves to make people feel at home in far away places. I encountered familiar logos in cities across time zones. This is to say that one can see the golden arches across the pond. As I entered new spaces, surrounded by unfamiliar faces, listening to different accents, I became aware of how little, how limited, my knowledge really was. As we explored ancient Egyptian tombs, visited leaning monuments and mourned at coastal war memorials, the limits of my own experiences and positionality, became more clear.
That is not to say I did not grow tremendously. I learned a lot. Sharing these experiences with the Wild Ones, I was able to discover things about cultures I had never considered through exploring geography I had never imagined. Learning opportunities on the road are more frequent than rest stops. My time on the road showed me that 18-30 year olds are obsessed with an untouchable treasure, free wifi. Ignorance sent a fellow traveler home when her wallet, with passport, was lifted right out of her backpack on the train. Others’ accounts were hacked for funds, and I learned the importance of awareness. With a no wait policy, arriving on time was mandatory, so I learned again the importance of paying attention.
I won’t forget the night we dressed up for a dinner cruise down the Danube. The lights from Budapest lit me up inside. I laughed with my new friends from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada, taking photos and exclaiming what beauty lie before us. My phone rang. It was my father.
“I don’t mean to bum you out, but Dziadziu had a stroke.”
The following weeks taught me what it means to be human. To develop ties with those present and around, in order to move forward. My fellow travelers demonstrated to me that when we communicate with those around us, we find solutions through the merging of perspectives, and grow in different ways than facing a problem alone.
When I arrived in Boston, Massachusetts I wasn’t tired, despite having stayed awake for 24 hours. As the plane touched down, POP! I was terrified by a noise as the wheels hit the runway, and a golden spark caught my eye. The flight attendant had forgotten to secure a bottle of champagne, or perhaps Dziadziu was welcoming me home, because as we landed the bottle crashed to the floor just in front of me, and I watched it pop and fizz as the pilot’s voice buzzed, “Local time is 7:23 pm, about 72 degrees fareinheit.” I was home. Not for long. There were 72 hours before my launch to Ames Iowa, where I would for the first semester in my life, assert my position in the front of the classroom with eager eyes.
“Hello, my name is Miss Votruba. You can call me Miss V. if you prefer.”
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As a first-time teacher, drawing on my learning experiences, I have created an effective learning environment for my students. This summer felt like adult summer camp. In the time we had, bonds were made that I am certain will last a lifetime, and as a group, we shared knowledge to grow. This is the kind of learning environment I would pursue creating within the confines of my classroom walls over the 15 weeks we had together.
In Kenneth A. Bruffee’s Collaborative Learning and the “Conversation of Mankind” he says, “Sometimes collaborative learning works beyond my highest expectations. Sometimes it doesn’t work at all,” (636). Throughout the semester, one of the most reassuring aspects of pedagogical theory, has been validating failure. Hearing that other teachers have tried and failed in their teaching has encouraged me on days when my lessons do not go as planned. Instead of letting the failures deplete my will power, I use these as opportunities for reflection and revision. Bruffee helped me to understand that my instinct to incorporate collaborative work was right on, even though some of the activities were not prosperous. He writes that peer tutoring, peer criticism and classroom group work are examples of collaborative learning which is, “a form of indirect teaching in which the teacher sets the problem and organizes students to work it out collaboratively,” (637). As an undergrad, I might have felt that professors planned group projects to torture us as students. With Bruffree’s definition in mind, I recognize that the collaborative aspect of group projects serves an important educational purpose. It provides students a chance to improve their thinking by hearing various perspectives before starting a task. Gaining insights from other students encourage open mindedness within the classroom, and sharing thoughts also assist students in developing communication skills along with self assessment capabilities. Bruffee’s piece helped me to better understand the ways my trip this summer had shown me the essence of collaborative learning firsthand, so I have incorporated many group activities into my lessons throughout the semester.
Reading Bruffee helped me better conceptualize the difference of individual and collaborative learning and in turn, informed my own teaching practices. He suggests that, “…in thought some of the less fortunate limitations of conversation may persist. Limitations that may be imposed, for example, by ethnocentrism, inexperience, personal anxiety, economic interests, and paradigmatic inflexibility can constrain my thinking just as they can constrain conversation,” (639). He argues that if an individual speaks superficially or with a narrow mind confined to clichés, then the speaker’s thinking is likely to be limited also. This idea reinforces the benefits of learning through collaboration. Eliminating the limitations of thinking alone, we open ourselves to countless opportunities for growth. This is where I developed my strategy of turning individual work into collaboration opportunities. Whenever I ask students to write their thoughts or reflect on their own, I then give them time to share those ideas with partners, a small group, or the whole class in a large discussion. This method both influences students to actively participate because they are held accountable for their work when they are asked to share, and it gives students more opportunity to reshape their own thinking by considering alternative ideas.
In my own experience as an undergraduate, I was taught by professors with different approaches to group work. In my experience as a learner, I saw opposing teaching methods in the courses American Popular Culture and The Beatles, both considered American Studies courses. In American Popular Culture, the professor primarily taught through group activities. Almost every class was spent in small groups or with partners, sharing ideas, writing down thoughts, and discussing possible answers together. We were engaged, we were focused, and we were able to develop social skills through practice of respectful disagreement. The Beatles course was different. The professor assigned readings and then lectured. If he gave in-class work, it was to be completed individually. In a class that could have been extremely entertaining and fun, we were left to our own devices and let down by the lack of collaborative activities organized by the professor.
As a teacher, I am committed to finding exciting ways to conduct class so that my students are excited to learn.
Sometimes, during this first semester of teaching, I was afraid of silence. It concerned me that if I asked students to be in charge of their individual discussions, they might not speak up. However, Bruffee encourages me to focus on, “engaging students in conversation among themselves at as many points in both the writing and the reading process as possible,” and that, “The way they talk with each other determines the way they will think and the way they will write,” (642). Circulating the classroom while students discuss or collaboratively address a task gives me an opportunity to guide their conversation in a way that will lead to fruitful thinking and well thought out writing.
Bruffee’s piece concludes that we must avoid throwing students into a situation of misguided collaboration. Teachers must not lead students to the negative outcomes of conformity, intimidation and leveling-down of work quality. Instead, as an instructor, I have the opportunity to maintain a demanding academic environment, holding students to a high expectation, so that their collaboration and participation in the socially structured educational pursuits will lead to breakthroughs and effective critical thinking (652). With Bruffee’s research in mind, I grapple with the difficult task of holding students’ attention long enough to instruct their collaborative projects effectively. With the added obstacle of technological distractions, I remain diligent in my attempts to navigate the class towards productive collaboration.
Approaching the first day of teaching ENG 150, I reflected on the ways that former professors of mine started their classes. It always proved effective and engaging when professors ask us students to share some information about ourselves. I particularly liked classes that teachers had us write down goals that they would pass back at the end of the semester. After reading Sara Jane Coffman’s Ten Strategies For Getting Students to Take Responsibility for Their Learning, I decided to incorporate this approach in my own classroom. The article suggests that asking students to explain the reasons they are taking your course can help students to consider how they will grow. Having students put this in writing will allow you to give back their response at the end of the course in order for them to reflect on their progress. It helps to situate you, as the teacher, in the classroom and establish a foundation based on where the students come from and where they imagine themselves going.
Coffman offers other useful tips for pedagogy, one that I used in this section of 150 was to ask students to analyze their learning experiences. I referred to the Teaching Inventory activity to assist students in gaining consciousness around successful learning; this helped students in the classroom to understand their learning styles. It gave me a chance to survey students and understand the ways that the group would learn best. At the same time provoking students to consider strategies for learning during their first semester here at ISU. Coffman writes, “Your teaching style may differ from their learning styles, and this will give you a chance to discuss what you both might do to bridge the gap,” (3). This proved to be a very successful practice and I will continue to assess classroom learning early in the semester so I can gauge where my students will flourish and in what ways I can help them improve their learning practices.
The last tip in Coffman’s article is, “Don’t try to save your students,” and this is probably one of the things I will struggle with the most as a teacher. By nature, I am compassionate, empathetic and eternally optimistic. That said, I can’t allow my students to take advantage of my interest in their success. I must hold students accountable. Establishing a balance of instruction, reflection and compassion within the classroom have been a major focus of my early days as an educator.
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As the Fall 2016 semester comes to a close, I have been working with a team of student teachers to collaboratively create an English 250 syllabus based on our reader, Technology: A Reader for Writers Edition 1 by Johanna Rodgers. With consideration of the course outcomes for 250, we spent time discussing theory from articles such as Pamela Takayoshi and Cynthia L. Selfe’s “Thinking about Multimodality”, which establishes concepts that emphasize the purpose of a multimodal communication course such as Eng 150 and 250 in assisting students to establish foundational communication skills through use of multiple modes of communication. Their article about incorporating multiple modes into composition classrooms says that whether teaching written, oral, visual or electronic communication, an instructor’s, “job remains essentially the same: to teach students effective, rhetorically based strategies for taking advantage of all available means of communicating effectively and productively, to multiple audiences, for different purposes, and using a range of genres,” (Takayoshi & Selfe 9). While teaching on the subject of technology, our group felt it important to avoid relying too heavily on technology. It is imperative to use the class as an opportunity to emphasize the strengths and weaknesses of technology. We decided to incorporate varied assignments that use the text book readings and old methods of technology such as paper and pen as a means for breaking down and analyzing the text. It is a conscious choice to incorporate print materials, as screens within a class based on the subject of technology would seem obvious. Our section of 250 is grounded in improving our students’ WOVE communication skills while enhancing their knowledge about how to use alternative methods of learning than the technology they have been raised with. Through engaging lessons and activities, our goal is to inform students on the multimodal approaches to communication and help them to understand that technology does not only refer to the magic box in their pocket.
The literature provided by our English 500 training has helped me to establish a foundation for myself as a teacher. As the weeks pass, I notice that a lot of the lessons I learn about teaching, occur within the classroom and through reflection, often through conversation with other teachers, after the learning moment. My teaching experience has truly just begun, however, I am quickly recognizing my instinctive approach to teaching. I encourage other student teachers to discuss their methods and practices with me. Hearing others discuss their experiences has helped me to develop ideas for approaching my own classroom. Sharing lesson plans, both successful and unsuccessful, lecture ideas and class activities has helped me to expand and adapt my classroom for the greater good of my students.
Bruffee, Kenneth A. “Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind.’” The New St.
Martin’s Guide to Teaching Writing. Ed. Robert Connors and Cheryl Glenn. Boston: Bedford/St.
Martin’s, 1999. 482-500. Print.
Coffman, Sara Jane. “Ten Strategies for Getting Students to Take Responsibility for Their Learning.”
College Teaching 51.1 (2006): 2-4. Print.
Rodgers, Johannah. “Technology: A Reader for Writers / Edition 1.” Barnes & Noble. Oxford University
Press, n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2016.
Takayoshi, Pamela, and Cynthia L. Selfe. “Thinking about Multimodality.” Multimodal Composition:
Resources for Teachers. Ed. Cynthia L. Selfe. New York: Hampton P, 2007: 1-12. Print.