Thanksgiving Week - Thanking Teaching Circle Visitors

It seems appropriate to insert a note this week thanking those colleagues who have joined in the conversations about teaching, both face-to-face and on-line.  Every exchange teaches me something new, gives me a new tool for my toolbox, and enriches my understanding about the dynamics of pedagogy and curriculum delivery. 

In this Monday's circle someone explained how she uses group conferences (3 students at a time) to promote interaction among classmates while conveying individual recommendations, and we traded ideas about possible formats for the reflective iWebfolio letter. (These are highlights of course, discussions range & meander as they usually do involving highly verbal people.)

Given the public nature of this blog, I don't feel comfortable posting specific names, but if anyone reading would like more information about a topic I mention, or perhaps a copy of a format or assignment, feel free to leave a comment and assuming  you're at Drexel, I'll be happy to send things along to you by e-mail or dept. mailbox.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Guest Blogger: Valerie Fox

Ways of Being Present in Your Online (or Hybrid) Class--
Assumed--a discussion based class

Keep "office" hours--Letting your students know you're logged in at specific times will encourage them to send your course emails around this time.
Students will know that they can reach you in course email in almost real time. Some groups like chats--the day/night before an essay is due can be convenient. If your class doesn't seem to like chatting, you can still let them know that you're logged into the class for specific hours each week.

Send course Email messages at roughly the same time/times each week in which you make important announcements and critique the previous week's discussion posts, quiz responses, or other assignments and activities.
 Give new or repeated information in a way that will help students to classify and group that information in helpful ways; or put another way, refer to earlier activities, repeat key terms, etc. Students become conditioned to expecting these messages and report that they find them useful.
 (Tip: Keep this content in a word file--you might be able to reuse in future terms.)

Have some backup style exercises or activities ready to go (but perhaps hidden) in your discussion area. 
You might add to or use these in a Weekly Plan to respond to an unforeseen need or situation that develops. A good one for fw classes is to have students read, summarize, analyze student essays from previous quarters--

The Circle Grows

I was once again delighted to welcome someone new to circle this week, who shared questions about the iWebfolio and its place in the Grand Scheme of Things (in the FWP), enlivened our discussion of discussion boards, offered counsel about student evaluation and commiserated about the end of term rush.  

There were madeleines to nibble and the circle was so “energetic” that we provoked a colleague’s censure (politely registered) about the volume.  Oops.  

Tomorrow is the FWP meeting, and Teaching Circle leaders will introduce themselves, but I will be conspicuous for my absence; the meeting was moved last week to accommodate a Dean’s meeting, and since Dean outranks Program Director (in administrative hierarchy only!) our meeting was moved to a day when I must be elsewhere.    I’ll garner any notes that can be shared on the blog & post as I can.

Valerie B.

Guest Blogger: Anne Erickson

An interesting technique I have is to print out the picture list for each course. I cut out the students' pictures and name and glue these onto index cards. On the cards, I enter notes about the student, such as comments from each draft, writing concerns, topics, and so forth.  When I have a few minutes, I can use the cards for flashcards to review the students' names and images (handy when you only meet once a week and have a day off fairly early in the term), and I can track the progress (or lack thereof) in one convenient spot.  If I can use different colored cards for the different classes, that also helps with my retention. 

Power Outage Edition

Nothing at all to report from this week's circle because there wasn't one.  The freak snowstorm of last weekend knocked out my home's power for 3 days, so:  no electricity, no hot water, no heat for 3 days, and cable took another day to come back (so, no internet).  I was behind in home & school duties, and bailed on the circle. 

However, I did recently discover/steal a couple of great ideas for in-class work; one a series of writing prompts, the other a different way to do peer editing, and the third a group-work poetry assignment.

Intrigued, yet?  Come this week if you can (I'll have hard copies) but I'll also be sharing on Drexel's FWP listserve (now where did I put those instructions on posting?) and on the BbVista site where assignments are stowed. 

Valerie B.