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Saturday, 15. June 2002
mccomas, June 15, 2002 at 4:54:24 PM CEST
Focusing Loop: Success?
From my previous Focusing I writing, two things stood out that were interesting for me to think more about. One of those: "By distinctly successful, I am referring to the work created that is astonishing in some way...the papers that evidence deep and profound transformation of thinking."Again, some unpacking is necessary. Several years ago, when I became involved with WAC on Marshall's campus, I learned about the need for providing students with some indication of how their work would be assessed...that is the criteria against which their work would be judged. After several of us began developing criteria we discovered that first of all, we weren't always sure what we wanted (I know that's scary for students to read) and secondly, we weren't very adept at articulating what we wanted even when we thought we knew. I began developing PTAs (primary traits analysis) for some of my major assignments, forcing myself to articulate exactly what I was interested in having students achieve and demonstrate in their work. In order to do that, however, I did a good bit of reading about assessing writing. One book, in particular, really stood out to me. It wasn't the newest text on the market, in fact I hadn't even discovered it...Dolores pointed it out to me when I was almost at the end of my research into this particular topic. Since it has been a while since I read this, my paraphrase will be horrendous but I hope to impart the sentiment he expressed. First, he suggested that it was essentially impossible to articulate exactly what an "A" paper looked like because the "A" papers are the ones where students go way beyond the minimum expectations, they are creative in a variety of unique ways, and more importantly, they show independence by the learner as they take an assignment and make it uniquely their own. He suggested (or hinted?) that teachers should determine what a "B" paper is (not nearly as hard to do) and then suggest that an "A" paper goes beyond that. It's true, what he says. If I articulate clearly what an A paper looks like, it is no longer an A paper because all of the creativity is gone. When students ask "What do you want?" it is no longer their original work in the most creative way they can develop it...it becomes their work through my filter...the creativity is gone. This then, is where I am with understanding what "distinctly successful" work is. Perhaps I need to begin to understand the many ways that distinctly successful work can appear, the many faces it has (certainly, the three case studies I am using have very different faces). Is my question about success? Do I want to know what success looks like? What success is? mccomas, June 15, 2002 at 3:53:04 PM CEST
Focusing Loop: Strategies
From my previous Focusing I writing, two things stood out that were interesting for me to think more about. One of those: "What students need are strategies...and I think, in the projects that are successful, these students are demonstrating some of the strategies that just might serve as predictors for clinical excellence." I thought it might be useful to work on unpacking a little more what I mean about strategies. I often cringe at that word...knowing that there are a million (and one?) books available that claim to share teaching strategies, or clinical strategies, yet tend to be isolated activities that can be useful or not useful depending upon context. Context is critical, therefore, to me when thinking about strategies. From Merriam-Webster I learn: Main Entry: strat·e·gy Pronunciation: -jE Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural -gies Etymology: Greek stratEgia generalship, from stratEgos Date: 1810 1 [snipped] 2 a : a careful plan or method : a clever stratagem b : the art of devising or employing plans or stratagems toward a goal 3 : an adaptation or complex of adaptations (as of behavior, metabolism, or structure) that serves or appears to serve an important function in achieving evolutionary successInteresting that the technical definition of the word strategy implies what I believe to be a critical element. Strategies are not isolated behaviors; they are, in fact, the plan themselves. So when I talk about strategies, or careful plans or methods, that are necessary for clinical excellence...what am I talking about? What exactly do I mean by saying that students might demonstrating the strategies for clinical excellence? I mean that students are....what?! I don't know what I mean...is this then the focus? Is it my task to discover what strategy they used...how they went about moving from a beginning with nothing -- not a word, not an idea -- through to a "distinctly successful" project...a project that evidenced deep and profound transformations of thinking in one way or another? mccomas, June 15, 2002 at 3:00:46 PM CEST
Getting into the Mix
Put my link up on the class blog today as I plan to be completing some of the same work the students do, particularly with regard to the reflections and with the MRP (which reminds me I must finish those instructions this weekend). Here's an idea of how I'm organizing my site so far...I have three topics: journal, mrp, and research. Journal postings are the kind of reflective things and non-reflective things that don't go into the other topics (an efficient system, don't you think?). The MRP topic is where I'll be publishing my MRP. The research topic is where I"m doing some pre-writing before I head to my writing retreat at the end of the month. There's a connection between the research and MRP topics....as my research will be the basis for my MRP...that is, the topic/issue for my MRP will be my research question. After posting that, I went back and added a fourth topic: Site Development. I have a number of postings (and will have many more) where I"m experimenting with certain things in terms of customizing this weblog (see Site Development topic). The thing I'm really liking about this is the fact that I can choose to have some "stories" online in topic (such as the site development stories) and they don't clutter up my home page. Or, I can keep my work for my MRP online in topic so it doesn't show on the home page as I go through the development period. Right now, I'm publishing items in my journal topic and my research topic online in weblog. Sweet! |
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