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Learning portfolio post 2

So the learning activities we post here are for strategies for social interaction?

I’m confused about this section of the lesson but anyway, here is a learning activity, not for only for student,  for me as instructor.  It is an article on offering  and receiving constructive feedback from University of Waterloo. For it is important to realize that feedback is not a 1 way street and students have to be receptive to feedback, and take the time to consider it without feeling defensive. Skilled feedback would minimize the potential for defensiveness though. This webpage sould be part of the introductory materials for a course.

 

https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/assessing-student-work/grading-and-feedback/receiving-and-giving-effective-feedback

Learning portfolio post 2

 

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Learning Portfolio post 1

  • learned.https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/grammar/punctuation-the-colon-semicolon-and-more/introduction-to-semicolons/v/introduction-to-the-semicolon-the-colon-and-semicolon-punctuation-khan-academy?modal=1
  • this link takes you to a video describing the correct way to use a semi-colon. I’ve just marked 60 report assignments. One of my most oft repeated comment was incorrect use of semi-colon. This Khan Academy video shows how. I use these videos a lot to teach grammar and writing.  The student can watch it as many times as needed to fully understand the rules because they are complex.  This link can be posted on Moodle for student reference, in fact I could build a library of Khan Academy links there for common errors. This material is boring to go over again and again in class, but some students really need it.
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post 3

The course, I am using as reference, is an advanced writing course with LOs that reflect high-level cognitive skills like explain, evaluate, produce, organize, compare. The student is assessed on the production of documents that require synthesis of research, rhetoric, and strategy (white paper, communications plan). The assessment is built right into the LOs therefore aligned. For example: Explain the unique challenges associated with using social media for professional purposes and apply social media effectively in a communication strategy.

To re-write an assessment, I would change: Evaluate a complex communication challenge, and organize and execute a communication strategy. Into: Evaluate a complex communication challenge, and strategize, organize and design a communication strategy using text and visuals. While originally multi-structural, it is now more precise in its actions.

 

 

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post 5 integration

Honestly, my posts are pretty informal, and I’m not sure that there’s “showcase quality” work there, but I do want to expand on my writing about feedback. (And by the way, I’m not sure how I would showcase my writing.) In any case, back to the topic of feedback. I did my MFA in creative writing and feedback from peers and instructors was a large part of our activities. One thing that was always clear was that it was always about the text, never about the person. Useful criticism is that ” this part of the text makes me feel, or think, this way…” it is never voiced as “you make me feel, or think” this way.  I try to maintain that distancing perspective when offering feedback to students. I can remember how feedback could be received as criticism when it was delivered as “you…” and could feel hurtful.  So I try to always remember to say this part of the text etc…

Feedback perceived as criticism is very silencing. Positive feedback is an art of restraint and delicacy but can have strong effects.  My SMART goal is to refresh my skills of feedback, keeping them kind, objective and never personal. The text exists outside of the person.

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post 2 cognitive presence

I have the advantage of being the content developer as well as the instructor of the course I teach. Written into the course are a series of questions for the students to reflect on. Questions are good for interrupting a long passage of reading– in a way they wake up the reading student. and help them to re-focus on the material.

I’d like to find more ways of  connecting the material to the student. In another course I’m currently developing/writing, I use a lot of concrete imagery to make abstract concepts  “visible” to the student. I think that is really improving the course, and after reading this paper, I am tempted to go into the draft and add more visuals to help the student engage with the less tangible concepts.

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Offering feedback – post 4

I tend to offer a lot of feedback within a written document assignment, because I instruct writing and therefore the conceptual process is visible in the text on several levels, both in content and ability to articulate that content.

One of the biggest frustrations I have as an OL teacher is that it is obvious that many students do not read feedback carefully,  if they read it at all.  For example, the student who makes the same errors repeatedly, even though I urge them to read my feedback on the commentary section of the grading rubric.

In all fairness I do witness this in the FTF courses I teach also.  The students who do best are usually those who meet in person in my office to go over an assignment. I try to replicate this FTF input in an email dialogue with students if they contact me about a problem they are having.

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Introducing myself

I am a writer and a reader. I read mostly poetry, but one of my favorite reads this past summer was The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose. She combines fiction and nonfiction to write about the  artist Marina Abramović,  whose performance The Artist Is Present  at New York’s MoMA is at the heart of the novel.  In 2010,  for 3 months Abramović sat in the gallery for 8 hours a day.  Spectators could sit facing her and could stay as long as they wished as long as they kept their eyes on hers. Many wept. It is seldom we look into each other’s eyes.  And the irony that I am writing this as an open learning instructor is not lost on me.  A lack of human contact in contemporary culture, is one of the conditions that this performance commented on.  The novel follows the stories of fictional characters who were moved by the performance, and were changed by it.