Higher Education Observer

This book, I believe published in 2011, and written by Michelle Dipietro et al, is fabulous.  New teachers and veteran teachers both must read it.  Unfortunately, it is expensive; I got mine through interlibrary loan. I am applying to an Ed.D. program at UGA.  I hope . . ..  .

I will be speaking on creative fiction writing and my own writing journey at the Catoosa County Library on Sunday, November 13, at 2:00.  I will also read from my work and sign books.

The article below is from Chuck Colson's organization, Breakpoint Ministry.  It is a totally different look at Millennials. I have sat through, and read, countless presentations on the Millennial generation, the good and bad.  Usually these presentations revolve around Millennials' use of (dependence on) technologies, their different views of knowledge and knowledge acquisition (learning), their different work ethic (not bad, just differently motivated), and other issues related to college classroom pedagogy.  It is important information, and I would encourage anyone unfamiliar with it to get cracking.   I have a Millennial at home, and some of what I hear is true of him, some of it is not, because he was raised by two old farts who didn't want him to be a product of his generation.  We didn't have cable till he was 17, and he was expected to work and pay his own bills, etc.  But what is below is true of him and his work situation, and it is causing h...

I think this word sums up what is wrong with a lot of people's thinking. The economy is not a zero sum game.  It is not one big pie that has to be cut up into more and more smaller pieces.  We create more pies; we can create more and more pies to feed more and more people. Now, I know the response--this is capitalism, and capitalism exploits the environment by using up resources.  But capitalism as a way of thinking can find ways not to use resources and still create wealth.  It happens all the time.  Capitalism frees people to use their creativity and innovation to create wealth and by doing so create jobs. Learning is not a zero sum game.  My students think their brains are only so big and that they must protect their brain capacity.   But neuroscience has proven that learning creates more synapses.  However, as capitalism creates wealth through hard work, learning creates more "brain capacity" for knowledge through hard wor...

Some colleagues and I got into a discussion about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation the other day.  We were in a discussion group about course redesign.  Most expressed a negative sense about grades and using them as motivators.  To be contrary, I disagree. Grades are good motivators.  Why should a student strive for the highest grade he/she can get in a class?  I am not even sure I consider a grade an extrinsic motivator, for a couple of reasons.  It doesn't always translate into money, a real extrinsic motivator (I'm not sure it ever did for me), and often the grade is earned because the student is engaged and also wants to please the instructor and himself/herself (all intrinsic).  To me, it is bad teaching if the student can earn the grade without the kind of deep, engaged, paradigm-changing-learning that we want for them.  Why are you giving good grades to students who haven't experienced this kind of engagement?  is the question I ...

I have not posted to this blog in a long time, but as my blogging is a ministry, I need to come to it with that attitude.  I received this email (article posted on website) from Faculty Focus this morning.  I hope it's ok to post this.  I found it just what I needed this morning.  It is from MaryEllen Weimer, who writes a lot about learner-centered teaching. http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/listen-to-the-message-as-you-talk-about-your-students/

I want my students to use MovieMaker for their Humanities projects, so I have to learn it.  Last year I got the technologist to do it, but she moved on to a new job.  But it was a lot of fun to learn, although time-consuming. Here is my attempt; it does double-duty as a trailer for my novel.  It's not perfect, though, to say the least. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vxm036c2LI

I have several copies of my novel that I will sell for $10.00 a piece, signed.  I'll ship or hand-deliver.  Send me a comment and it will come to my email.

I finished this book last night, although I have to be honest and say I skipped the chapter on athletics.   No one has to convince me that college athletics is a big problem all the way around, for the athletes, the non-athlete students, and the college system.    The only winners are the over-paid coaches and the maniacal boosters.   The book questions whether higher education in this country really is higher education (thus the ? in the title).   To some extent the writers come at the question as I interpreted it—is what’s going on in colleges and universities really higher than, say, high school, in terms of intellectual activity, thinking processes, challenges, etc?   More about that below.     They, however, are more concerned with the bang for the buck end of it.   Students, or their families, may pay over $100,00 for a college education, but why, and what is the value added?   The why is due...

I have not posted in a while.  I am overwhelmed with work.  I am tempted to start posting about the realities of teaching in a state, open-access college.  The reason is what I am reading, both for personal enjoyment and for professional readings, and I'd like to comment on it right now. Detour:  On this beautiful Saturday afternoon, I am inside, although I plan to remedy that later and walk the dogs.  However, I started taking an anti-inflammatory medicine called Torodal (sounds like a Spanish bullfighter) that has more warnings than the hormones I used to take.  I am only supposed to take it with food, only for five days, and with nothing else, and it may causes bleeding ulcers and all kinds of horrible things.  It definitely causes upset stomach, although it's better today than last night.  I am going to take it today and see if it helps the pain I'm in, mostly joint and muscle in my feet and hand.  But it's supposed to make me drowsy an...

I am not a cook, and rarely write about food.  My latest novel is going to have food as a theme, though, so I am going to throw something in here about a very easy dish for summer or anytime, the frittata. Basically, a frittata is a glorified omelet, but it's easier to make.  You can throw anything you want into it, let it cook 5-10 minutes in a skillet, and there it is, to be eaten with a salad, soup, vegetables, or alone. Start with a potato.  Dice it up and fry it in olive oil in a pan that is at least 10 inches side and preferably nonstick.  Thrown in some onions, peppers, jalapenos, olives, etc. to saute with the potatoes.  When the potatoes, which should be small, are cooked enough that they are edible (soft), beat about 8 eggs very well and pour on top of what's in the pan.  You can throw in chopped chicken, shrimp, sausage, bacon, or ham (I wouldn't suggest beef).  Then top with whatever kind of cheese you like, feta, mozarella, colby....

A friend who is leading the QEP at another college sent me a somewhat desperate email the other day about how were we doing the writing of the QEP?  Well, this is what I told her.  We didn't start writing until the whole thing was hashed out. We're still hashing a bit, but the main points are done.  We split into four subcommittees to do the sections:  Introduction/Rationale/Objectives/Student Learning OUtcomes + Lit review on best practices + Actual Plan and Budget + Assessment.  The Editor is doing the executive summary and we are all responsible for the references.  I did not want any one person to do all the writing; on top of that, we have a lot of English faculty on the team, and we are supposed to be decent writers.   I want to get the first draft to the liaison early--within a month from now.  I despise procrastination.  I wrote a big section of it (the first one) to get the rest of them inspired and started (I'm being fa...

http://chronicle.com/article/Whats-at-Stake-in-the-Georgia/127718/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en I tried to put on a copyright workshop for our faculty.  Three people showed up (I'm not exaggerating).  I strongly believe instructors need to get a grip on this matter.  I see people photocopying randomly out of books all the time.  As an author of textbooks and novels, I resent that, first of all, because it says "your work is good enough for me to use in the classroom but not good enough to credit and definitely not worth paying for."  It is an insidious form of plagiarism, and then we tell our students not to plagiarize! 

Alan Altany at Georgia Southern U. puts on a super conference, too. http://academics.georgiasouthern.edu/ijsotl/v5n2.html

This was sent from our Board of Regents office. Court Backs Right of University to Discipline for Facebook Comments The Minnesota Court of Appeals has upheld the right of the University of Minnesota to discipline a student in a mortuary sciences program who posted jokes about a cadaver on a Facebook page, Minnesota Public Radioreported. The student argued that the First Amendment protects the posts, but the appeals court found that the university could take action if it could "reasonably conclude" that the Facebook postings would "materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school."

Update: I have been teaching summer school, two classes in a 20-day period, so it takes up most of my energy. QEP has been put aside but must be resurrected. I am concerned about fatigue. Today I am wearing a heart monitor (I do once a year) because of a past procedures; it may tell me something. Whoever said college professors live in ivory towers? That was long before my time. We are as affected by the market as anyone. I work, grocery shop, pay taxes, deal with personalities and deadlines, cut my grass, clean toilets, just like everyone else. The only difference I see is that my job is not 9-5. Sometimes it's 10-12; sometimes it's 7:00 a.m. to 10 p.m. I don't get a lunch break. And we make much less money than is thought. I may be in the minority, but at our school even some Ph.D.s make less than I do, which isn't much, and we might be furloughed. But I have the greatest job in the world, and I work at a wonderful institution. I truly mean that.

Embrace the process. It does no good to whine about it. See it as getting something done at your college that wouldn't have been done otherwise. Get good writers on your team. In general, pick your team for expertise, not just "broad-based-ness" (although that's important too). Proactivity. Talk to your liaison. Get it done. Someone wise once told me, "Go to your boss with solutions, not problems." Great advice. When you go into the provost with "issues," go in with resolutions to those issues. Topics should be focused. Critical thinking for a college of 8,000 students may be impossible to get consistent assessment on. Also, it must be student learning outcome focused, not "start a program we always wanted" focused. Expect that external forces will throw you a major curve while you're in the process. WE picked learning support (developmental education) and the state agency/government made two huge changes that total...

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/june/historicaladam.html This is a long but very interesting article on human origins, i.e, the historical Adam and Eve. Did God use evolution to bring "creation" to a point where He could endow it with His image, and then it rebelled? Can we reconcile Christian theology of the gospel with a view that billions of years of death and decay led to the Fall? Will the church separate over this, with the scholars going one way and the laity going another? Let's talk about it, as my old pastor Ben Haden used to say.

A lot has been going on in my life the last month or so. Our town was devastated by tornado, I watched my brother die and buried him, I've got new responsibilities with my mother, my son graduated from college, a close family member has agressive breast cancer. I have posted to my other blog but not this one, and few have visited it. However, I have a job, too, and although I don't start teaching summer session til June 15, I have the weighty responsibility of chairing the QEP committee at our college. For those of you who know about QEP, you have my condolences. If you have been the leader of the committee, you have my pity. It's a huge job, and some days I really don't know what I'm doing. Other days, I feel more secure, but then another tentacle comes up and grabs me around the neck. It is truly an octopus. This is from a woman who chaired another self-study, who has written three novels, who balances a full life, who raised a great kid, ran a teacher a...

http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2011/05/13/a-nightmare-scenario-for-higher-education/ This is a breakdown of a case in court now between some textbook/academic publishers and Georgia State University, my alma mater for one semester. It is troubling. I will be the first to admit that some teachers violate the fair use laws--knowingly or unknowingly, and when unknowingly, intentionally unknowingly, just choosing not to bother to know what is legal and illegal. But what the plaintiffs want is pretty unbearable and unbelievable. I have not posted to this blog for a while, but will stop. I will probably use it more for references to other materials on the Internet than for my own writing.

Recently we (i.e., the faculty at our college) had to redo all of our student learning outcomes to conform to our authorizing agency. To some extent we had to put the SLOs in a format that showed our classes taught Global Perspectives, U.S. Perspectives, and Critical Thinking. It was, as many things are, tedious, but it got done, and we are satisfied with it. But the process raised a number of questions for me, as did a project I am working on with a colleague in another discipline. Critical thinking is the buzz word for the ages in higher education, but do we even know what we are talking about? Below are my musings about the subject, which I put out here in cyber space to see if anyone want to comment upon them. First, critical thinking is a process, not an outcome. It is a system for getting to a conclusion, not the conclusion. The best definition I've read is this one, from the website critical thinking.com, "the skillful application of a repertoire of validate...

I have to mention that my colleagues in the Humanities Department at Dalton State College nominated me for two awards yesterday. One is Excellence in Service and one is Excellence in Professional Development. I am very thankful for such thoughtful folks to work with.

http://educationtechnews.com/students-use-facebook-to-oust-teachers-blog/ I am conflicted on this one. As long as names aren't given, it's not a confidentiality issue. However, it's less than professional in general. I have had a similar experience, where students didn't like what I posted and responded as if I didn't have a right to my opinion or free speech. However, I am not sure what I posted was overly appropriate. Measure twice, cut once; think three times, post to your blog once.

Barbara G. Tucker Associate Professor, Communication Dalton State College Abstract The growing awareness of Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome and the improved early intervention strategies for those affected by the disorders mean that the college instructor is more likely to deal with neurodiverse students in the classroom. Neurodiverse students face particular challenges in the college classroom, especially one where the focus is oral communication skills. The college instructor should understand the disorders and how effective teaching and learning strategies can be used. The writer interviewed six male college students, three with autism and three with Asperger’s, to ascertain what would help them learn. Introduction Any college instructor knows that sometimes students will reveal information that is, to say the least, unplanned. This type of incident happened to me in Spring 2010, but it has had fortuitous results. In a lecture on audience perceptions of public messages, I m...

DIY U by Anya Kamenetz. I like her analysis of the problem but not her solution. (Throw more federal money at the problem). Any one who works in an open access environment knows many students waste a lot of money by not being successful, and some actually scam the system. By many, of course, I don't mean most. Most are hard working people. But the system needs more than money thrown at it. It needs better teachers and methodologies and a reality check for all involved. I think this book does this.

http://partsofspeaking.blogspot.com/2011/01/was-jesus-model-teacher-addendum.html

I have really nice students this semester. That is usually the case. I like where I work very very much. However, I got a memo from our VP today about the averages on teacher evaluations. There are faculty in my department that actually get perfect scores on those things! I don't see how that is possible, how every student in a class would rate any instructor perfectly on every category! I average about 4.6 out of 5, which I think is pretty good, but not in my department. So I really don't know what the problem is. The students' comments are very positive, except that I may be too demanding, and some think they should get As on their speeches. So this is a little bit of a downer, My average is the departmental average. Well, I guess I shouldn't think that's so bad. But I'd like to think after 33 years that my teaching is a little bit better than average.

http://partsofspeaking.blogspot.com/2011/01/was-jesus-model-teacher-part-iii.html

http://partsofspeaking.blogspot.com/2011/01/was-jesus-model-teacher-part-iii.html

http://partsofspeaking.blogspot.com/2011/01/was-jesus-model-teacher-part-ii.html

Reference to my other blog: http://partsofspeaking.blogspot.com/2011/01/was-jesus-model-teacher.html

Just a little tip I learned by accident. Because of the snow here, I have yet to meet my Monday only hybrid public speaking class. I used a discussion board (asynchronous) to get the students talking about the subject of public speaking and their experiences. It really helped. They were honest and supportive of one another, and since they will have to give a short introductory speech the first day (finally), they feel more settled.

Is a number of small assignments better than a few heavily-weighted ones? It depends on the level of student (level of preparedness), the discipline, and the learning outcomes. However, all things considered, it seems wiser to not "put all the eggs in one basket." When I hear a project is worth 50% in a freshman class, I cringe. The freshmen I know can't handle such a thing.

We met for class three days, then a powerful storm closed the college for four days, and we have Monday off for the Martin Luther Kig, Jr., holiday. More than ever flexibility will be necessary. Flexibility assumes a posture about life, a "I'll do the best I can but you know, I just don't control very much that goes on anyway" attitude. Perhaps flexibility works in inverse proportion to how important you think you are. If so, I must have thought myself very important in the past, because I wasn't very flexible! However, we will be trying to get caught up all semester!

I'm doing research on teaching Asperger's students in communication classes. I found this post on the Christianity Today website blog Hermeneutics, which has a good article about the church and persons with Autism Spectrum Disorders. I found this post from a person with AS very important; I hope I am not breaking any copyright laws here. Without exception, every discussion I've seen of autistics in church is about low-functioning autistic children and teenagers, and is directed at their parents or at other adults in their lives. What happens to these autistics when they grow up--do they grow out of it? Do they die? Or are they institutionalized, never to darken a church door again? And what about high-functioning autistics? I am an adult with Asperger's syndrome, i.e. a high-functioning autistic adult. I go to church, humanly speaking, of my own accord. I have yet to see anything, in books or the Christian media, that addresses the problems faced by Christian Aspi...