I really like your post Grace. I believe you are beginning to find your teacher “voice” in seeing teaching as collaborative based on mutual respect, mutual hard work and listening/communication. I have a found a good bit of success as a teacher when I was prepared and took teaching very seriously but at the same time listened, initiated communication with students and respected them as individuals. After this class, reading your posts and our discussions, I am thinking of ways, such as your Continuum Mechanics professor initiated, in give students more say in decision making for the class…should be an interesting new adventure!
Author: Faith Skiles
Comment on I am me and I can be no one else. by Faith Skiles
Jaclyn, thank you so much for your comment! I think whenever you change something to benefit student learning, in the end it is the right choice. In my experience, students get much more frustrated over a plan that doesn’t work and a teacher doggedly sticking to it, than changing the plan so that it does work. I’ve also noticed that if I remain confident and communicate well that it will ameliorate much of the “wishy-washiness” students may perceive. Good luck as you continue on your journey of discovering who you are as a teacher! It is life-long!
Comment on Group Work and Assessment by Faith Skiles
Thank you for your post and bringing up the problems of group work. I know, as a student, I try to run as far away as I can from group work, (just like working on my own) but I actually incorporate it in my class. I do this just because I know employers are looking for employees who can work well in a group environment and I guess, I wish someone had pushed me to learn this skill as well. I want to expose students to this dynamic. In exposing them, I hope they learn to deal with some of the problems that you mention above before they are in a work place environment. My group work is not “graded” so I guess I have taken the road of taking the pressure of a grade off the work. I do like, though, some sort of peer review of group partners. I’ve learned that good peer review is very helpful to students. Something to think about….
Comment on The difficulty with narratives rather than grades by Faith Skiles
Thank you Lauren for bringing up these concerns! I enjoyed your post and reading what others have said as well. I guess I would just chime in along the same lines as those that have already commented. I think assessments need to be flexible. We need to imagine outside a box of standardized testing of everyone. Engineers need to know the numbers, do the math, and this is easily tested on standardized tests. Some engineers however never understand the concepts that go behind those numbers – concepts that are probably best discussed in conversations and in hands-on explorations. Engineers that have a good understanding of these concepts and can creatively address engineering concerns don’t usually show up in standardized tests. I say this only because my husband is just such an engineer and while other engineers in his firm came and went, (fired), on a regular basis, his understanding of the concepts of engineering and his creative use of those, which didn’t show up on his transcript, kept him in a job.
Comment on Battle of the Grades. The story of my life! by Faith Skiles
Thank you for sharing your experiences! I appreciate your bravery in stepping out and challenging yourself in a competitive discipline, in a language that is not native to you and for not giving up! I especially like your last picture. I do believe, and I think Im guilty of this too, that many students just want to do well on the test. They experience great anxiety surrounding the test and they want to go in knowing as much as they can about how it will be. Like your post and the picture, I’m not sure a whole lot of learning is going on. It actually is a big issue in the United States today in K-12 education – the idea that teachers now must teach to the SOL tests. Personally, I have always wished, as a teacher, that I did not have to assess students all the time; but students and parents, both, expect me to do so….so I do.
Comment on “Korea-osity” by Faith Skiles
Thank you for your comment! I guess I have always wanted my children/grandchildren to follow their curiosities. My children did and they all successfully navigated to careers where two out of three make more money than my husband, the engineer and STEM graduate, made at the top of his career. And whether the students in my class are STEM majors or some other major, I am working towards making class more interactive and thoughtful…or I guess you could say mindful.
Comment on “Korea-osity” by Faith Skiles
Yes! Isn’t perfection boring! What a great insight! I think it could also be very off-putting and intimidating to students. I do like your idea too of creative assignments. I am going to think about how I could incorporate something like that into my class. Thank you for your comment and insights!
Comment on “Korea-osity” by Faith Skiles
I know! I loved the dancing mathematicians! I wish I had known about them when I was teaching algebra. And you know, I was actually helping my granddaughter with her algebra the other day and said to her, “…and after that, just plug and chug…” She’s about to move on to graphing functions beyond lines and parabolas, so the dancing mathematicians are going to come out! As for high school curricula, I have thought, for a long time, that we push students into almost a one-size-fits-all curriculum so they can be “ready” for anything they might want to do in college. I’m just not sure this is the way to go….
Comment on The Mindless Undergrad by Faith Skiles
I really enjoyed reading your post! Thank you for sharing your experiences. They were eye-opening – especially since I’ve been married to an engineer for thirty years…a creative one. After walking through many engineering experiences with my husband, I do think it is important on some level to allow for some uncertainty, for some movement beyond “use this formula in this situation – plug and chug and you have your answer” in undergraduate engineering. I say this because of the experiences of my husband as an engineer. Developers and farmers loved him. Other engineers, not so much. Whether it was his education or just his own exploration of engineering principles or perhaps his dual major in engineering and physics, but he often thought of different “ways” to get projects done. He thought out of the standard engineering box. He looked at the environment he had to work with and often found ways to implement practices in that environment in novel ways. Interestingly enough, other engineers found it hard to follow what he was doing. In the end, he supported it all in the ways that engineers do and I don’t understand too well. And his practices endure today in places around southwest Virginia. But he remained the “odd ball out” amongst the other engineers and technicians he worked with. They often only saw one way to do something and questioned him often. I believe, I guess, that math can be used in very formulaic ways or it actually can be beautiful and creative. And in the world of engineering, it can be used to create many things “outside of the box” if just used as a tool and not a formula.
Comment on Modes of Being in the Classroom: What is meaningful in our classes? by Faith Skiles
It seems to me that you already are learning to be comfortable with the “value of doubt” or uncertainty that Langer talks about. I applaud your efforts in facilitating students in a discussion of multiple perspectives and in challenging historical narratives. I think too that one of the reasons that I probably am more hesitant than I should be in inviting discussions of different views is the question of what to do when someone’s views are extreme. It is uncomfortable for me. But I think a part of all that we are doing here is to be challenged to get out of our comfort zones – to be willing to be uncomfortable. To be mindful, as our readings say, of different contexts, different ways to “see” things. And as we grow and take on more and more challenges, our students are sure to benefit.
