Rhetoric History and Theory | Research Colloquium
While I taught, I was also taking three classes at MSU. One course was AL 833: Composition Pedagogies. Unfortunately, a significant portion of this course was review of coursework I did in my master's program--but I learned a lot too. One project we did in the course was to completely design the course we would be teaching the following semester and write a metacommentary of the course. Because I had taught the course several times before, I didn't have the work to do that some did. Too, I had done this kind of metacommentary for a course in my master's program, although we called it our "dream syllabus" and had to stay within the parameters of the CMU master syllabus. So, while doing the project was not really a new experience for me, it certainly was helpful to have my course planned for the next semester so far ahead. On the other hand, I noticed a few theoretical differences between what I designed in my dream syllabus two years prior and what I designed this past semester, most notably the need to include publishing and more technology in my course. The need to include some aspect of publishing had to do with some conversations we had about making writing real in the course rather than having students always write "for the teacher"--making writing authentic and helping students feel they have a real audience. So my new course includes some form of required publishing online for each unit. For an example, visit our class blog to see some of what we've done so far. Too, we discussed technology and how to use it to our advantage, so after attending the "wiki and blog" brownbag and discussing things in class, I decided as well to use a wiki for my courses this semester. To see how this has worked out, please visit our class wikis, one for my two English 101 courses and one for my English 133 course. So while much of the course was review, it was also important as a serious reflection of my pedagogies and emphasized the fact that our theoretical frameworks and perspectives are only a foundation for what we do and it is imperative to keep up with innovations and conversations in the field.
The Observation Log, too, represents an observation activity we did in 833 and one I had done before in my master's. The log, however, was a very different approach to observation from what I had done before. So, while observing another's teaching wasn't a new experience for me (I have observed teachers several times before, as an undergrad and as a grad student), this method of recording the observation was quite different. What worked really well here was the discussion that followed the observation: the log allowed us to more objectively report the observation and let the teacher (or in this case the Writing Center presenter) evaluate her own performance and determine what she wanted to work on. This was a reciprocal observation, too, so I was observed and was able to see my teaching from someone else's perspective. From this I did learn one very important thing: keeping close track of time is imperative and something I didn't do very well: I tend to sort of go with the flow, but as a result was shortchanging some students and some activities and needed to pay more attention for everyone's benefit. My classroom that semester had no clock, so I started taking the clock from my office to the classroom with me. Students laughed and called me Flava Flav, but it did help in my teaching.