Once again- Revised- Teachnology Statement

With precocious determination I gripped the soft wooden stylus and concentrated on carefully making each stroke count. Up and down, side to side each line making meaning, making progress and creating my first written work; I was 3 and I wrote my name.

Maybe not everyone can remember when they learned to write or what they wrote first because it is such an ingrained part of what we do, we no longer think about it as a skill.  So people forget how hard writing is, especially good writing. Heck other faculty are incensed that after 15 whole weeks, first year writing students still make writing mistakes – so my pushback “Is a student who has one semester of Russian studies fluent?” Of course not. Writing takes time, it is a process and that requires work.  And just when we start to get people to understand that writing is something that will take practice, technology enters.

Teaching with technology is still teaching. There is still has to be an understanding of a strong pedagogy, goals and heuristic practice. So how do these things mesh?

In teaching I am committed to provide a safe learning space where low risk ideas are scaffolded into providing venues for increasingly more difficult concepts and theories of the topic that is being worked with.  I also believe that in order for learning to be effective that a variety of methods must be used to work with the differing learning styles. Often times this is through the use of technology- multimedia formats allow the ideas about composition, reading and process to become more fluid. It also allows students to use their knowledge bases and creativity in composition to come to the forefront and allows them to adjust their ideas about learning, meaning making and how composition comes into it. I bring a high level of professionalism but approachability into the learning space, there is a very fine line of being personable and losing control of the class space and despite having a congenial personality, I am sure to make the class space organized and academic.

We still teach the basics: clear outcomes and scaffolded strategies to reach the outcomes. This is further promoted by introducing and encouraging learners not only to use their previous real life experiences and sense of self identity but also to work collaboratively and embrace the notion of group learning. Learning should not just be competitive but instead should promote exploration of current trends in writing and technology together.  Email is writing, texting is writing and writers should embrace the varied forms beyond poetry and prose.

I believe that learning comes in the moments where experience collides with knowledge that is introduced.  It  is more than something that is done by rote, sometimes it takes hand holding through rough patches, but often it is making sure to provide examples, terms and activities that illuminate the end process desired and offers up many paths of understanding to get to the end goal.

Much like Cindy Selfe, I think that technological interfaces offer a heuristic mask that fosters the idea that students raised with technology are good at it.  However proficiency comes from a willingness to learn new programs, software and devices and often times students have no access and no instruction.  This creates a high risk learning environment and many students will not explore new technologies unless instructed to do so.  Exploring, failing with experiments and repeated attempts is the best way to embrace the unknown and figure out what works for each person’s learning style.

Learning happens at an individual pace at different levels, so I try to offer students the flexibility to take their learning from basic ideas to more specified concepts as time moves on. As explored in Vygotsky’s work- the idea of teaching with only one “concretness” is counterproductive and counter intuitive to most learning styles. I don’t expect expertise in a concept that we have only been working on for a short time, and will often revisit topics through the entire course. In addition learning happens in a variety of ways, offering multiple forms of articulation helps to give students a way to share what they know in a venue that they are comfortable with.

With these ideas students will begin to create a more symbiotic relationship between writing and technologies. Keep in mind that technology has its limits because it is a tool.  We need to remember to continually question the follow: is technology accessible and useful to convey the lessons in writing and literacy?

One consistent action in a course is checking in with the students for comprehension but not always in obvious ways.  This is in the form of asking questions with a Socratic approach, using activities that require deliverable products are used as well as starting conversations and using examples that lead back to the topics that are being covered. Not to mention there must be a very strong pedagogy and technology  interaction scheme if students are going to feel free to use technology as a composition tool. Exploration is a necessary component for figuring out a digital voice.  I like to change the learning environment often.  This is done both by how the information is given as well as the learning spaces: physical, emotional and mental.  Another action that I use often is showing my expertise in the subject taught- using a variety of methods to highlight why and how learning is paramount to what the students will do. I tend to keep a fluid but flexible schedule – I always have a general plan for what needs to be accomplished in the teaching time however I have learned to take the human element into account when teaching.  Some days you have to work with the student- not just the topic to be taught.

Technology can easily be used as an exclusionary tool or a tool to “enhance” a curriculum with bells and whistles that means nothing to the learning of the students. A warning many forget as they use the newest slide show, video or audio overlay.

So in my teachnology ideals I hold that that students will be able to be able to understand the affordances and values of using technology as a tool for writing and enriching their writing goals and tasks.  My values in teaching are to provide students a way to connect with the topics I am teaching.  This gets messy because students tend to resist learning something against the grain of what they have been previously taught. Students also tend to want to please the teacher and chafe when the deliverable outcome feels more nebulous to them.  In order to help the process of learning take hold, I offer certain amounts of agency to the students to show their knowledge base so that they feel they have a valid voice and opinion in the class instead of feeling the need to regurgitate what I have said.  I encourage them to take risks, to use new formats and forms and to “play around” with the emerging ideas that composition ranges beyond a pen and paper. I like using new ideas and methods- it is an ongoing process of becoming better at what I do.  I like to take risks in teaching- using new methods, or technologies or ideas to work with the content.  Even in failing a lot can be learned, and also offers up real world value to the students as well. They should look at technology as another form in creating a good writing process no matter the medium. These skills have to follow them through their professional and being good with technology is nothing if writing and communication skills aren’t high end as well.