Week 3: Learning Theories and Motivation

Question 1: Discuss which theory/ies might be most applicable to your instruction and outline a specific activity/assignment/exercise that would facilitate learning according to that theory.

I have designed the following project using a constructivist theory. The idea of focusing on real-world applications appeals to me. That is one of the biggest challenges that my class presents -- helping students to understand that the literature they read represents real lives and experiences.

For my first-year seminar in non-Western literature, I would like to have my students collect, edit, and present oral histories. The county next to the one where my university is located has a large population of African immigrants. My friend "Mary Ann" works at the public library there, performing outreach to African families in the community. 

Prior to the event:
I would ask Mary Ann to help me identify about a dozen families where one or more members were willing to talk with my students about their experiences in their countries of origin and in the U.S. I would work with Mary Ann to organize a low-key coffee hour to which we would invite the families. We would discuss the parameters of the project beforehand, and make sure that they were okay with their stories being recorded on audio and played for the class at a later date. I would also work with my students to teach them the procedures and etiquette of recording oral histories.

On the date of the event:
I would bring my students to the library where Mary Ann works. All attendees would be invited to have coffee and snacks, and to chat informally before interviews began. One pair of students would work with each individual or family who chose to attend. Student pairs would have come up with their own list of interview questions. I would ask them to broadly approach the topics of the immigrants' lives in their countries of origin and their lives in America. In cases where several members of a family attended, students would ask them to tell their intertwining stories as a family. The students would make audio recordings.

The project:
Pairs of students would edit the audio using Audacity or other simple audio software. They would prepare a presentation that combined their recordings and their own live commentary. The students would share their interviewees' thoughts on their lives in the two (or more!) countries. They would also tie the interviews in with literature that we have read in the course.

Question 2: Consider what you learned from Small's article on motivation and address how you are going to motivate your learners/students.

The portion of the article that interested me the most was the section on motivating through relevance (page 7). 

For some students, reading literature from a developing nation or culture is a call to action, period. They may have natural, broad inclinations to help others. They may be majoring in a subject with a human focus (such as education or social work), or with an international focus. It's easy to hook those students in.

I would like to work on hooking the other students -- those who do not naturally see the connections between the literature we read and their own life plans. 

One idea I have for increasing motivation in this area is based around an activity. (I have not yet tried this, so it may go badly! Or it may go well!) I would ask students to arrange for a brief (10-15 minutes) telephone, Skype, or in-person interview with a person in a career that interests them. Each student would ask his or her interviewee four questions:

1) What types of business/work interactions do you have with people from other countries or cultures?

2) What countries or cultures do the people you serve through your work tend to come from?

3) What are some skills or techniques that you have learned for working with people from other cultures in your job?

4) [Come up with a question of your choice.]

I would have an informal presentation day where the students shared the two most interesting answers they received. We would work to make connections among individuals' interviews and connections with the literature we have read.

There is a slight risk of an interviewee saying that he or she does not have significant intercultural interactions. There is also a slight risk of negative answers. I think that this activity would be quite revealing for the class as a whole, though. It would be especially interesting to talk about the ranges of interactions that interviewees mentioned for specific parts of the world.

Week 2: Procedures for Educative Assessment

Question 1: Formulate one or two ideas for forward-looking assessment. Identify a situation in which students are likely to use what they have learned, and try to replicate that situation with a question, problem, or issue.

I teach a non-Western literature course for first-year students who are *not* majoring in English. They often belong to a wide range of majors. One of my main goals during the course is to encourage the students to recognize social problems that are portrayed in the literature and to understand how these situations play out in the real world. Here is a sketch for a formative task:

1)  Choose one of the novels we have read so far this semester. Imagine that, ten years in the future, you work as a professional in the field you are studying now. One day, you meet one of the characters from the novel through your work.

2) Think and then write about where this character is in his or her life when you meet. Write a few paragraphs to tell us what is happening in that character's life now. Tell us how the two of you met. What are the challenges that the character shares with you in your professional capacity. What are some things that you can do to help him or her? (For example, perhaps you have decided to work for a microfinance group in Zimbabwe. You meet Chipo, the pre-teen mother from NoViolet Bulawayo's "Hitting Budapest." She is now in her twenties, and tells you that she wants to open a textile business to help support her children. She comes to you for help with finances. You want to help her, but you realize that she needs help learning to plan her business strategies before you lend her start-up funds.)

3)   With a partner, create a 2- to 3-minute play that depicts the interaction you have described above. Since each of you will write a play, you will have two to perform.

Week 1: Questions for Formulating Significant Learning Goals -- laying the foundations for my course

Hello!
I am basing my assignment on the first-year seminar that I teach for my university, which has a postcolonial literature theme (basically non-Western literature, post-1945). While this course isn't directly a part of my library work, it's a big part of my life. I also want to revise the teaching methods that I use in class to better match them with my learning objectives. I'm happy with the content at present, but my active classroom strategies can honestly be a bit repetitive.
Here are my responses to the Questions for Formulating Significant Learning Goals worksheet:
1. What is the specific context of the class? My first-year seminar course has 22 students per semester. I only teach it in fall semesters. The students are in their first year of college, and the course is limited to students under 26 years of age. (We have a lot of nontraditional students on our campus.) We meet twice each week for 75 minutes. All class meetings are held in person, but I use the class Canvas LMS site heavily. Students complete some out-of-class assignments on Canvas, such as discussion boards. I like to have a pretty low-tech classroom, honestly. I do use the computer with a projector on most days, but other than that, I like person-to-person interaction and white boards.
2. What learning expectations are placed on this course by the university, the profession, and society? The university requires that I embed twelve major college skills in the course. (The twelve skills are set by the program and are consistent for all sections.) In theory, 30% of the course is about those skills and 70% is about postcolonial literature. The university basically expects me to familiarize my students with campus resources and to help them practice college skills such as time management and good study habits throughout the semester. I'm not really sure that "the profession" has expectations for this. I did just attend the LOEX conference, and along with other librarians, I discussed the format and content of other schools' first-year seminar programs. There are of course many similarities.
Society has a lot of expectations for college students, even new ones. These are particularly important on a campus such as mine, with many nontraditional students. Since almost all of my students go home to their parents in the evenings, they don't always have the impetus or the opportunity to adopt good college habits. For example, they aren't studying in the dormitories & listening to other students talking about going to the library and the writing center like I did when I was in college. I make my best effort to help them blend the life situations they have with the new life that they are beginning as students. Helping them to understand society's and the campus's expectations for students helps them to feel more comfortable on campus & hopefully to succeed with their studies.
3. What is the nature of the subject? The postcolonial literature section of the course is based in literature. While we might say that literature has a theoretical bent, the pieces that we read are based heavily in society's experiences. I choose pieces that reflect the growing independence of societies and individuals that used to be ruled as colonies. The pieces are sometimes controversial (think The Satanic Verses), but more often it's a question of how I choose to handle the subjects. For example, one semester, my students asked repeatedly that I choose pieces that were less depressing. I decided to see what I could do. :) By finding pieces that were "happier" -- often meaning that the authors had triumphed over difficult circumstances -- my students actually ended up having a much more positive vision of postcolonial societies. That's a controversial approach, though, because it does mean that I cover less literature that deals with the typical postcolonial struggles of independence and poverty.
4. What are the characteristics of the learners?
Students must be under 26 years old and in their first semester of college to take the course. They are typically living at home, and many appear to belong to the lower middle class. Nearly all are first-generation students. The slight majority belong to racial or ethnic minorities. They often work large amounts of time (30 hours per week) for their parents' businesses. This is something we generally have to discuss -- how to talk about the importance of having time to study while respecting parents' needs for assistance.
Most of my students have a fairly practical career goal in mind. They often want to own a business (having grown up with a family business) or to teach. They often blend goals that they've gotten from their families with a desire to "aim higher." For example, several will often mention a desire to make the family business more successful with a business degree. Some will mention that family members have spent time performing health care or child care in informal settings, and that they want to have a degree so that they can take similar goals a little farther.
5. What are the teacher's characteristics? I am deeply familiar with the subject. My degrees are in literature, and I have also just plain read avidly my entire life. I really, truly believe in my students' sincerity and in their goals. I love the idea of helping them to develop and practice good college skills throughout the semester. It's easier said than done in reality, but I do my best. The college skills portion of the course are very active, and I think that they go well. Some of the skills just take a lot of practice, though -- time management being the best example. I would like to learn more about how to teach literature actively. We end up having lots of small group discussions, which typically go well, but I would like to offer much more variety in terms of classroom activities. I need to learn and try out more strategies for active learning. I believe that this course provides a strong foundation for learning about literature. Students read a lot of key pieces, and they'll have them in the back of their minds. It also provides a framework for how to learn about literature.
Questions for Formulating Significant Learning Goals
A year after this course is over, I hope that students will... ...use the college skills we developed to the best of their abilities. I hope that they will have sorted out some issues of school/work/family balance. I hope that they will see connections between the literature that we read and what happens in the world around them.
1. Key information: Major pieces of postcolonial literature. Key skills: twelve selected college skills. Also, the beginnings of strong critical thinking and writing. Key ideas: Major themes that appear in postcolonial literature (which we discuss repeatedly, in depth). Also, important ties between the literature and what we see happening in the world around us.
2. What kinds of thinking are important for students to learn? Critical thinking, most of all.
What important skills do students need to gain?
Most importantly, formulating and supporting an argument about a piece of literature. Also, comparing two pieces of literature, or a piece of literature and real life.
Do students need to learn how to manage complex projects? Absolutely! Both complex in terms of requirements and in terms of critical arguments.
3. What connections should students make? Connections between pieces of literature, between characters, between literature and world events, literature and history...lots.
I'm going to stop here for now. These are great questions, though! I really appreciate this framework.