Teaching Blogging
I don't know about you, but I am enjoying YKos from afar. Yeah, I know I'm not there in person, but I'm afraid I'm a bit of a corner dweller anyway in large crowds, because my tinnitus keeps me from hearing anything. Besides my partner and I are going to Meeting tomorrow to support Montclair Meeting in changing its minute on marriage equality to outright, unconditional support. So anyway, I'm hear in New Jersey instead. But I got to experience the GLBT caucus via participating in TerranceDC's excellent diary (looks like there will soon be a GLBT diary similar in nature to Teacher's Lounge). And I got a chance to participate in baratunde's black caucus report. And see pictures, of course. :-)
It is my participation in the black caucus diary that I have decided to use as a jumping off place this morning. This should pop up my comment and its subsequent comments in a new window. My original post was:
I teach at a college...
...which is largely minority (black, hispanic, Carribean, Asian...you name it), and in the fall am teaching a class on Blogging (I'm an Associate Professor of Computer Information Systems). My desire is to create some minority bloggers, to start developing some voices.
Diversity doesn't just happen. There has to be outreach. I wonder how many people could arrange to teach a "community education" class through a local college or library. It wouldn't hurt to find out, for those of you with the time and resources.
Robyn
Seems like this was a novel idea, from the response. I hadn't really thought about it from that perspective...my perspective being that designing such a course was just one more task that needed to be completed before the end of the summer. So I hope you don't mind if I start doing such design here. And now. And maybe you all can make suggestions. Suggestions are good, but remeber that ultimately I'm the one who's going to be teaching the course, so I get to make the decisions. Yes, in this case, I am the decider.
First, the stuff that will bore many. It bores me, but it is necessary. Designing this course requires a little bit of background. First of all, the course is one of several created specifically for incoming first-year students. Among its goals is to teach such students what it really means to go to college, to be college students, and what is going to be expected of them as far as the level of their work and motivation. In exchange they get a full-time professor in their classroom. Most of our first-year courses are taught by adjunct faculty. We seek to engage the young people as students as early in their careers as we can, in the hopes that they'll "get it", that this time, this now is their job for the next however many years and anything else they do is their "other job". Plan to spend 40 hours a week on this job. Minimum. Otherwise its a waste of space and resources. And their own access to financial support to go to college, because way too many of them are ruining any chance that they will be able to go to college ever, because they are using up their guaranteed tuition support by treating this as a game. Oops...diatribe alert.
Next to consider are competencies. Ugh, I know, but we have them and our 5-year follow-up review from our last Middle States review is upon us and we must address competencies. Down this path, of course, dwells the assessment dragon as well. The primary competency addressed in this and its sister courses is Communication Skills. The secondary competency is Critical Thinking Skills. Or maybe it's the other way around. I forget. And I don't have my notes of the last meeting on me. It's vacation. Cut me slack. :-) I can add tertiary competencies if I wish. Like Aesthetic Appreciation or Professional Skills or Scientific and Technical Skills. There are seven of them.
And the last important ingredient are the prerequisites. Umm...these are first-semester students. There are none. Well, not exactly right. Because of the nature of this course, I managed to squeeze out Writing and Analysis I (aka Freshman Comp I) as a co-requisite.
I should add in the nature of our student population, but I am going to withhold that for the moment, beyond what was shared in the initial comment.
So. What to teach? How to teach it? How to assess what was learned? Assessment is the demon, of course. Delivery mechanism is also not the easiest thing to address. The reason for today's essay is to address the content.
I have developed the following rough list of topics, in no particular order:
- Developing a voice. I am not going to be teaching how to write. That is not my jorb. I will assist them in improving their writing, primarily by having them write. A lot. Their peers in the class will hopefully assume much of the brunt of commenting on the quality of their writing. Peer pressure can make things happen that I cannot. But I will try to help them develop a voice, what one commenter yesterday, referred to as their Authentic Voice.
- Choosing a topic. Hardest thing on earth to do to a college student is make them choose their own topic. Creativity and imagination are not usually present in mass quantities.
- Researching a topic. You would be surpised, or maybe not, how few of them do not read any news source whatsoever. Even the basic layout of a newspaper is foreign to them. They have very little understanding of how to locate a source, evaluate a source for its trustworthiness, or how to credit a source.
- The nuts and bolts of creating a diary. Many of you know I have an alter ego over at C&J, known for complicating html beyond belief. I will show them how to
steal use html to make links, insert pictures, and all the other stuff that drives us nuts can improve the aesthetic feel of a diary or comment. - Blogger ethics.
- Interpersonal communication skills. Respect is good. Kindness works wonders. What is snark?
The course is 14 weeks long, meeting on Thursday afternoons, 4:00-5:45, and is worth 0.5 course units (aka 2 hours). I'm all ears about what I may have forgotten (it is Saturday morning and I haven't slept well lately, so probably have forgotten some of what I thought of before falling asleep last night) and am open to suggestions about delivery method and assessment.
The floor is yours.
--Robyn Serven
--Bloomfield College, NJ