first class

general thoughts: whenever i sit down and start talking, listening, or thinking about teaching in any sort of detail i am immediately struck be feelings of inadequacy. i guess it is that typical scenario where when you start to learn about a subject and how complex it is and how deep it goes, you start to realize how little you actually know! this was my experience in the first class and after completing the first readings in Bean (pp1-35).

thoughts on reading: i like the Bean book. i find the level appropriate in that there was a good mix of my understanding or being familiar with the ideas AND a lot of new terminology and pedagogical speak that i will certainly be adding to my repertoire. some things that stuck out in the reading: on the issue of creating a too many writing assignments and therefore too much grading--been talks about giving writing assignments that you don't need to grade. this fascinated me. i never even thought that possible. as a new teacher, i think i am a little naive and also influenced strongly my very simplistic models for teaching: give assignment, receive assignment, grade assignment. how linear and old fashioned! suddenly i am seeing some possibilities. i brought this point up in class and my instructor fully agreed with bean and gave me some examples on how to do such a thing. in fact, we put it into practice by bringing drafts of our first assignments in and then worked in pairs to read and give feedback to each other. the instructor never needed to collect. she got us to work on our drafts, bring them in, and then work on them some more via paired sharing. the important element here was: she trained us on how to respond. she took a few moments to tell us what to look for and what to give feedback on. she gave us a few prompts on a small piece of paper to guide us while reading our partners draft. i am very interested in further exploring this idea of 'ungraded' writing assignments which bean promises we will talk about in ch 13.

another part that sticks out from the first reading is bean's example of the difference in the english words 'rough draft' and the french equivalent 'brouillon' which means to place in disorder, more or less. for the french, the first order of business is to mix everything up intentionally. in english, usually we start with an outline which is highly ordered (even our lettering and number conventions here are quite rigid!) and then we proceed to the rough draft which is not necessarily in a state of disorder it is just in need of being smoothed and refined from its rough state. i find stuff like this so interesting.

new terminology and vocabulary*:

phenomenologically (used in the context of how students need to experience problems in order to become good critical thinkers): A philosophy or method of inquiry based on the premise that reality consists of objects and events as they are perceived or understood in human consciousness and not of anything independent of human consciousness.

epistemological: a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge

heuristic: involving or serving as an aid to learning, discovery, or problem-solving by experimental and especially trial-and-error methods

*Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: www.merriam-webster.com