[Teaching_Composition] framing teacher prep and framing online systems

[Doug Downs]

Alexis, your closing question here brings me to try to articulate some
ideas I've been pondering since Kristen's "framing the problem" post
this weekend -- where she opened, essentially, the entire question of
teacher prep: "So how do we frame and name the problem of teacher
preparation? How do we understand the pressing needs of instructors and
their  pedagogical development? And, therefore, how do we respond with
resources they will actually use?" -- this in the context of
*mentoring*. The conversation evolves the specific challenges you raise
with old/new instructors, who can contribute what, and who takes which
roles in various fora.  Ultimately you pose it as a question of
new-instructor empowerment, of sorts.

I'll try your questions by taking a shot at Kristen's.  How do we frame
the problem of teacher prep?  *Lore.*  Isn't the majority of teacher
"preparation" getting people in classrooms and then hashing out, *in
conversation*, the aftermath?  I mean, you tell them how it's going to
be and what they need to do, they go try to do it, and then they spend
the rest of their time until the next time figuring out what happened
and why it didn't go like they thought it was going to go.  They
exchange stories, this storytelling prompts reflection, reflection
feeds-back into the next prep loop.  It's not rocket science, it's
humanity at its finest:  lore.

(Pardon me, by the way, for not quite following Steve North's
definition, but I always thought that was an attempt to turn humanity
into method, and that's a little too apologist for me.  We're
storytellers, let's own it.)  

>From this frame of reference I wonder about mentoring, resource
libraries, and online-ness.  Over-simply, whatever prompts storytelling
and reflection will be effective methods of mentoring.  A colleague of
mine -- an American Lit guy, excellent teacher -- uses, I discovered
last semester, an elaborate but amazingly effective system of
multi-stage team peer review in his first-year writing courses.  Had I
encountered just the worksheets his system uses and a brief explanation
(whether I found them online or on-shelf), I would have thought, "nice,
but *way* too complex."  Instead, I encountered them while covering his
class for a day he was away.  I could make it work because he wrote out
a detailed lesson plan for it and we sat down and he walked me through
how it would go and what it would look like.  

I compare what happens in my writing program's instructor meetings
compared with our instructors' sparse online conversations (in-house
listserv) on the occasional issue: put writing teachers in a room and
it's spontaneous combustion of conversation, whereas most people
can't/don't carry the same conversation online.  This Teaching_Comp
list, constructed explicitly with a mentoring mission, meant to be a
"safe zone" for less experienced instructors to voice, talk praxis, and
get non-judgmental guidance from topic leaders -- And yet even here, I
think I see (and hear the impression backchannel) that posting is mostly
dominated by more experienced instructors while newer ones listen avidly
but don't feel they can contribute much.  

Yet some of my own most effective mentoring takes place in e-mail and
with documents exchanged.  I guess I see it coming back to this: people
have stories, they want to tell them, and with good facilitation, they
learn from each others' stories.  Want to mentor and prepare
instructors?: foster conversation, storytelling, and exchange.  Where
online forums create real opportunities is in the ease of exchange: if
you can't get people in a room with papers spread on a table, it's the
next best thing.  (Though *only* the next best thing, for most people,
apparently.)  

It should work better than it does, these systems for online
conversation within programs, and I wonder what we're missing. 
Temperament?  Perhaps online doesn't make it not enough of a
*happening*?  There's definitely something to be said for synchronicity,
though it can't hold a candle to asynchronous for convenience and
accessibility.  

Anyway, I've got to think that unless human nature evolves pretty
rapidly, online systems will be best when they facilitate and support
lore.  It's what we do best, and it's how, in reality, teaching gets
taught.  So: is there any correlation between how an online mentoring
and prep system fosters lore and its adoption by instructors??

Cheers --
Doug



Dr. Doug Downs
Asst. Professor, Composition & Rhetoric
Writing Program Coordinator
Dept. of English and Literature
Utah Valley State College
800 W University Pkwy, Orem UT 84058
LA 114w
801-863-8572
>>> <aramsey@purdue.edu> 05/15/07 8:53 PM >>>
Hi All, 
To piggyback a bit on the conversation so far, particularly Kristen and
Neal, I
want to add that creating a forum, then a library from that forum
(perhaps based
upon the kind of conversations generated within that forum) bespeaks to
the kind
of teaching preparation much of us already go through.  Indeed, many of
us go
through a kind of mentoring program which is a kind of face-to-face
forum, even
as it functions as a place or chance to build up the teaching library. 
Kristen
and I have envisioned COIN as a place to build a teaching learning
community and
perhaps we need to create an open space, instead of a variety of closed
off
books.  That said, I certainly think that the library feature is a key
component
of our sense of teaching preparation.  The idea also returns to
Michael's
mention of his mentoring programs that will (possibly) get stored
online. 

This idea is also intriguing because it may be a way to get all levels
of TAs
involved. Kristen and I struggled over how to get first year TAs to use
and add
to COIN, but if they use it to post questions, whose answers in turn
might
generate lesson plans or things for the library, then perfect.  Also,
emphasizing the forum might give veteran TAs a chance to show off a bit
of their
pedagogical prowess. 

I must admit, if my email hasn't already outed me, I am intrigued by
this
reversal.  Indeed, look how active this listserv has been when the
emphasis is
on sharing ideas/having conversations, rather than showing off work.  

The biggest difficulty, as Kristen touches on, is keeping any blog or
listserv
from becoming a wharehouse of complaints.  Any ideas on how to moderate,
without
overmoderating? Any other listserv discussion leaders (present or past)
have any
thoughts? 

Thanks, 
Alexis
_______________________________________________
Teaching_Composition maillist  -  Teaching_Composition@mailman.eppg.com
http://mailman.eppg.com/mailman/listinfo/teaching_composition

To unsubscribe, please visit
http://mailman.eppg.com/mailman/listinfo/teaching_composition and update
your information.