Teaching Philosophy: to Care or Not to Care?

My philosophy of teaching is undefined, evolving, turning in on itself, and I have limited teaching experiences to draw upon. From these, I believe caring about students is a strength I possess and something that matters for students, a conclusion drawn from course evaluations and talking to students. I believe when students feel that a teacher cares about how they are doing in class, this tends to affect them for the better in terms of engagement.

Then again, maybe I care too much, since despite how much I might care, the outcomes seem to be all over the place; likewise, there is a point where caring crosses the personal lines between student and teacher and can be a detriment. I could apply this philosophy as I do a cliche I like to live by: everything in moderation, including how much you care about students. But do care. I have heard it from many people, "well, they (teacher, parent, proprietor, coach) don't care, so why should I?".  Modeling behavior bears out, and if you don't seem to care then it follows that followers will slacken their effort on all fronts.

How a student does, what they learn, has everything to do with their engagement with the course - i.e: how much they care. When they're engaged, they talk about it, think about it, read about it, and perhaps, they do well in it.

Now, how do you express "caring", and caring just enough, but not too much? You tell me.

Image used by permission of Ric Stultz

Reading Aloud

Online learning is going to require us to read, that much is certain. Or not? Could we hear it read to us, aloud? If we were in a classroom together, words would only be spoken, save for the powerpoint slide or two. A great lecture is better delivered to the ears than read from white paper, isn't it? Online, we seem confined to the visually digested word.

There are tools that read screen text. While designed for the visually impaired, the thought of being read to sounds preferable to squinting into the glowing rectangle some more. I enjoy podcast shows and find the most fascinating things out there to listen to. I started listening to Byzantine History lecture podcasts so exciting, my 12 year old enjoys them. Listening is a very easy way to absorb the material for me, which I suppose makes me over on the auditory learner part of the pie.

We'll make podcasts in this course in a few weeks, and hear how our blogs sound.

When I imagine the incredible realm of things technology is now possible of, having an interpretation software built right into the browser doesn't seem that wild. And it would be nice to have the option.

Gaming Institute

The University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies sounds like the place to be.

One Big Place

Social networks have places for the public and personal aspects of each member of the group, still able to share that space. It would be interesting to base this course solely in a Ning. Everyone's Ning with the Ning. I'm not sure it would hold it all. Whether it's in one place call Ning or Bling or Blackboard, it's all linked together pretty much the same way.

We can't get a grasp on "Where" the web really is, can we? No matter how we try to reign it into an identifiable place, a center, brand, CMS, hub, eMall - there's always someplace just outside that offers some new kind of miraculous idea or service. Facebook is a big success in this area. You can stay wihin their space and get YouTube videos and FamilyAction photos in a comfortable, chatty environment. It's very good at integrating a wide array of media like a kind of a mini-blog, chat, disscussion forum combo. And yet it's still so limited.

. . .

Ice Cream Networking

I have accomplished much this day, encompassing both intellectual pursuits (an, a balnaced life). Yet, between chopping wood and editing papers, I haven't finished our classwork, and now it is time to complete the social networking lesson plan. And Mother is coming for dinner in half an hour.

Good thing I have this blog to talk to.

Our blogs are a kind of social networking, conversing and sharing our thoughts and even our feelings about the work. When we say "social", do we think of work, or ice cream? Is a social network a more casual, friendly place to do this work? I always think of social networks as a kind of lounge, where all our work is done over a nice hot cup of tea. Blogs allow us to share from our own defined space; a social network combines those personal spaces into one portal centered around the content.

In a sense it is simply another layer, another way of grouping and organizing around central ideas. The Blackboard space is a network with opportunities for sharing; the social network is the same idea with the addition of multiple levels of interaction and participation: discussion forums, blogs, chat and more all on the same page with potentially equal levels of authorship.

Is it very different in a fundamental way, or is it just another kind technological arrangement? It will be interesting to compare it with wikis and blogs, and other still emerging types of interactive web spaces, and see what kind of networks you create and imagine.

A Philosophy in Progress ; FA09

This is late. If it were an assignment (which it is) it would or should be taken on its merits with points deducted, according to one philosophy. It would be disregarded completely for lack of punctuality by a few. Given its full due by still another, who might be thankful the student did it at all.

By my standards, which are expressed here for the first time in (semi-) formal form, my philosophy stands with the camp willing to look at each student with very forgiving eyes. I empathize. It is very important, it is true, to learn the particular outcomes; go forward more informed of the subject, able to teach others what's been learned, have the confidence to do what was alien before; to make knowledge out of what was only information, through detailed in-depth study and the practice and application of those techniques, until, by their individual creative acts, each learner comes to understand what they are doing. Yes.

If they cannot do that quite within the framework of academic necessity, by jimminy get it done by the end of the semester, and make it worth the extra effort its going to take to evaluate it at that late hour.

This is the product of a few semesters of teaching experience, drawn upon in all its raw pragmatic dogma. While I can talk about teaching philosophy from as the aspirations of imagination, it would be telling to simply look at the evidence so far. To learn, you must do the work (or at least SOME of it).

The most difficult part of a class is meeting students both individually and as a whole, and I have tended to teach to many ones instead of gathering the strength of the group - there is room for improvement. In the end each one gets a very individual grade, though, and ultimately learns through their own very personal experience.

There is nothing more a teacher can ask than for students to do the work to the best of their individual ability. Some call it A for effort, but I am more stringent than that. A teacher has to trust their judgement of that effort, and so cast their opinion onto the academic record as to whether the work is really the product of learning.

A teacher should inspire their students to engage with the subject, and inspiration is a very intangible asset. There seems no doubt that every student benefits by a teacher's clarity and definition of expectations, rigorous organization and synthesis of the content. Teacher's should strive toward these goals with their curriculum. Whether the students are motivated to do something with those gifts of knowledge, however, is the best measure of success. Every effort should be made to bring passion to the subject.