As I mentioned in class, I feel that a social bookmarking site would be the perfect compliment to the class I TA'ed for last semester: International Issues in Conservation. And the more I think about it, the more I believe I'll actually implement this technology next spring when I will likely TA once more. Most of the issues we discussed in that class - and we made sure it was certainly a DISCUSSION based class - were 1) current, and 2) controversial. These attributes lend themselves well to online breaking news articles, editorials, scientific publications, and outraged responses. We encouraged students to post these to ELC if they came across a relevant article, and a few even did. But as we all know, ELC is pretty much a no-fun zone in terms of ease of access and the all-important fun factor. Establishing Pinterest boards for a shared class experience might be more attractive to students to get involved and contribute to the class's overall learning. I imagine we could have 2 boards to start off, created and populated with initial posts by course instructors, where the first board contains any current conservation issue on an international scale while the second board offers a place to put articles or event announcements about local conservation. Off the top, students might post, on the latter board, an announcement about an Eco Film Festival being held on campus or a link to download a pocket guide (or iPhone app) that tells you if the sushi you're about to order is sustainable.
Another more complex idea is to create a separate board for each group of students that must work on a semester project. Each group is responsible for covering one international issue (e.g., fracking, ecotourism in the tropics, illegal harvest of endangered species), and group members could post articles they find on their boards throughout the semester. This practice could make the work each group (or person) was doing more public, which could motivate students to search for interesting, high-quality information, and also identify the slackers among groups. Since the posts could be seen by the whole class, there could even be a separate exercise where each student is responsible for summarizing and critiquing an issue presented on another group's board. As of now, these ideas are a little green, but let's remember the old saying once more: there's no judgment in brainstorming.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Teaching withOUT technology
What is the best teaching moment you've had without the aid of a single technological device? To be honest, I was just thinking about a fun memory I wanted to share here, and then backtracked to figure out a blog prompt that was semi-appropriate for this class. Still, I think it's a valid question and would love to hear other people's stories.
One of my favorite "teaching moments" happened about 5 years ago when I helped in the Outreach department at the Savannah River Ecology Lab in South Carolina. The basic program we gave focused on teaching elementary or middle school classes about the ecology and conservation of reptiles and amphibians in the southeast. We used a little powerpoint to cover some concepts, but the majority of the program relied on one thing to engage even the ADD-est kid: live animals. There was always a continuum of interest among the students during the powerpoint, some were almost asleep while others couldn't be more excited. But bringing out live snapping turtles, indigo snakes, and alligators usually shifted that balance. It's always great seeing someone get really excited about something you care about enough to study for a living, and the best example of this came when we gave a talk to a particular group of 3rd graders. We were discussing some of the adaptations of turtles and told the kids that softshell turtles' necks are actually much longer than you think, and they use this trait to breathe air while the majority of their body can lay flat in a creek/river. Anyway, to demonstrate this, we told the kids to watch as we flipped a softshell on its back. For whatever reason, the kids would always get silent immediately and put all their focus into what was about to happen, like a magic trick. In this class, there were two boys in the front row, who I'll describe as future-scientist-types (aka, kinda nerdy). The turtle stretched out its neck (about the length of its entire body), and used its nose to flip itself right-side up. The room exploded. Most of the kids were laughing or making some sort of exclamation, but the two boys in the front row were so ecstatic with what they just witnessed that they both yelled "YES!" and gave each other a solid high five to celebrate the moment. Quite simply, it made my day. And whenever we did that program again and the kids were being rowdy or I was feeling tired or worn out, I would usually think about how excited those kids got and start to feel pretty good about the opportunities I was having to teach kids about these awesome creatures. What are some other teaching without technology stories that people have? Thanks for reading and until next time.
One of my favorite "teaching moments" happened about 5 years ago when I helped in the Outreach department at the Savannah River Ecology Lab in South Carolina. The basic program we gave focused on teaching elementary or middle school classes about the ecology and conservation of reptiles and amphibians in the southeast. We used a little powerpoint to cover some concepts, but the majority of the program relied on one thing to engage even the ADD-est kid: live animals. There was always a continuum of interest among the students during the powerpoint, some were almost asleep while others couldn't be more excited. But bringing out live snapping turtles, indigo snakes, and alligators usually shifted that balance. It's always great seeing someone get really excited about something you care about enough to study for a living, and the best example of this came when we gave a talk to a particular group of 3rd graders. We were discussing some of the adaptations of turtles and told the kids that softshell turtles' necks are actually much longer than you think, and they use this trait to breathe air while the majority of their body can lay flat in a creek/river. Anyway, to demonstrate this, we told the kids to watch as we flipped a softshell on its back. For whatever reason, the kids would always get silent immediately and put all their focus into what was about to happen, like a magic trick. In this class, there were two boys in the front row, who I'll describe as future-scientist-types (aka, kinda nerdy). The turtle stretched out its neck (about the length of its entire body), and used its nose to flip itself right-side up. The room exploded. Most of the kids were laughing or making some sort of exclamation, but the two boys in the front row were so ecstatic with what they just witnessed that they both yelled "YES!" and gave each other a solid high five to celebrate the moment. Quite simply, it made my day. And whenever we did that program again and the kids were being rowdy or I was feeling tired or worn out, I would usually think about how excited those kids got and start to feel pretty good about the opportunities I was having to teach kids about these awesome creatures. What are some other teaching without technology stories that people have? Thanks for reading and until next time.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Week 1: Aaaaaand Blog!
Why am I taking EDHI9040? I guess I'll start the inaugural post off with a little background. It's definitely starting to seem like a long time, but I've been at UGA since 2009. Since then, I got my masters, am 1 year in to a PhD in Integrative Conservation through Warnell, and, like many of us, plan to earn the certificate in university teaching. Being on assistantship throughout my career in Warnell has forced allowed me to TA 6 times, and these opportunities have really developed my interest in teaching in ways I didn't expect. My teaching experiences have mostly relied on minimal technology (powerpoint, statistical software, and my favorite - the ol blackboard), but I've been in a few classes recently that made great use of student blogs and wikis. I view Teaching with Technology as another solid opportunity to become more fluent in a suite of tools that, when used properly, can facilitate active learning. Personally, my career goals include teaching the general public (outside of academia) about conservation and our impacts on declining species, and some of the web-based technologies we'll probably cover in this class will be the best methods for teaching across a diffuse audience like this. For now, I'm excited to learn from and get to know everyone in this quirky class and look forward to a good semester.
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