the bob loblaw law blog

one last thought

2008-12-10T22:37:00.000-08:00

Some people might say that it doesn't matter the subject, a good teacher will teach well regardless. I don't know who, but I'm pretty sure someone relevant has expressed something to that effect. I think I disagree, to an extent.

I think two things make a great teacher: a love for the subject, and a love for the students.

But instead of trying to elaborate, I'll take an even more holistic approach. What is the point, anyway? What is a teacher supposed to do?

First of all, the teacher is preparing the student for life. Humans are a rare animal in that our babies come out extremely weak and helpless and stay that way for a long time (some people never become strong nor independent). It's a difficult balance in itself to draw the line between providing a safe learning environment and preparing them for real life. If the teacher loves the student, they will balance the line effectively.

Next, the teacher shares his or her knowledge with the student. That is probably the most superficial view of a teacher. A sort of database of information that youth need to know.

Also the teacher is an investor in society. By teaching these kids better and sooner, they will grow up with the potential to create better things than the generation before.

All in all, beyond the subject being taught, the teacher pushes the student beyond his or her normal capability. Out of love for the student. Out of love for society. No matter if it's film, electronics, or woods, a teacher has not fully done his job unless the student comes out of the class knowing he accomplished more than he thought he could.

I know, it seems like somewhat of a jumble of thoughts, but it was kind of a brainstorm to get me to that final point. It's not that I think design is that essential, but it's something I love, so it's the subject through which I will try to motivate kids to go beyond their previous capability. To not just survive, but to thrive, and actually give society more than they take.

real... for a moment

2008-11-12T20:57:00.000-08:00

When I was in school and we got a student teacher, we loathed the idea of some kid coming in and using all his/her fancy teaching techniques.

Yet lately in my blog, that's all I've been talking about. Silly fancy new teaching techniques. Coming up with these ideal classroom intricacies when I know deep down inside it won't be at all near that ideal.

You always vow to never become like your parents, but then you get older and find yourself doing just that. Real life scares you to death so you fall back on the only thing you know: your own upbringing. Which can't be all that bad, since it got you that far. And what if your harebrained alternate ideas don't work?

To bring it all together, in a way I did not want to become just another teacher like the dozens I had, yet finding myself thinking, even if the alternatives worked, would they be all that better? Reflecting (how many is this? 9?) back on my high school days, the best teachers weren't the ones who dressed up like Abraham Lincoln or danced around the classroom or paused and praised me, they were the ones who merely knew and loved their subject. In this class, it's almost like we talk about lecturing as the disease of teaching, yet a good lecture is worth much more than an activity.

I'm really long-winded, I'm sorry, but one last example: we learn strategies like selling your topic by making it sound important to the student's life. But do I remember any reasoning behind my high school geology teacher's subject? I couldn't tell you even today why it's important to study geology, but I remember being interested in it anyway because my teacher loved it so much, and my learning was important to him. Same with the football coach who taught US history. Yet, they say that not until you fully understand the rules are you allowed to break them. Bring it on, TEE 276.

reaching the outliers

2008-11-04T08:42:00.000-08:00

I took a class at UVSC called Interactive Design, and the text was this book written by an ex-Microsoft employee about programmers vs. designers. One of the main points was that programmers think like programmers and therefore frustrate people who don't think the same way. The author worked as a consultant and demonstrated the fix. When designing an interactive product, he wouldn't focus on the people who would automatically understand, he focused on the people who would have the hardest time.

For example, when designing a movie selection system for an airplane, he created four (4) characters he wanted to reach. One character was an old man, who gets on the airplane, and suddenly has a choice of what movie to watch. The author designed the system to be easy to understand by this man, and that's how he was so successful.

Back to teaching, one of my biggest focuses at the moment is the same thing. I'm not worried about reaching the students who are already interested, I'm worried about reaching those that don't seem to get it, and feel like they never will.

As far as reflecting on the readings, I like how it somewhat objectively presents ideas and doesn't seem to say that one or another is IT, but it just seems to say, hey, here's something you can try. But at the same time it feels like a lot of these (at least the examples) are for elementary kids.

symbols & metaphors

2008-10-28T10:15:00.000-07:00

First of all, I've been keeping my art journal since coming up with that idea and it's kinda fun. I designed a quick little wedding invitation mock-up and once it was on paper, I could instantly see things I wanted to do differently. I've also written a few lists down of ideas, and to have them on paper I can add to them whenever I want.

So, moving on to the actual subject, I read in the latest book about how we learn and understand things. The two ideas I liked best were symbols and metaphors. Symbols are amazing because they combine two in one: first, they force you to summarize an idea (reminiscent of the last book); second, to visualize it. This appeals to me as an artist as well as a scientist, wherein I believe symbols, when done well, are beautiful. Street signs must communicate rules very quickly and in a universal language. Hazard signs on a doorway must communicate just how dangerous that room is, in a way that cannot be misunderstood. Students able to come up with symbols to express an idea learned in a unit will be able to easily recall those same symbols and translate them back into a principle.

Moving on to metaphors. I often confuse them with analogies (also to be discussed) so I'll look up the definitions to get them right. Apparently metaphors are to apply words not typically associated with things in order to express better what it means. Analogies are to compare and sort of translate ideas into another realm of understanding. For students to appropriately apply metaphors and analogies from a subject they do understand into a subject they don't quite is incredibly powerful. I did it today when we were talking about forms of understanding and note taking. Just like compression in media, I can't write down and/or remember every single thing, but I can compress it into an analogy or a symbol--something very easy and small to remember--and decompress later. The trick to decompression is to actually understand the long version before compressing, so you can still understand it after.

And that's enough for reflection right now. Auf wiedersehen.

art journal

2008-10-24T18:07:00.000-07:00

So I had this idea somewhat randomly and then applied it to teaching.

I create random pieces with Photoshop and Illustrator all the time, and then they just get lost in my hard drive somewhere and forgotten. I thought, I should print these off right when I make them, date them, and throw them in a little journal. I just like having stuff in the real world instead of only digital.

I could make my students do the same general idea. Whenever they complete an assignment, they print it out, title it, date it, and throw it in their art journal for the class, which they'll turn in at the end. Maybe even if they're working on a project spanning several days, they could print off what they have so far each day, and basically document the entire process.

And here's the clincher (for Geoff): on the back, or below, or somewhere, have them reflect on where the idea came from, and the general process they went through, and how they feel about it. I actually do believe in reflecting, so for them to actually think about and see their own creative process would be incredibly educational for them, not to mention how great it would be later on in their lives as a bit of an unorthodox journal for posterity.

So that's the idea. I think it's the best one yet.

Fertig.

better never than late

2008-10-16T14:02:00.000-07:00

So my favorite teacher in high school had several favorite sayings. One of which was a play on a cliche, "Better never than late." He'd usually say it when people came to class late.

But over the semester I've been thinking a lot about late policies and deadlines. We're all just so lazy, it's really tricky to come up with a way to get kids to do their projects well and do them on time, because every way I've seen didn't really work. And me being chief among procrastinators, I'm trying to be real and a little bit pessimistic about what really works.

One of the ways teachers do it is to simply give a project deadline really far away and tell them to do it, maybe even remind them why they're worried all semester. Naturally the majority of the class waits until the last moment to finish it. Then again, D&C 84:85 says, "Neither take ye thought beforehand what ye shall say; but treasure up in your minds continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be meted unto every man." This was kind of the lifeblood scripture for me on my mission, and has sort of turned into a procrastinator's mantra as well. In the realm of creativity, inspiration is key. To treasure up a project in your mind is basically to worry, to keep your eyes open, to dabble here and there. And when it comes down to crunch time, brilliant ideas will seem to come out of nowhere. But they don't come out of nowhere, they're coming from the buildup of ideas beforehand, your brain finds one from the store and gives it to you as a possible solution.

Then again, maybe a lot of kids don't think like me. In fact, I know most people don't think like me.

Another way is to split the project up into smaller projects that are due at certain checkpoints throughout the semester. Here the problem is that often creativity doesn't happen like that. Also, people end up doing something crappy just to have something done to turn in.

Back to the supposed topic: late work and deadlines. I keep thinking of examples that each bring me back to the same conclusion: people work differently. I thrive on having just one final project to turn in. I would rather have just one thing and one date to worry about than several little things and several dates. Other people might benefit from the babysitting step-by-step process of projects. So I suppose an option would be to split the grading of a project up. For those who just want one project to turn in, they have a rubric that tells them what categories will be graded. For the other bunch, they can turn in smaller assignments that align with each of those categories and provide the same grade.

This is already a pretty long post as it is so I won't elaborate yet. It's an idea at the least.

versus

2008-10-16T11:37:00.000-07:00

So I've visited two junior highs and one high school so far. Let's compare them:

JHS1-

Standard lecture to project. He gave a pretty decent, standard lecture with lots of questioning, checking for understanding, etc. on column construction. Then he turned them loose with specific project specifications to build their own column out of paper and let them test them. It was fun to see the kids getting into it, and I think it worked well.

JHS2-

The teacher is a little bit famous for having every single assignment/project outlined with step by step instructions. If someone misses a day s/he can find the corresponding binder and follow the instructions. This is an impressive system. Kids stay on task, they help themselves, they all have access to these binders at any point in time. People seem to like it. I don't. My objections are mostly about how these lesson outlines DO NOT teach people how to use a program. It teaches them how to follow instructions, how to create the exact same cheesy sample that the instructor made, but it requires zero creativity (in most cases even inhibiting it) and in the end the student will only know how to make that same cheesy sample. In my opinion, media classes should be more about creativity, not about the tool. The tool is merely the latest - and hopefully most useful - piece of equipment available to aid in creating a project of similar parameters.

Granted, knowing how to use various tools is very practical when it comes to finding a job. But in my experience, these tools are so complex that any job you get, you'll have to learn it in a whole new way to meet the job's requirements. But emphasize creativity, the students will end up using what they need to in order to finish the project well. They'll be more driven to learn how to use the tools as well.

HS1-

I was basically blown away by Wasatch High's video program. They had loads of beautiful equipment and students who rose to the challenge of making a pretty decent/professional news program. It was extremely practical in providing them real-life experience in almost every field related to news production and it also allowed room for the high schoolers to be creative. The teacher had high expectations and from there the students drove themselves. The one thing I would change (admitting I only observed one day) is to allow more flexibility for the students. The professional look and everything was great but I'd like to see more of the kids' personalities in the final result, as opposed to trying to imitate real news anchors. On the other hand, the teacher probably did allow that creativity, but when they get in front of the camera, realizing the whole school is watching, they slide into the role of traditional news anchor.

That's all for now. Ok bye.

S.P.E.A.D.

2008-09-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

That's the acronym I think Jenny came up with, because PEEP was just ridiculous since it only had two letters representing two different things each, and barely even the words worth remembering. So here goes S.P.E.A.D...

Stewardship- getting the kids in a mindset of responsibility toward the school and eventually society.

Pedagogy- the art and science of teaching

Equal Access- making sure every student has a chance to learn and succeed

Democracy- preparing the students for a democratic future

That's about as well as I understand each right now. I wanted to talk more about stewardship and democracy though. I'm not sure which is the right category for my thoughts, but the other day we were talking about preparing the kids for the future, to become responsible citizens of society. I've actually been thinking about that a lot since then, it's kind of the great mystery I want to crack as a teacher.

Today in elder's quorum I was thinking about home teaching, and about the people who do the bare minimum so they can give the presidency a thumbs up for the month, as if their personal percentage of home teaching counts in heaven. As if God has a scorebook and you get 20 points for the month just for doing it, and that gets you closer to heaven. Naturally it was in the mindset of a teacher. With my pointbook, are kids going to do the absolute minimum and get a grade that means nothing?

My theory at the moment is that, as a teacher, my responsibility is to figure out a way for the grades to reflect what they've learned. Beyond that, I need to make sure what they're learning will mean anything in the future. It might sound like a cliche, for grades to mean something and for learning to apply to life, but to come to that conclusion myself instead of merely accept what people tell me, is a big step, because now it becomes more of a personal mission to solve.

fin.

ists

2008-09-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

So I don't think we were really expected to talk about this, but since Geoff called me a lecturer and a cognitivist, I figured I'd respond in a blog.

Yes, I consider lecturing and cognitivism very good for certain subjects, like history (of cereal) and science (of the universe). I love stories. One of my best teachers ever was Mr. Clark. I took Astronomy, Physics, Geology, and Environmental Science from him, and he was a lecturer. He showed a lot of slides, too though. But he had such a great voice and a great vocabulary that you could picture in your brain exactly what he was talking about. You could create the system and manipulate it and understand it just by hearing him talk about it. Last semester I took History of Creativity and the professor did a very good job simply telling the story of history. I didn't do awesome in the class but it was somewhat of a miracle that the two and a half hours of lecture didn't kill me. I love stories.

But lecturing and cognitivism aren't everything, especially in what I want to teach. I'm a big fan of projects, but projects with tough criteria. It's a difficult balance, because some projects it's like the teacher wants one specific thing from all the students, other times the teacher has no criteria so you have no direction. Constructivist as it may sound, I'm going to slip into a little bit of behaviorism. Last year in industrial design we had a few design assignments due every day of class, twice a week. Each one had its own set of criteria to follow. Sometimes extremely specific, other times more open. At the end of class we had our final design project that had zero criteria, except that it be done in Adobe Illustrator and on 8.5"x11" paper. It would have been difficult to come up with something, but I had been conditioned (behaviorism) to want criteria, so I set my own. Within the project I knew I needed rules and guidelines to keep it consistent and attractive and it turned out very well.

I'll stop ranting now. Those are my thoughts on behaviorism vs. cognitivism vs. constructivism.

reflection #2: Gong is the end of the universe

2008-09-23T06:56:00.000-07:00

First of all let's talk about my quasi-disasterous teaching experience (#2). Basically, I was in a hurry because we were short on time and I forgot the fancy teaching techniques I was going to use, and ended with the doomed "any questions" thing. I had wanted to isolate the lesson into key points that could be tagged with one word. For example, the Doppler effect could be coined as squishing sound waves. But I didn't. I enjoyed daydreaming about the edge of the universe though.

Now let's move on to the book. It's good I suppose. I'm a little bit cynical about anything I hear about that seems to sum up life in weird equations. The three-person model, the triangle of symmetry, etc. That said, I love the core principle of the book, in that it seems to put the teacher and the learner on the same level. It's not as easy to do in a high school class, but as an elder's quorum instructor I found that the lesson went so much better when I forced the guys to teach me. I'd ask questions that had no right answer and let them try to convince me of one. Of course, we were basically all return missionary college students, so we were on the same level. Plus it was the gospel, so a new member might have just as good of insights as a high priest.

So I keep applying this class and the readings to those teaching experiences and my perception of what teaching high school would be like. The beauty of teaching multimedia is that the only area I know that they don't, is the tool. Beyond that, the art, the creativity, the students will be able to teach me just as much as I can teach them. Maybe I'm a little too optimistic about it but I think I could really enjoy it. I love seeing what these kids can come up with.

Reflection #1 - technucation!

2008-09-08T19:55:00.000-07:00

That's right, I'm reflecting. It's mildly forced reflection, but that's why I waited until the day before it was due to start.

But not really, I reflected quite a bit in class. For example, the definitions I came up with:

to learn: to gain knowledge and understanding through personal experiences, reflection, others' experiences, or others' knowledge, which leads to an improvement in your life

to teach: to share knowledge and understanding through words and/or example. to teach well is to invoke a curiosity in the pupil so they willingly and actively learn for themselves

technology education: teaching and learning ways to use technology to better understand and manipulate the world around us

I feel like I tried too hard to sound like a textbook. Either way, later I wrote and underlined the phrase "using technology to more efficiently create." Creating is neat. I'm trying to avoid ranting about it. In a nutshell, I love creating, I love teaching. That part 2 of 'to teach' embodies my personal philosophy behind teaching, which is merely to inspire/invoke their curiosity, and they take control of their own education from there.