Girls on Film

Followers of my blog will be aware that I am a writer and a purist, so the title of this post will amuse you when you find it is related to Camtasia.  Seriously, I have spent the best part of 2 years avoiding it and yesterday I plunged in!

So, you may be asking: Why, what, how?  Why, after all this time, or why not?  What, was the presentation, or what were you wearing? and, How did you come to this momentous occasion, or how did you know how to do it?

Well…  I really wanted to do an online Peer Observation of Teaching Orientation Session and it needs to be up and functional for Semester 1 2012. So a Camtasia recording of the Powerpoint presentation that I’ve given heaps of times was the answer.  I wore my navy with pink polka dots ‘lucky’ videoing dress, checked my lipstick and pressed start.

Oops – best back up a bit here and tell you that the day before I enlisted Information Services and my office neighbour the Education Technologist to get all the right software and hardware functioning for me.

Back to the recording.  Pressed start and immediately my neighbour (as above) was doing charades in my window while he put a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on my door.  All went pretty well until I could feel my bra strap creeping down my right shoulder.  Now it is a nice black bra with sparkly bits, but probably not how I want to appear on the Bond website.  After all it’s Bond, not Bond girl.  Shaken but not stirred, I thought, well that’s what editing is for and casually hitched it back into place.

All done and reasonably pleased with myself, I hit Ctrl+Shift+F10 as instructed to Stop and …

To sum up, no prompt screens appeared to edit, save or anything.  We can’t find any trace of the file I created. ... and there is some thought that my office and me continue to be recorded even now!

With no neighbour help now available,
I figured best to leave it til he was around to hit the start and stop buttons for me. J

… but now I would have to decide on something else to wear!

Postscript to this post:

I decided on a new recording outfit and came in today primed and confident.  I found yesterday's recording; 6 hours and 23 minutes of my office, but without sound!  Two more full run throughs today and still no sound.  I can now do this presentation in my sleep and probably will.  It seems there is an intermittent microphone problem. No one is quite sure how to fix it.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

The Academic in the Mirror

In one session, for the program I teach, I outline the Peer Observation of Teaching premise and process.  As part of the assessment for the subject, participants write a short paper on their experience, focussing on a question about their teaching.  I provide them with a guide to writing this paper and discuss it in class.  This is an add-on to the course material and my intention is to allay any writing or assessment anxiety.  On this evening, the participants hung on every word; a sign of their fear or confusion, not my scintillating information, I am sure.  I was surprised at the lack of confidence or experience these academics had in writing.  I felt they were making this into an onerous and much bigger task then I expected.  This discussion moved to an ‘assessment’ of teaching and learning literature and became more philosophical than factual.  My position was to defend a body of work and a process that has flaws and other agendas, but it is the one we work within.  I was intellectually exhausted.

At 8.09am the next morning I received an email from one of the participants:

... to apologise for my facilitation of the group’s ‘assessment’ of the (...) literature in last night’s meeting. I think the discussion may have commenced with some fair points, but soon snowballed to a place which was unjustly scrutinising a discipline that none of the attendees had/have any experience. (...) Specifically, my comments particularly on the ranking of the (journals) were not qualified; and I can only imagine my comments do not reflect my true interest and appreciation for education literature – otherwise I would not be enrolled in such a course. I think the (...) program has really enlightened me with regards to learning – transforming my previous perspective of student-driven excellence to my present view that the facilitator may bring excellence out of more than just those that are self-directed. I truly value the course and think you (...) make the course far more enjoyable than I anticipated. Thank you!

Lesson to self:  Don’t catastrophise.  My job here is done.

The Master's Apprentices

I see my role as a teacher, really as a facilitator to provide the space and environment for my students to embark on their own journey of discovery; to create their own itinerary.  My skill as a practitioner and my ability to translate it into accessible digestible language, examples, tasks, and processes with meaning and reason, allows my students to come to their own conclusions when constructing their knowledge.  I guide and direct my students to attain higher levels of competence and development by providing base theories and concepts in an applied way and embedding these to move from simple to complex, from different knowledge bases and contexts.  The language of learning is always the same just the dialect of discipline changes.  I bring my students to places of knowing by piecing together their intuitive learning and actions, and giving them a scaffold of terminology to attach it to.  I do this through a Socratic Method using open questions that challenge their held ideas and positions, provoke them to articulate why, and make links to existing knowledge to synthesize higher order learning and critical reflective thinking and practice.  I do this because I live to see the light come on in their eyes when they ‘get’ it...  As my students progress in their learning and through my subject, incorporating my learning objectives into their practice, my job is done when they no longer need me as a guide, but as a peer or mentor.

The Yin and Yang of Teaching: Balance and Continuous Change

Asked to describe my 'best ever lecturing (or teaching) experience', I skirted around the edges of which experience to write about.  I knew in my heart immediately, but questioned the validity of what is a small example.  I even considered delving back into my accountant days of teaching Double sided accrual accounting or my business and health consulting time running Yoga at the Beach. But I kept coming back to a workshop I co facilitated with my mentor, for field researchers: Research Interviews and Focus Groups.  She had delivered similar workshops by herself in the past.  She had notes and handouts.  I took her information and built on it creating a cohesive package of information content, examples, activities and discussion.

Largely unrehearsed we launched into the morning in a tag team manner.  Serendipitously I had written the lesson with a perfect ebb and flow between us.  On reflection, we work like this on many projects; teaching, meetings, co writing.  I describe us as the Yin and Yang of Teaching.  We gave structure and context to theory and practice, then presented an authentic unscripted live interview, followed by questions and critique, where the participants explored with enthusiasm their experiences as questioners in the research process and the validity of self in the reflexive research process.  The participants were transfixed.  They wanted to stay, and talk, and stay...

This was an amazing example of authentic inquiry being grounded in constructivist endeavour, positioning learning as an active process where the learners construct their individual meaning.  For me, it really marked the point where I felt authentic in the teaching role at university.

All the World's a Stage

I find myself in an odd teaching position.  As Academic Developer I 'teach the teachers' and have a motivated, 'opt in' group each semester.  I am less often involved in going into the real university classrooms of my academic colleagues, but am about to experience total immersion when I visit three different classes in three different faculties to introduce, explain and co-opt engagement and use of an ePortfolio platform we are trialling.

My mission is to create a sense of value in the use of the platform, by knowing and explaining where it fits in the program/s, why we are choosing their classes to trial, and how this relates to their future professional lives.  I need to convince them of the authenticity of the program and why it is a 'better' way of interacting with each other (group work and collaboration), their lecturers and their future employers; in other words, individually, socially and into the future.  I need the three student groups to actively use the platform throughout the semester, and be prepared to complete a short survey before they begin use, and at the end of the subject.  Also need to convince them the extra effort in Webinar training will be worthwhile and achievable.

Seems I have to hit most of the variables for Value and Relevance, and Belief in Success just to get them Motivated ... and they are not even my classes that I have an ongoing chance to build relationships with.

So 'First Impression always Counts ...' and wish me luck!

So who is Professor Maske?

The plethora of descriptors for both learning and teaching, approaches and conceptions, leaves me spinning in a sea of similarities. All the studies arrive at the same place. Approaches to teaching are a progression on a continuum. In this way, they are not unlike Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: as we develop sophistication in our thinking, learning and teaching, we move to self actualisation and perhaps societal change.

But what is my language of teaching? My philosophy? I am the culmination of my experiences, which means I must put learning first, as I was a learner first. My teaching is informed by my beliefs about learning. How I learn is how I teach and later I develop as a teacher to better serve a greater diversity of learners.

So let me declare myself as an achievement motivated learner, using achievement strategies. But I have built a method of actualising this by starting with embedding external surface concepts and moving to deep relational internal learning. It is not a discreet observation but a fluid state on the continuum. Different times, stages and scenarios call for different facets of my learning and teaching persona.

On a teaching perspectives inventory I am profiled as dominant Apprenticeship with recessive Transmission tendencies! Oh dear! But on reflection this is perhaps to be expected having spent the majority of my life in staff training, and workshops and seminars with adult and industry learners. It’s not a bad thing; to know what has to be known in theory, concept and process and ‘teach’ that in an applied scenario.

Teaching as leadership? Yes, and we all move forward together.

Diving in the Deep End (or Jump Right In, The Water's Fine)

Deep, surface, achieving.  Extrinsic, intrinsic, vicarious.  Learning experiences: motivation and strategy. 

Live vicariously!  How often have we used that term and not thought about it in terms of learning? But it is.  The high school maths teacher who stood on the desk to make a point about quadratic equations.  The standing on the desk had no relevance to the subject, but it did link the learning to something that stays with me.  His enthusiasm and willingness to be ridiculous (way before Robin William's "Dead Poets' Society" and carpe diem) is still with me when I tell people I love maths and have a coffee mug “I © Spreadsheets”.  Vicarious experience.  The pivotal and transitional event that bridges the gap between extrinsic and intrinsic learning.

Embarking on yet another formal qualification, the question was to describe a motivation and a strategy experience from Week 1.  Ever the over achiever my motivation experience actually occurred prior to the first week, upon receiving the readings and being intrigued as to what, who and when they would be.  Did they match with ones I read and provided to my students?  Were they new?  Had I missed them?  Did they offer insights that I had yet to contextualise?  So I think my experience was deep but driven by achieving needs; achieving as competing against myself and my high expectations of myself, yet actualised in a deep intrinsic curiosity about the topic and the content on offer and assimilated into my semantic memory.  I found my strategy experience aligned with my motivation.  I am an achiever and I am organised and efficient to the point of compulsion. Straight from the first lecture, to completing the weekly tasks; the blog, the quizzes, the next readings.  My achieving strategy translates into a deep experience as I learn, understand, discuss, reflect and incorporate the material into my teaching.

Message to self:  Go for total immersion and dive in the deep end of learning!

Teaching in Just Spoken Moments

In the early hours of a morning, during an extended hospital stay, a patient two beds along from me was crying and waiting for her next pain medication.  I’d never seen her, me being flat and literally screwed to the bed.  I was also so concentrated on healing myself, visualisation, repelling any infections and sending positive energy to my injury sites, I’d never engaged with the other patients.  Deep full yoga breathing was working for me and I knew the Prana energy would help her too.

“Juleen?  Are you okay?”

Crying, “No.  It hurts.”

“Let’s breathe together.  Can you put one hand on your tummy near your belly button and the other on the top of your chest near your collar bone?”

Crying.

“Let’s slow down our breathing and count the breath in and out to a count of eight or six maybe.  Start by inhaling, filling the lower abdomen and feel the lower hand rise up, then fill the lower ribs and upper ribs.  See the top hand rise.  Hold the breathe in at the top for one or two counts, then exhale from the top to the lower abdomen, feeling the hands fall and lastly sinking the belly button to the spine.  Again to a count of eight, inhale ..., hold ..., exhale...  In your own time, inhale and exhale.”

Gradually her crying subsided and I heard her sleep breathing in the dark of the night.  Some 45 minutes later, she roused much calmer.

“Juleen, how are you doing?”

Sniffling, “Okay.”

“You’ve been asleep.”

“Really?” Sniff, “Thanks.”

Remote yoga and the power of the mind!  I still smile to myself and get goose-bumps recalling this teaching story.

An Encounter with an Educator

Grade 10 English class at Clontarf Beach State High School in the summer of 1979.  We sat in the demountable permanent building; louvre windows missing; yellow asbestos puffing out of holes punched in the fibro walls.  Mr Meade walked up the three dusty stairs, across the verandah and into the classroom, an early version of a boom box in his hands.  He placed it on one of the front desks and pressed play.  Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘I am a Rock’ filled the hot air.  That’s how we learned poetry.  I was hooked ... on English, poetry and teaching (and Simon and Garfunkel).

I now know this as Universal Design for Learning: Multiple Means of Representation.  Then, I knew this teacher had something special in his teaching repertoire.  He had passion and ways of sharing that with us.  Ways that engaged us.  Ways that showed us how to think and then allowed us to express our thoughts.

How significant is this to me as a teacher?  He is one of the reasons I am a teacher.  I tell this story often to my classes.  I still love that song.