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Reading in the content areas

Anyone have any great books OR online classes? If you have a class I can use it for professional development credits - or a book just for my own enrichment.

Lessons from the Tweeting Classroom

Regular RC readers know that I use Twitter in my contemporary political theory course, which I teach every other year. Indeed, I’ll have a paper on the ways that Twitter can be used in a political theory course in a forthcoming edited volume on integrating emerging technology into the political science classroom.

I’ve been something of an evangelist for making use of Twitter in the way that I do because, when it works, it can really engage students in the material beyond what is possible in our two classes sessions each week. That said, I don’t want to suggest that there aren’t challenges inherent in this endeavor or that there aren’t a lot of ways that future iterations might improve on what I’ve done. I’ll start with some things I learned from my first two attempts at making Twitter a part of my political theory course.

  1. It’s incredibly important to promote the class and encourage people to engage with students; the more work I do before the semester begins, the more likely we’ll have a vibrant outside presence in the hashtag stream for the class. When other people are writing in with their thoughts, students are able to see the ways in which the ideas we’re discussing have a life outside of our classroom. That said, there are currently more than 230 followers of the class Twitter account, but there is very little interaction between the 35 enrolled students and the other 200 followers. Very few people from the “outside world” are willing to put forward a comment, especially once we really get into the semester. In part, this is likely because only the students are doing the reading for the class; even though the syllabus is available online for anyone who might be interested, to actually read along with the class would require more investment than I think is reasonable to expect.
  2. With that in mind, it’s important to mix specific questions about the reading material with more open-ended questions. Some of my questions, especially as the semester moves along, might be overly specific. In order to have more of a discussion, a better balance needs to be achieved between the specifics of the reading that students are doing and the kind of generalizing that allows people (both those who are enrolled and those who are just following along) to test out ideas that are related to the topics we’re discussing in class. Of course, I generally seem to anticipate more “testing” of ideas than actually takes place. My sense is that the stakes seem to be rather higher than I’d envisioned: People want to seem smart or clever when they tweet and so they’re less likely to contribute to a discussion if they’re not certain that they’re “right” about the topic at hand.
  3. Conversations tend to die out pretty quickly, usualy after a day or even less. The way that the class account is set up might discourage the continuation of a conversation about Question A once Question B has been asked. My sense is that this isn’t because Question A (and its related answers) stopped being interesting, but because attention from the regular Twitter users shifts to the newer Question B and the occasional users don’t bother posting about something old; if they’re going to contribute, it’ll be on the most recent topic. This semester, I attempted to give students time to answer a question before chiming in with my own follow-up questions; I thought this might encourage more participation, as more students could add their thoughts before I weighed in, but it might actually have resulted in the opposite since students seem to be very much trained to await the professor’s response.
  4. Many of my students either don’t use Twitter or don’t want to use it as part of a class and, since I don’t require them to use the accounts that I require them to create, there’s really nothing to be done if they’re not interested. In sharp constrast to the first time I used Twitter, this semester has seen far less regular usage and far fewer students who have had anything positive to say about the use of Twitter. In the past, students have complained about the speed with which the conversation moves; they felt overwhelmed by the volume of tweets, largely because they were only checking Twitter once a week (or less often). This semester, some students focused their complaints on the character limit, which seemed like a cop-out since there’s no rule against breaking up a point across two or even three tweets. In part, it’s surely the case that every group of students will be different; this particular group might not want to continue the conversations from class online. There are also approximately ten fewer students this semester, as the attrition rate this semester has been higher than usual. In general, though, Twitter doesn’t seem to be a part of most people’s daily lives at the University of Nebraska. The vast majority of my students don’t check Twitter on a regular basis, which means that the conversation moves by fits and starts (or sometimes not at all). There are probably only four students — out of twenty-five — who tweet more than once a day.
  5. Some students — especially in the first semester of this experiment — really got into the spirit of Twitter and even began posting their own content rather than simply answering questions that I put forward. This generally took the form of links to articles or YouTube content that related to something we discussed in class or on Twitter. Occasionally it even took the form of testing out an idea for a paper and getting suggestions from classmates. There’s far less of that this semester, though there is one student who maintains a blog focused on American politics and he has experimented with integrating ideas from our class into his posts. It’s not clear whether his classmates are reading his blog, though he has tweeted links that they might see if they are following the discussion via the class hashtag.

There’s a lot more to be said, to be sure, but I wanted to post these observations while I’m still in the midst of the semester and while some interested readers are still planning their classes for next semester. After the class ends, in a few weeks, I’ll have the results of an informal survey that I plan to conduct on the last day (about our use of Twitter, but also about the ways in which the students engaged with social media more generally) and I’ll reflect a bit on the responses.

My intention is to continue to use Twitter in this class, even as I branch out with other social media experiments in others. Next semester, I plan to make use of Tumblr as a blogging platform for students in my human rights class, as I did quite successfully last summer. In the meantime, though, I’d be very interested to hear from others who are using Twitter in college (students, faculty, administrators, anyone else): What else should I be thinking about when it comes to integrating Twitter into a college class, especially given some of the challenges I’ve highlighted above?

Thinking about a career in education?

teach.gov

Learn what it’s really like to be a teacher and find tools you can use to launch your own career in education.

Book Aims to Explain Common Standards to Broad Audience

blogs.edweek.org

Okay… I’ve been incommunicado recently. Life happened. :-)

Get ready for a slew of links! Starting with this one on a new book detailing the Common Core Standards… for laypeople.

The #education tag is hosting Teacher Dare Day--a day in which we all ask each other questions. Here's one for you: what are the best ways for teachers to tackle LGBT issues in the classroom?

Simple: by bringing them into the classroom. It’s not difficult to approach LGBT issues in a sensitive and age-appropriate way. In fact, it’s fairly easy to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate material when it comes to teaching kids about LGBT issues. The biggest problem we see now isn’t the wrong information being taught, but no information being taught at all. If teachers can introduce LGBT characters and ideas into history or literature classes when it’s appropriate, for example, mentioning that an author had a same-sex partner or that a social movement was happening at a certain time, kids will see earlier on that being gay is normal and OK. There’s no gay agenda at work here. It’s about education. There’s nothing wrong with educating children by making factual, appropriate statements about important people who may be LGBT. 

Science/Nonfiction Reading Recommendations from the Tumblr Community

Thanks Tumblrs! There’s an impressive list here:

Thank you so much for all of these ideas! I tried my best to credit everyone appropriately—let me know if I missed you or messed up the link.

Can’t wait to sift through these and pass along titles.

Using Twitter in High School Classrooms

teacherleaders.typepad.com

I love the part about creating Twitter accounts that mimic how a literary figure may have used Twitter.

Resume Action Words for Teachers Looking Outside the Classroom

Every few weeks, I feel the need to check job listings in careers other than teaching. Because of the public service loan forgiveness option I have chosen to take care of my massive student debt, I have limited options. However, I also feel limited because of public perception, and perhaps my own perception, of teaching. I keep thinking, I’m just a teacher, so what else could I do? 

Here is a list of things that teachers can do:

  1. Manage a team (if you can’t then a classroom of 25 teenagers would be in a state of continual chaos) 
  2. Work independently (a closed classroom door means there is still work being done) 
  3. Work with a team (common planning time with other teachers, as well as instituting school-wide initiatives need some heavy-duty collaboration skills) 
  4. Work to a deadline (have you ever been late turning grades in?) 
  5. Knowledge of most common computer programs (ever tried to make a worksheet in MS Word? Miserable! Publisher is so much easier!) 
  6. Remain calm in tense situations (having a parent scream at you during parent teacher conferences because they SWEAR their kid turned in that assignment and they’re gonna SUE kinda makes you immune to loud voices and stressful conditions) 
  7. Plan ahead (doing lessons off the cuff is just as bad for you as for the kids) 
  8. Improvise in a pinch (but if you MUST do a lesson off the cuff, it could be worse) 
  9. Can work evenings and weekends (do you think I go home and just watch TV? No! I go home and watch TV while I grade essays!) 
  10. Can seek out funding (have you seen the latest budget cuts? I’m a fundraising goddess!) 

Can you think of any more?

Teacher question

I’m making a HW assignment based on what we did in class last week, which was looking at weak sentences I pulled from their own writing, and we edited them together. Would it be weird if I made a small “cheat sheet” of impressive sentences I pulled that they can refer to for both the HW and when they begin to edit their paragraphs?

Militarization of Campus Police by Bob Ostertag Composer, historian, journalist, and Professor of Technocultural Studies and Music at UC Davis

huffingtonpost.com

Yesterday, police at UC Davis attacked seated students with a chemical gas.

I teach at UC Davis and I personally know many of the students who were the victims of this brutal and unprovoked assault. They are top students. In fact, I can report that among the students I know, the higher a student’s grade point average, the more likely it is that they are centrally involved in the protests.

This is not surprising, since what is at issue is the dismantling of public education in California. Just six years ago, tuition at the University of California was $5357. Tuition is currently $12,192. According to current proposals, it will be $22,068 by 2015-2016. We have discussed this in my classes, and about one third of my students report that their families would likely have to pull them out of school at the new tuition. It is not a happy moment when the students look around the room and see who it is that will disappear from campus. These are young people who, like college students everywhere and at all times, form some of the deepest friendships they will have in their lives.

This is what motivates students who have never taken part in any sort of social protest to “occupy” the campus quad. And indeed, there were students who were attacked with chemical agents by robocops who were engaging in their first civic protest.

Since the video of the assault has gone viral, I will assume that most of you have seen the shocking footage. Let’s take a look at the equally outrageous explanations and justifications that have come from UC Davis authorities.

UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi sent a letter to the university last night. Chancellor Katehi tells us that:

The group was informed in writing… that if they did not dismantle the encampment, it would have to be removed…  However a number of protestors refused our warning, offering us no option but to ask the police to assist in their removal.

No other options? The list of options is endless. To begin with, the chancellor could have thanked them for their sense of civic duty. The occupation could have been turned into a teach-in on the role of public education in this country. There could have been a call for professors to hold classes on the quad. The list of “other options” is endless.

Chancellor Katehi asserts that “the encampment raised serious health and safety concerns.” Really? Twenty tents on the quad “raised serious health and safety concerns?” Has the chancellor been to a frat party lately? Or a football game? Talk about “serious health and safety concerns.”

How about this for another option: three years ago there was a very similar occupation of the quad at Columbia University in New York City by students protesting the way the expansion of the university was displacing residents in the neighborhood. There was a core group of twenty or thirty students there around the clock. At the high points there were 200-300. The administration met with the students and held serious discussions about their concerns. And after a couple of weeks the protest had run its course and the students took the tents down. The most severe action that was even contemplated on the part of the university was to expel students who were hunger striking, under a rule that allows the school to expel students who are considered a threat to themselves. But no one was actually expelled.

Remember when universities used to expel students instead of spray them with chemical agents?

We should also note that at Columbia, a private university, the campus police carry no arms and no pepper spray. This is what Columbia University police look like when arresting students:


This is what the police at Davis, a public university, looked like yesterday:


It is worth noting that in the Columbia photo, the one without helmets, guns, or chemical assault weapons, the student is being arrested for selling cocaine. In the Davis photo the students were defending public education.

Could Chancellor Katehi please explain what “serious health and safety concerns” were posed at Davis that were absent at Columbia? The only thing that involved a “serious health and safety concern” at Davis yesterday was the pepper spray. I just spoke with a doctor who works for the California Department of Corrections, who participated in a recent review of the medical literature on pepper spray for the CDC. They concluded that the medical consequences of pepper spray are poorly understood but involve serious health risk. As with chili peppers, some people tolerate pepper spray well, while others have extreme reactions. It is not known why this is the case. As a result, if a doctor sees pepper spray used in a prison, he or she is required to file a written report. And regulations prohibit the use of pepper spray on inmates in all circumstances other than the immediate threat of violence. If a prisoner is seated, by definition the use of pepper spray is prohibited. Any prison guard who used pepper spray on a seated prisoner would face immediate disciplinary review for the use of excessive force. Even in the case of a prison riot in which inmates use extreme violence, once a prisoner sits down he or she is not considered to be an imminent threat. And if prison guards go into a situation where the use of pepper spray is considered likely, they are required to have medical personnel nearby to treat the victims of the chemical agent.

Apparently, in the state of California felons incarcerated for violent crimes have rights that students at public universities do not.

Amazingly, UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza attempted to justify this crime.

If you look at the video you are going to see that there were 200 people in that quad. Hindsight is 20-20 and based on the situation we were sitting in, ultimately that was the decision that was made.

Yes, there were about 200 people in the quad. It is a piece of grass that was placed by the designers of the campus to be an open, central meeting place for the university community. But somehow, 200 students in the quad has become a problem. A huge problem. A problem so big that, well, yeah it was too bad those kids got pepper sprayed, but hey, there were 200 people in the quad.

Like the chancellor, Chief Spicuzza justified the assault by saying that the protest was “not safe for multiple reasons,” none of which she specified.

How is it that non-violent student protest has suddenly become “unsafe” in the United States?

Just to jolt us back to reality for a moment, remember Amy Carter, daughter of former President Jimmy Carter. In 1985 she was arrested in an anti-apartheid demonstration at the South African Embassy in Washington. Like the Davis students, she was arrested when she refused an order to disperse. But she wasn’t sprayed with a chemical weapon, or bodyslammed to the ground. She was handcuffed and led to a police car, telling reporters, ”I’m proud to be my father’s daughter.” The following year she was arrested again, this time at the University of Massachusetts protesting CIA recruitment there.

In short, Amy was just the sort of student that the administration of the UC is panicked about. She moved from place to place. She was arrested multiple times. She was not a student at UM at the time of her arrest there. She was a sophomore at Brown. This is the big fear the UC leadership keeps raising about today’s campus protests: the protests can’t be allowed because they might involve “outside agitators” who are not students. Well, the former president’s daughter was just such an outside agitator. She even brought Abbie Hoffman to get arrested with her at a university where she was not a student! The sky didn’t fall. No one was injured. No weapons were used. And Amy was acquitted of all charges, successfully arguing in court that CIA involvement in Central America and elsewhere was equivalent to trespassing in a burning building.

Now fast forward to today. Last week, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau issued a statement justifying the brutal use of police batons on student protesters like this:

It is unfortunate that some protesters chose to obstruct the police by linking arms and forming a human chain to prevent the police from gaining access to the tents. This is not non-violent civil disobedience… the police were forced to use their batons.

Perhaps the Chancellors of Davis and Berkeley have never seen this photo of people with linked arms. It is an iconic image of non-violent civil disobedience in this country.

Chancellor Robert Birgeneau thus joins the likes of Bull Connor, the notorious segregationist and architect of the violent repression of the civil rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama, as some of the very few people who view the non-violent tactics of Martin Luther King as violent.

Most people disagree, which is why King was given the Nobel Peace Prize.

Throughout my life I have seen, and sometimes participated in, peaceful civil disobedience in which sitting and linking arms was understood by citizens as a posture that indicates, in the clearest possible way available, protestors’ intent to be non-violent. If example, if you look through training materials from groups like the Quakers, the various pacifist organization and centers, and Christian organizations, it is universally taught that sitting and linking arms is the best way to de-escalate any confrontation between police and people exercising their first amendment right to public speech. 

Likewise, for over 30 years I have seen police universally understand this gesture. Many many times I have seen police treat protestors who sat and linked arms when told they must disperse or face arrest as a very routine matter: the police then approach the protestors individually and ask them if, upon arrest, they are going to walk of their own accord or not the police will have to carry them. In fact, this has become so routine that I have often wondered if this form of protest had become so scripted as to have lost most of its meaning.

No more.

What we have seen in the last two weeks around the country, and now at Davis, is a radical departure from the way police have handled protest in this country for half a century. Two days ago an 84 year old woman was sprayed with a chemical assault agent in Portland in the same manner our students at Davis were maced. A Hispanic New York City Councilman was brutally thrown to the ground, arrested, and held cuffed in a police van for two hours for no reason at all, and was never even told why he was arrested. And I am sure you all know about former Marine Lance Cpl. Scott Olsen, who suffered a fractured skull after police hit him with a tear gas canister, then rolled a flash bomb into the group of citizens trying to give him emergency medical care. 

Last week, former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper published an essay arguing that the current epidemic of police brutality is a reflection of the militarization (his word, not mine) of our urban police forces, the result of years of the “war on drugs” and the “war on terror. Stamper was chief of police during the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999, and is not a voice that can be easily dismissed.

Yesterday, the militarization of policing in the U.S. arrived on my own campus.

These issues go to the core of what democracy means. We have a major economic crisis in this country that was brought on by the greedy and irresponsible behavior of big banks. No banker has been arrested, and certainly none have been pepper sprayed. Arrests and chemical assault is for those trying to defend their homes, their jobs, and their schools.
These are not trivial matters. This is a moment to stand up and be counted. I am proud to teach at a university where students have done so.

READ NOW.

“I walk around the school hallways and look at the people. I look at the teachers and wonder why they’re here. If they like their jobs. Or us. And I wonder how smart they were when they were fifteen. Not in a mean way. In a curious way. It’s like looking at all the students and wondering who’s had their heart broken that day, and how they are able to cope with having three quizzes and a book report due on top of that. Or wondering who did the heart breaking.”

—The Perks of Being a Wallflower

What is your classroom management technique?

How do you get your student’s attention? Do you use discipline or positive reinforcement to maintain rules? 

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