Alien Pedagogy

We often discuss video games like they’re something that students can play for a half hour and move on from. I don’t spend much time playing video games these days, but I still spend a few hours / month playing Super Mario Galaxy or Mario Kart Wii.

Last weekend, I played Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Afterward, I could barely concentrate for an hour — let alone read. For one thing, the story drew me in (I love Star Wars), but the game play was also really fun.

I’m not suggesting that this is an excuse for not submitting work. I am also not suggesting that we should ban video games. However, this is an experience I’d forgotten about.

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(While some readers might be inclined to mock the plot of video games, it’s possible that they’ve underestimated the power of the Dark Side. For the record, the greatest gaming story is Final Fantasy VII.)

Currently, my gradebook is organized into these sections:

• Tests
• Exam
• Assignments
• Projects
• Participation

This strikes me as an arbitrary way to report student achievement as it has nothing to do with student objectives.

I’d prefer to organize the grading in this way:

• Writing
• Reading
• Speaking
• Listening
• Viewing
• Representing

This way, when students come to ask me how they can improve their grade, I can say “Work on your writing skills” rather than “looks like you’re having difficulty with tests.” While it doesn’t keep students from prioritizing grades over learning, it does limit the gap between grades and learning.

The only question it leaves with me is how should the six skill areas of English be broken into fractions?

For a long time, I’ve organized tests like this:

• Section One: Multiple Choice
• Section Two: Short Answer
• Section Three: Long Answer

I’ve come to view this as an arbitrary form of organization. The data that each section reveals has nothing to do with the standards of our curriculum.

So I’ve started to adopt a system more like this:

• Section One: Knowledge
• Section Two: Analysis of Character
• Section Three: Analysis of Theme

There are a variety of question types in each section.

I’ve begun spring break reviewing my daily lesson plans to see how they align with UBD. It’s been a surprisingly effective form of self assessment.

Changing the Lesson Plans:

To begin, our department records lesson plans (from top to bottom like a graphic organizer) like this:

• Topic
• Objective
• Activities
• Assessment
• Resources
• Reflection

I’ve switched my daily lesson plans to this format:

• Objective
• Assessment
• Activities

My resources are now listed in parentheses in the activities. They can be found on Rubicon (our curriculum database) and Moodle. I have decided to move towards more unit reflection in my records.

Reflection:

I’ve felt quite pleased with this year’s lesson planning. However, this process has helped me to realize that some of my lessons are not as direct as I had thought. Though it may seem like a trivial change, moving the asssessment task above the lesson activities really makes it obvious when my formative assessment could have more effectively connected my summative assessment and my lesson activities.

How do you record and review your instruction?

I never heard Beyonce’s single “Single Ladies” until this week (like six months after it was released), but I’m sure it was a hit (I checked on Wikipedia). Am I still “with it?”

Seth Godin discusses how good people have become at ignoring marketing (here’s a recent rant on the theme) and perhaps I’m becoming a master at cutting white noise from my thoughts.

This is what happened to me.

• Almost all of the media that I encounter is first filtered by RSS feeds or what my PLN on Twitter suggests is worth watching. From there I choose what’s worthy of a click.
• I know what aspects of the culture I like and have identified reliable sources that will respond to them.
• As for books, I rely on goodreads.com. And I read quite a few.
• My iPod neutralizes all the white noise of audio marketing.
• Bulletin boards tend to mean nothing to me since I live in Hong Kong and understand very few characters.

Please don’t infer that I’m living in a vacuum or that this is a narrow minded approach to media.

I follow many feeds on a variety of topics, especially education. I categorize information through social tagging and I respond to the thoughts of other writers on a regular basis.

And I have no idea what Beyonce is doing with her career.