Semester in Review

Spring 2013 was a good semester.  My classes were both familiar and new.  The two classes I taught, Educational Leadership and Administration of Complex Educational Organizations, were not entirely new, but it had been two years since teaching the organization class and about four years since teaching the leadership course.  Although I’m pretty happy with the way I led both courses, there are some things I’ll do differently the next time I teach them.  What I want to reflect on here is how I might change up the classes, including some ways I might work with those students who never speak up and those who dominate class discussions.

Educational Leadership

I already know of one change I’ll make in relation to the assignments.  Students didn’t do as well as I had hoped on the personal case analysis and I’m not sure it’s an assignment that really requires students to apply theory to practice.  So, instead of this short assignment, I’m going to assign an annotated bibliography.  The master’s students will read and annotate three articles, books or book chapters related to leadership theory; the doctoral students will read and annotate six articles/books/book chapters.  To ensure that students are reading throughout the semester, I’m going to require the annotations be submitted at different points in time.  I’ll ask students to upload both the annotation as well as the actual article/book/book chapter.  When they complete their final project – the narrative interview – they’ll be asked to analyze the interview through the theoretical lens(es) discussed in the annotated pieces.  My sense is this will strengthen their own analyses and reinforce the importance of a theoretical framework as a tool for analyzing data.  The writing guide I made for this assignment helped clarify expectations and yielded better outcomes from students.  I’ll make some minor adjustments, but will keep the guide for future classes.

Another change I’ll likely make is in relation to the readings.  The Leadership Challenge was a good text, but probably took up too much time in the semester.  I can either shorten the time we spend on the text or use a different version that will allow us to move through the materials more quickly.  I’ll also bring in articles related to social justice, a perspective that includes Afro-centric leadership as well as feminist leadership theories.  I may ask students to create and submit more discussion questions (this worked quite well this semester) and perhaps at other times, “talking points” based on the readings.  Although most students completed the readings, there were weeks when some (many) didn’t, which impacted the overall discussions.

I brought in a lot of external resources and also *loved* it when students brought in videos, web links, and so on, to add to our class discussions.  I want to look for ways to continue cultivating student contributions – one way might be to simply assign something to different groups each week.  They could bring in a resource related to the readings and lead a short discussion, which would allow us to create an even stronger sense of shared ownership for the success of the class.

Administration of Complex Educational Organizations

Overall, the assignments for the class went really well.  The text, Reframing Organizations, was well received by students.  I’ll also bring in the new text by Kathleen Manning that will complement the Reframing text in positive ways.  Manning’s book also includes some case studies, which will lend themselves to small group discussions.  What I’ll do is assign different group leaders for each week so we can break into groups of four or so.  Having small groups may help alleviate some of the tension created by the conversation dominators.  I’ll include many of the same articles as I did this semester but I might bring in concepts related to privilege, power, and difference earlier in the semester.  I won’t teach this class again until Spring 2015; even so, the materials and assignments from this semester should continue to work well.

Classroom Management/Classroom Facilitation

The one thing that surprised me during the semester was that classroom management became an issue in the doctoral class.  There were 19 students in the class – some are in the first year of the program while others are further along.  Three to four students tended to dominate many of the large group conversations.  As the semester progressed, their dominance became an increasing point of tension, in particular when we were discussing women and men in organizations.  The conversation dominators, all white male students, continuously reflected male dominance that is often found in organizations.  As the discussion facilitator, I frequently felt challenged by the need to interrupt the students and create space for others.  I know I didn’t succeed on all occasions yet I learned several things about teaching in the process.  When faced with similar dynamics, I’ll meet with the conversation dominators one-on-one to discuss their behavior.  If that doesn’t resolve the issue, I’ll be more direct in class – even to the extent of telling students that they need to hold their comments until others have had an opportunity to participate.  We ended the semester with some very challenging conversations about race and gender; conversations that were left unresolved as the semester came to an end.  Many of these same students will be in a class I’m teaching in the Fall so I plan to spend the first evening working on ground rules for how we want to be/act together as a learning community.  I want to challenge the conversation dominators to make space for others and to self-monitor their own participation so that we can create a more inclusive environment.  Similarly, I want to ask those who may not typically speak up, to identify ways that they might contribute more to our conversations.

Creating the ground rules will have some challenges, but will be necessary for our work together during the semester.  I’ll have more time with the students during the beginning of the semester which, hopefully, will facilitate our work together and allow us to have some truly courageous conversations about inclusion.  I’ll also look for ways I might shift the dynamics in class — more small group discussions can help.  Creating some expectations that everyone will speak once before anyone speaks a second time might be a good start.  In large discussions, I might use “equity sticks” — typically used in K-12 environments, each stick has a student’s name on it, then the discussion facilitator just picks a stick to call on someone.  This keeps the teacher from always calling on the same student(s) and also lets all students know they have an equal chance of participating in a discussion.  I wasn’t sure this would work with adult learners, but recently attended a day-long workshop where the facilitators used these and they worked great.  So, I might just give these a try come Fall.

Standing between students and Spring Break …

It’s February 28: Thursday afternoon before Spring Break.  The air is clear and warm, flowers are blooming, trees have blossoms, birds are chirping … and we have class.  For about half the students in class, tomorrow is the deadline to submit their written comprehensive exams for their master’s degree.  A set of scenarios guaranteed to produce a distracted group of students.

I haven’t taught on Thursday afternoons for a while so I had somewhat forgotten how this particular Thursday afternoon feels.  Not quite like the last class of the semester, but pretty darn close.  I decided to assign an in-class writing/reflection assignment that took on the air of an exam – the tension in the room was palpable as we began and I had to reassure students that this isn’t a graded exam; rather, it is part of cultivating a reflective practice as discussed in the book.

So here I am reflecting on this day and how I might organize it differently next year.  What exactly is the best approach for working with students who are distracted by a major deadline, are anxious about their comprehensive exams, are anticipating Spring Break, and then will be going to a conference to interview for post-degree jobs?

What I’ve done for today is to include the reflective writing assignment – an assignment designed to help students begin thinking about their own leadership development, including their strengths and areas they might want to further develop.  This is connected to a blog post they’ll complete in a couple of weeks, so it’s a good assignment to stimulate thinking.  I’ve scheduled time to discuss the last chapter in the book – originally in small groups, but  as I sit here, I’m second-guessing that decision thinking it might be better, instead, to have a large group discussion … yet, with a large class, the large group discussion are not as energetic as the small group ones.  I’ve also set aside time for a doctoral student seminar following the break.  I do think this is a good idea as it will give the doc students some focused time to talk about the materials from the last chapter and the overall book.

My uncertainty about the best way to approach today is causing me to doubt the decisions I’ve made; what if I look at my decisions from a more confident perspective?  What would that look like?  First, let me think about what is my responsibility and what isn’t my responsibility.  My responsibility is to create a good environment for learning, including assigning readings and asking questions that promote deeper thinking on a topic.  Hey, I’ve done this!  I have a good reflective writing assignment designed to help students focus on the ways they might apply the readings to their own professional development.  My responsibility isn’t to adjust the class for those students who haven’t finished their written comps.  Sometimes I get sucked into thinking I need to resolve other people’s issues (or what I imagine to be their issues).  As I write this, though, I’m reminded that this isn’t actually my job.  I do want to be sensitive to students’ time constraints, but, really, well, I can still lead a good class session and keep in mind that it’s the students’ responsibility to manage their time so they can complete their written comps as well as stay engaged with their class work.  Ah-ha!  I just let myself off the hook for having to take care of the world!

As I think about Thursday-before-written-comps-and-Spring-Break-2014, I think I would likely do something similar to today.  I would probably scratch the small group discussion to be sure I give enough time for the reflective writing  (students asked for 15 more minutes today) and I would set aside time for the doctoral seminar (assuming there will be doc students in the class).  I might try to find a short movie or I would focus on developing our “end of class” celebration ritual – working on this would be engaging, creative, collaborative, and fun as we wind up before the mid-point in the semester.

What I ended up doing that day:  The written reflection exercise, talking with the master’s students about the deadline & asking for suggestions for next year, and then meeting with the doc students.  I think this overall session turned out well:  Bringing students together for an in-class writing assignment gave students time to focus on their reading and stay engaged with the class materials; working with the doc students gave me an opportunity to meet with them in a small group seminar to discuss the materials.  I would probably do something like this again in Spring 2014. I will also check with colleagues to see how they have handled this dilemma in order to identify strategies that allow me to support student learning in our class while understanding the very real pressures of the master’s written comps.

Cultural Creatives

I learned about this trending phenomenon from my niece who was sharing an idea she had for a start-up: She wants to bring together cultural creatives in a shared work space called “co-working.” I was impressed by the complexity of the idea as well as her very clear vision for how this could work. As a researcher, I became curious about two parts of the idea: who are the cultural creatives and what are the concepts behind co-working? In this post, I focus on the cultural creatives.

Cultural Creatives

Like many people who want to find information fast, I went to Google. I found the link to Wikipedia (of course), a link to CulturalCreatives.org (a website that includes information about the cultural creatives and a bunch of New Age/metaphysical stuff), and a book by Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson. Thinking I needed to make a more “academic” search, I clicked over to Google Scholar and found not only the Ray and Anderson book, but also several related articles. Wow – now I’m on to something (but, will all of this research on cultural creatives get in the way of the article I’m finishing? No doubt, but I can save drafts of this blog post to work on both at the same time…and I did actually start this post some time ago, set it aside, and am now wrapping it up…and, writing the post over time allowed me to finish up that article I was working on.)

Ray and Anderson describe 19 characteristics of cultural creatives and indicate that if you identify with at least 10 of these characteristics, you’re a cultural creative. Because I think the list is pretty awesome, I thought I should consider at least two of its weaknesses: These characteristics seem heavily influenced not just by Western thinking, but by U.S. thinking — or perhaps that’s the lens I’m using to interpret the list. In addition, the list seems like it would make most liberals like me feel quite at home, while potentially making folks like Ron Paul cringe. Take, for example, the characteristic

…willingness to pay higher taxes or spend more money for goods if that money went to improving the environment

I’m just thinking that this statement alone kicks most conservatives and Libertarians to the curb. But because one only has to identify with 10 of the 19 characteristics to be considered a cultural creative, there may be room for everyone. Some of the characteristics, such as

…intense interest in spiritual and psychological development

…concern and support of the well-being of all women and children

…want to be involved in creating a new and better way of life

…unlikely to overspend or be in heavy debt

would likely appeal to people from a variety of political and ideological perspectives; the differences would lie in how we might define our concern for the well-being of women and children or what we might describe as “in heavy debt” (oddly, this is where I might find myself aligned with fiscal conservatives).

In short, it seems that cultural creatives are an energetic group of people who care about making a difference but is this really a transformative movement or just a gimmicky label?  I’d like to think it’s the former.  Yet even if it is a gimmicky label, I kind of like the energy and idealism it evokes.  I’m in.

When you’re sick…

…it’s really hard to start a new semester.  Fall semester ended in a very intense few weeks of reviewing student manuscripts followed by wonderful (but intense) focus on holiday-related activities followed by a week away in the mountains.  Coming back from the mountains (where access to the Internet, TV, & news of the outside world was limited) turned out to be quite jarring.  Focusing on developing a new semester plan, finalizing the course schedules, creating my writing schedule, adjusting to new work schedules for both Bill and me all served to remind me that each semester is a time of renewal and was as reorganizing.  Much like others who work shifts, our academic schedules change about every 15 weeks.  What I learned this semester is that with both of us teaching now, both of our schedules shift which will require more attention and planning as we move forward.

Suffice it to say, my body reacted by grabbing on to a cold virus.  By Thursday of the first week I was pretty sick and tempted to cancel class.  In the end, I opted for a short class where I could meet the students, review the syllabus and get everyone started.  Then I went home and hibernated for four days.  I rested, drank lots of fluids, ate a lot of soup, and took a fair bit of cough & cold medicines.  I’m not 100% yet, but maybe about 80%. My takeaway from this: slowing down when you’re sick actually helps you get better faster.

Yesterday and today I started reading some of the blogs students are writing for classes.  Their writing inspires me.  Their writing energizes me.  Their writing challenges me to bring my best to classes. Their writing also reminds me of the myriad experiences, hopes, and dreams they bring to our learning communities.  Their writing also reminds me of how lucky I am to be able to engage with them and facilitate our learning communities.  I’m excited to create ways for all of us to be at our best, to bring our best thinking to our class sessions, and to challenge each of us to grow in new, unexpected ways.

A new year, a new semester

Another new semester begins!  I only posted once in Fall 2012, yet that post summed up my focus for the semester: Creating a solid semester plan.  This included setting semester, monthly, and weekly goals.  I’m excited to say that the semester was one of my most productive in all areas of my faculty work: teaching, research, and service.  I taught two courses — one I’ve taught before (Applied Inquiry II) and one that was new for me (Applied Inquiry IV).  Both classes focus on supporting students in the development of their research skills.  It’s very gratifying to work with students who might be new to educational research and witness the ways their skills develop throughout their doctoral studies.  In terms of my own research I had two proposals accepted for conference presentations (yay!), I had an article accepted for publication (woohoo!), and I had an article published in New Directions in Community Colleges.  My service on Pacific’s institutional review board continued and I had a new, unexpected opportunity for service when I was asked to chair the program review community for the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards. Because I stuck to my semester plan, I was able to incorporate the unexpected service opportunity without negatively impacting my other goals; in fact, I had met my semester goals when the service opportunity appeared.

Even so, I’m mystified that I didn’t blog more.  What I like about blogging is the opportunity to reflect and share those reflections.  I *love* reading others’ blogs — especially those created by students as they reflect on our class experiences. Reading others’ blog energizes and inspires me.  I’m amazed at how creative others are with their blogs, which also leads me to ask, “How could I do that?”  This morning, for example, I noticed that a student had created a page on her blog that links to her Pinterest page … I immediately thought that I wanted to do this, too. Pinterest is fun; it’s like visual blogging … and then here’s what happened … I discovered one reason why I may not have blogged more last semester: It takes me forever to complete a post.  I’ve been working on this post for about an hour and am only this far along … Why is that, you might ask?  I wondered that myself.  The sentence “Speaking of Pinterest…” took me down a rabbit hole as I went to create the hyperlink for Pinterest, decided to log in to Pinterest using Facebook, got sidetracked by posts on Facebook – including one where I had to find a link to a previous show on This American Life – and well, so it goes…

One of the tips to good time management is identifying how long a task takes.  So a more detailed goal might be necessary if I really want to get serious about blogging this semester: (1)  Set a realistic goal for blogging (i.e., number of posts per week), (2) schedule specific times on the weekly calendar for blogging, (2) time myself, (3) stop writing when I get to the end of the time, (4) come back to the blog at the next schedule time to continue, (5) realize when enough is enough.

Enough.

A New Semester

Another new semester is quickly upon us and although the semester actually begins today, I had the genuine pleasure of starting a class, Applied Inquiry IV, last Saturday. I’m looking forward to what the new academic year brings as we welcome new students and a new department chair. Additionally, we’ll be considering the future of our programs in the Benerd School of Education (BSE), including the way we offer classes, the types of classes we offer, and evolving options for the dissertation.

I’m also happy to be participating in the faculty success program sponsored by the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity. This 15-week long program is designed to strengthen/enhance/improve our productivity as we cultivate habits that support teaching, writing, and research. The program includes two conference calls per week – one on Sunday evening with everyone in the program and the other with our small group. In addition, we have homework (!) that’s designed to build on the Sunday conference call. This week, for example, we discussed the benefits of developing a semester plan focused on meeting our personal and professional goals. We worked through the steps on Sunday then were asked to post our plan. It sounds very simple, but can become daunting in short order. I made it through one week of planning and posting the appointments to my calendar … When I began to look at what I wanted to accomplish, then actually schedule time devoted to the smaller tasks that will take me toward that goal, I found my calendar filling up quickly. At the same time, I noticed that I do have time for these activities — it’s a matter of making the time for them.

The five-step process includes (1) identifying 2 – 3 personal goals and 2 – 3 professional goals. Then (2) writing them as SMART goals. From there (3), we wrote out the specifics steps we needed to take to achieve those goals. Then (4) there’s the process of mapping the steps out over the semester and finally (5), scheduling activities week by week/day by day to get us to our goals. This is part of the process of what Steven Covey described as putting the big rocks in first. Here’s a little of what my specific plans look like:

Steps One & Two: Personal and Professional Goals (I’m only listing one of the goals I wrote)

Revise and resubmit manuscript to NJAWHE.

Step Three: Specific Steps to achieve the goal.

Re-read editor’s comments

Identify additional research/literature

Respond to editor’s comments

–Revise manuscript as needed

–Prepare response sheet for editor

Resubmit manuscript

Step  Four: Mapping out the semester

This involves looking at other activities I have scheduled over the semester and identifying when I  might be able to work on the small steps.

Step Five: Put them on my calendar.

Fortunately, I’ve been able to add the steps to achieve this goal in the writing portion of the faculty success program. We write at least 30 minutes/day, Monday – Friday. So what I’ve done is identify in those 30-minute blocks a time for re-reading the editor’s comments, adding to the literature review, and so on.

By breaking down the goals into smaller tasks and making the effort to get the activities on my calendar, I feel more confident that I’ll reach my semester goals. In each of the classes I’m teaching this semester students face a variety of deadlines and projects; many often feel overwhelmed and concerned that they won’t be able to meet their goals for the semester. I’m going to introduce this planning process to them as one tool to help them organize their work to be sure they, too, accomplish their goals.

Finding Balance

I’ve written before about that search for the elusive balance between life and work. This summer, I feel like I’ve gotten closer. The key has been attending to my calendar and planning out my goals for the week. I follow Julie Morgenstern‘s advice to just write it down. If I don’t write something down on the calendar, it usually doesn’t get done. What I’ve gotten better at is identifying long-term goals and breaking them down into short-term, doable projects.

As the result of attending a workshop in Spring 2012, I now also follow advice from KerryAnn Rockquemore (National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity) and scheduled a Sunday planning session. I’ve added this to my calendar as a recurring appointment, with a reminder alarm. During the session I start by asking myself what I want to accomplish for the week. If I say something like, “Work on that new course proposal” then I force myself to be more specific: What does working on the proposal look like? What do I need to get done to move forward on the project? 

Then I schedule appointments during the week where I work on that specific task. So, Monday at 10 a.m. might say, “Write course description and learning outcomes.” Tuesday at 3 p.m. might say “Develop the sample course schedule.” I found a great paper planner at Staples that allowed me to write down everything so I could see the big picture; then once I was satisfied, I entered everything into my calendar. A little time consuming, but it helped me reflect on the “reasonable-ness” of my plans as well as all the other things I need to get done that week (i.e., wash the dogs, exercise, write, etc.).

I’m now using Google apps — the calendar and “to do” list — and am really excited about the results. Google calendar allows me to see the day, week or month (so I can toggle between detail and big picture). I can also move appointments around (rather than having to erase the entry on my paper calendar I can simply grab the appointment and move it to another time slot). I can also adjust the length of the appointment to see how much time the task actually took (did it take longer than I expected or did I breeze through it in short order?). Another benefit is that I can easily share the calendar with others. The “to do” list is integrated with the calendar, so I create the list (including the big topic and small steps to get the work done). Then I take the “to do” item and move it to a specific day. I have a dual reminder for that day: the “to do” at the top of the calendar and the appointment during the day. 

The Sunday planning session takes 30 – 45 minutes then I’m set for the week. The detailed appointments help keep me on task & ensure that I’m making progress towards the goals I’ve set for myself. I also know that when August rolls around in two weeks, I’ll be able to say, “Wow! I got a lot done this summer. I accomplished what I set out to do and I even had time for a few short vacation trips.”