Educational Insights
(Asynchronous Session - Online)
Teachers’ Identity as Artists vs. Scientists
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Paul Markham
The purpose of this study was to understand how teachers’ self-identify as artists or scientists. According to Walkington (2005) teacher identity rests on a foundation of personal theories about teaching and being a teacher. A living educational theory is then formed and reformed through experience (Freeman & Johnson, 1998). A total of 75 participants took part in the study by participating in regular or online sections of a second language acquisition (SLA) theory course over four semesters. I drew on Fairclough’s (2003) method of discourse analysis to understand the positions the teachers used within the discourse context of the SLA class. Fairclough’s work focused on the commitments that teachers make in discourse as markers of identity. After reading the assigned, neutrally written academic articles, the students were asked to articulate their teacher identity preference as being artists, scientists, or a combination of both. The results revealed that preservice teachers (77%) and practicing teachers (79%) both saw themselves as primarily artists whereas only a limited percentage of the preservice teachers (12%) and practicing teachers (13%) identified themselves as a combination of both. The remaining small number of teachers in each category saw themselves mostly as scientists. The qualitative results generally supported, but also augmented the quantitative data.
Philosophizing the End of the Anthropocene: Françoise d’Eaubonne’s L’homme de Demain a-t-il un Futur? and Patricia MacCormack’s The Ahuman Manifesto
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Danielle Roth-Johnson
In his article “The ‘Anthropocene’: Neglects, misconceptions, and possible futures,” Spanish scientist Valentí Rull del Castillo (2017) states that the term anthropocene has recently been used by many to describe not only global changes that have their origins in human actions, but also the socio-political and philosophical impacts of such activities as well. Although there is still much animated debate about whether it is appropriate to deploy this concept as a historical term rather than a geological one, the fact remains that a great deal of thought is currently being given to the future that awaits humans in the wake of growing ecological crisis and the development of technologies that challenge the boundaries of what it means to be human. Such a preoccupation with these particular questions can be found in both Françoise d’Eaubonne’s L’homme de demain a-t-il un future? Combien de temps durera le XXIe siècle (Does the Man of Tomorrow Have a Future?: How Long the 21st Century Will Last) and Patricia MacCormack’s The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene, two feminist philosophical treatises that come to vastly different conclusions about how to respond to this pivotal moment in human history. Thus, in this paper, I provide a critical analysis of both works in order to speculate about what such reflections imply for the future of the humanities and their relationships to other knowledge domains (e.g., technology, science, and economics) that have given rise to the Anthropocene.
Visualizing Culture: Cross-cultural Approaches to Teach Language and Culture View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Cathy Culot
International educational experiences have become an essential component of academic programs in today’s global world. These experiences are often gained through study-abroad programs. However, digital humanities platforms and other pedagogical tools can also be used to teach culture and language without leaving the classroom. This presentation will demonstrate how exploring culture through images can be the gateway to learn a target language. It will showcase different pedagogical tools that require intermediate-level French students to be actively involved in the discovery of the target culture while comparing it to another culture and learning the target language. First, the audience will be introduced to a cross-cultural questionnaire based on images. Second, the presenter will show how the arts can be used to teach language and culture as artists express and mirror central aspects of culture. Third, the presenter will introduce an interactive website developed at MIT and based on Tintin and The Blue Lotus to demonstrate how students can work with text and images in order to learn the French language, uncover a period of Chinese history, mainly colonial Shanghai, and better understand the importance of comic strips in Belgian culture. At a time when the need for building bridges across cultures has become greater due to the current political and economic climate in the world, the importance of these cross-cultural approaches to teach language and culture has increased in value.
Pivoting to Online Learning during a Pandemic: Techniques and Tools for Active Learning View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Clarissa Rosas, Monica Yndo, Corinne Weisegerber
The COVID-19 pandemic requires institutes of higher education (IHE) world-wide to shift their course delivery to online learning to mitigate the spread of the virus between students and instructors. While the shift to online learning alleviated the spread of the virus, it did present a challenge to professors to deliver high quality instruction that allowed students to continue learning subject courses in an engaging online format. Three professors from a private university in the United States discuss how they quickly pivoted their research-based practices in planning, implementation, and assessment to online learning. The discussion includes active online learning techniques and tools that engage students in their learning.
Corpus-involved Education and Learning in European Universities View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Shuo Zhao
Corpus-involved education and learning attempts to optimize the learning process of students, the creation of a stimulating and active learning environment. A central tendency in these innovations is to base corpus more on the educational needs of students in European universities. A logical step in placing students at the center of their education is involving them in the quality control, organization, and development of curricula based on corpus learning. Opportunities for student participation in curriculum planning and organization are given, including advantages and possible disadvantages of corpus involvement. Implications for European universities wishing to incorporate students in their corpus organization are discussed to improve students’ input. Present developments in European universities increasingly focus on the central role of students in education and learning. A possible additional step is to give students responsibilities not just in the learning process but also in curriculum education and management of universities. Students in higher education, after all, are adults. Corpus-involved system in quality control proves students to be distinctly capable of assuming shared responsibilities in management and organization of education and learning. The most important action students must take is to organize them in learning process. Combining corpus is a certain means of upgrading the quality of student input. Second, students must be prepared to participate in the evaluations provided by the teaching staff. They must also make themselves available for education and training in universities. Finally, students should take every opportunity to voice their opinions and ideas by means of corpus-involved system.
Playing the Fool: The Teacher as Foolosopher View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session A.J. Grant
Metaphors for teachers abound. Plato presents Socrates as a gadfly to sting the student to action and a midwife, aiding in the birth of knowledge. Freire eschewed the traditional "banking" model of education and Ruzich and Phipps decry the economic model of education where the student is consumer or customer and the teacher is, by turns, a salesperson, customer service rep or checkout clerk. Metaphors contain arguments; they are not mere adornments or window dressing for otherwise plain language. This means that metaphors for education argue for a particular view of the teacher, student, the student-teacher relationship, and knowledge. I argue that the classroom be considered a carnival and that the teacher a foolosopher (morosophous), or wise fool. Traditionally, the fool is deranged, insane, outside the order of things, and therefore has a perspective that cannot be gotten from inside the dominant culture and can therefore provide another perspective on how things could be or might be or might have been. The foolosopher helps students become fools as well, and turns the classroom into a ship of fools that embarks on adventures for destinations rarely visited by the typical college class. And where better to celebrate carnival than in the classroom, virtual or face to face, where, ideally, all points of view should be considered without prejudice.
