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ePortfolio Cornerstone Community: Symphonic Reflections on Different Ways of Knowing AAEEBL Conference Boston, July 20, 2010 . Jean Darcy Michele Cuomo Billy Jno Hope. Making Connections 2007 QCC Team. Making Connections 2010 QCC Team.
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ePortfolio Cornerstone Community: Symphonic Reflections on Different Ways of KnowingAAEEBL Conference Boston, July 20, 2010 Jean Darcy Michele Cuomo Billy Jno Hope
The Student Wiki Interdisciplinary Group Project which partners English and Basic Educational Skills courses with an additional content course (currently in the following disciplines: Education, Nursing Social Sciences and Speech/Theatre) creates a shared student centered space through the technology of Epsilen’s Academic web platform which allows students to electronically archive and share their written, visual, aural compositions and research with others.
Symphonic Reflections • The guiding principle for this project comes from John Dewey’s “Art and Experience”, 1934. Here he claims that reflection occurs as a process as the individual makes form out of the disparate elements of experience. • To this end we have broken the reflection cycle into eight stages in an effort to make the process visible to students. • The reflection cycle is: • Entering the Academic Community: ThresholdExperience • Negotiating the Borders of Disciplinary Discourse • Mutual Gift Giving • Selecting and Storyboarding • Integrating Voice with Visual-Knowledge • Producing and Distributing • Presenting to Audience • Assessing Reflection: Part of the Reflection Cycle Itself
1) Entering Academia: The Threshold Experience(Reflecting on Community) • Welcoming “the live creature in his conditions.” John Dewey (1934) • Recognizing the student’s meaning-making practices • Helping students to see the relationship to disciplinary discourse
2) Negotiating the Boundaries between Disciplinary Discourses(Reflecting on Borders) • Communicating across disciplinary boundaries • Negotiating asymmetrical power relations (Mary Louise Pratt “Contact Zones” and Randy Bass, Borders) • Focusing on what we know and what we do not know in communal conversations.
3) Mutual Gift Giving(Reflecting on Collaboration) • Writing is interfacing (Yancey, “Composition in a New Key”) • Selecting web “objects” • Learning to Look at web “objects”
“What if I said that basically writing is … interfacing? …What about the circulation of writing, and the relationship of writing to the various modes delivery?” Kathleen Blake Yancey “Composition in a New Key”
4) Selecting and Storyboarding(Reflecting on Choice) • Deliberating on selections • Sequencing choices to create a narrative
5) Integrating Voice with Visual-Knowledge(Reflecting on Different Ways of Knowing) • Allowing for rich tensions between different ways of integrating knowledge
6) Producing and Distributing(Reflecting on Dissemination) • Becoming a producer of knowledge • Developing agency in relation to audience
7) Presenting to Audience(Reflecting on Reception) • Becoming aware of the relation between the public and private self • Braiding and weaving personal stories into relation to other stories
8) Assessing Reflection(Part of the Reflection Cycle Itself) • Online surveys taken a various points during the Reflection Cycle • Aggregated survey data demonstrates student growth • Recursive nature of surveys cultivates student awareness
“Songs of our Fathers”by a Freshman Composition Student View the Digital Story
Lube - Soldat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xSOK7ODLSM
Lube - Soldat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xSOK7ODLSM
“Memories of My Mother”by a Freshman Composition Student View the Digital Story
Circulation of Knowledge in the ePortfolio Cornerstone Community
The LaGCC Making Connections Conference, Darren Cambridge in his presentation entitled “Authenticity, Deliberation and Integrity” proposes that teachers can scaffold assignments in a way that provides students with an experience of choice and reflection on choices that helps the students move through different discursive communities while seeing the self who composes there but, finally, understanding from those disciplinary experiences how to create a harmony amongst various forms of self, thereby, becoming a “symphonic self.”
Theatre and Theatrical Media • Video Logs • Aesthetic Distances • 4th Wall and Direct Address Javier performing Oscar
Student Essays as Dramatic Texts • “I chose this character because it reminded me of myself. When I was young my family moved from predominantly black West-Indian neighborhood to a mostly white community. On my first day of the new school, I thought I was watching a “Happy Days” episode with a bunch of Richie Cunninghams. Her closeness to her family is the same as mine. Family is very important to me” • - Navin, Theatre 120 Student on an essay by Farimah, EN 101 student
The Project as a High Impact Practice • Common Intellectual Experience • Cornerstone Course • Global/Diversity Learning • Service Learning • Virtual Learning Commmunity
Educational Objectives • Communicate effectively through reading, writing, listening and speaking • Use analytical reasoning to identify issues or problems • Use information management and technology skills effectively for academic research and life-long learning • Integrate knowledge and skills in their program of study • Differentiate and make informed decisions about issues based on multiple value systems • Apply aesthetic and intellectual criteria in the evaluation or creation of works in the humanities or the arts
Fall/Spring Retention • Fall First Time/Full Time ’09: • 88.0% • Fall First Time/Full Time‘09 Project Cohort: 92.6%
The Interdisciplinary Group Wiki Project which partners English and Basic Educational Skills courses with an additional content course (currently in the following disciplines: Education, Nursing Social Sciences and Speech/Theatre) creates a shared student centered space through the technology of Epsilen’s Academic web platform which allows students to electronically archive and share their written, visual, aural compositions and research with others.
Different Disciplines “The project as a whole was great because it not only allowed me to sit back and reflect on my own personal metamorphosis into adulthood, but it also enabled me to apply psychological terms to experience” Student #5 EN102 / Psychology Denbo / Jankowski 11.7% Increase in Always
What I Need to Learn “One of the students from education informed me that I am on my way to self-actualization which means that I continually try to be the best by satisfying my cognitive need through reading books and articles. It actually makes sense, I strive for knowledge.” Student #3 Basic Skills - Kemmerer 13.4% Increase in Often
Media & the Internet “I could not help but be humbled by the positive reaction when I presented my digital story to the class….great things come from small beginnings.” Student #10 EN101 Counihan 18.3% Increase Often & Always
Think, Learn and Understand “In the beginning I thought ‘wow’ this is hard. Then as one step led to another I saw it was easy. This project made me see I can do more than I think.” Student #7 EN101 - Darcy 20.6% Increase Often & Always
Group Work “This project helped me have more trust and belief in people.” Student # 4 Denbo / Jankowski “It was an honor to interview the CLIP student.” Student # 11 EN101 - Counihan 14.8% Increase in Always
Queensborough Digital Storytelling Example: • The process followed during the Interdisciplinary Wiki Collaboration Project: • English 103 Student – writes an essay and shares it with an Acting student • The Acting Student "PRESENTS" the composition • The English Student REFLECTS on the collaboration process • Based on the project's collaboration, the English Student revises/finalizes his essay and creates a DIGITAL STORY