January is my favorite time to think about the previous year. Maybe it’s the feeling that a new year means a new start or just that the holiday rush has subsided and my mind is clearer. Maybe it’s the cold and dark of January that looms between a holiday break and the start of a new term. Whatever it is, I find that I spend a lot of time thinking about how things are progressing and what I am reaching…
As our ePortfolio program grows, I am thinking more about resources to help students and faculty apply best practices and to better understand responsible web content development. As an English professor, I speak often with students about the importance of understanding plagiarism vs. paraphrasing and about attribution and citation. The liberal borrowing of images and video on social media is contrary to academic standards, so it is not surprising that ePortfolio users do not always think to include citations when…
As an undergrad, I took an English course focused on Maine writers and Maine stories. The course was called “Many Maines,” and it was the first time I encountered tribal stories from the Wabenaki. I enjoyed the stories of Gluskabi and the Wind Eagle, but most of the texts for the class were focused on what I understood to be representative of modern day Mainers, such as those imagined by Carolyn Chute in The Beans of Egypt, Maine or Ruth…
Because of the pandemic, 2020 brought me more opportunities to learn and grow. Below are the highlights of experiences and texts that have helped me to reconsider my ideas and behaviors and to develop as a professional and as a person. Although this year was a strain in many ways, I made the most of “found” time — rather than commuting for hours a day, I spent more time reading and attending online conferences and workshops. As a part-time employee,…
Photo credits for Pacific octopus (blue) and camouflaged octopus: Public Domain by NOAA’s National Ocean Service Project Overview The focus of my project work for our faculty learning community (FLC) has been to gain a better understanding and application of integrative social pedagogy in high-impact ePortfolio practice. According to researchers Bret Eynon and Laura Gambino, authors of High-Impact ePortfolio Practice, integrative learning includes the key component of “reflecting in community” (38), meaning ePortfolio reflection is enriched by visible and interactive…
I have started researching to see how programs are incorporating peer review into their ePortfolio practices. This summer in a nursing course, I was able to work with one cohort of students on multiple occasions. Since we were 100% remote, they were the first group to try out the launch sequence. I made a class visit to answer questions and create context for their ePortfolio work. I also surveyed them to get a sense of perceived usefulness of the launch…
This year has been more dynamic than any I can remember. To better understand racism in America, I have been reading and listening. I have lived in America for my whole life, and yet I still have so much to learn about America and American history. The purpose of this post is for me to reflect a little and consider the sources that are shaping my thinking as well as the media that I am engaging with best as I…
I first encountered Jean Twenge’s research in her 2017 Atlantic article “Has the Smart Phone Destroyed a Generation?” and soon incorporated it into my English 110 class as a reading connected to my students’ Social Media and Self essay. It happened that Twenge was giving a live workshop during my class time in the spring of 2018, so my class and I watched and listened as teachers and professors from around the country reacted to Twenge’s research. My students and…
I have taught using a variety of models. As with many veteran teachers, most of my experience is in a traditional classroom, teaching face-to-face, also known as the “on ground” model. Although I enjoy this model, I prefer to augment this delivery with a course site and the use of digital tools, often with a digital project. Some would consider this to be a hybrid model (also known as “blended”). The definition of hybrid varies based on the teaching institution,…
For much of my early teaching career, I did not engage with technology much. When I first started teaching, I taught in a public school that had 2 Mac desktops, and it seemed like a waste to me because what I was going to do with 2 computers and an average of 30 kids in each of my classes? So I left it to the “tech” people to engage students during “computer” class. When I think about teaching now, I…