Authentic Audience #slowchated March 9-14, 2015

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I took great pride in my work for elective classes in high school: often more than I did for my academically required courses. I played tuba in multiple bands, acted in most of our school plays, competed in speech and debate, and wrote for the school newspaper. Now, of course, the fact that I chose my electives was a motivator, but the biggest difference between those classes and my others was the audience. I knew that my work would be on display for my peers and the larger community, not just the teacher. I practiced and practiced the tuba solo in the Holst Suite because I knew how many people would be listening. I carefully revised and edited every submission I wrote for the Timberwolf Times because all of my friends and teachers would read my work. I did fine on the papers that I wrote for my teachers’ eyes only, but I rarely put the same type of effort into those assignments.

Coursework in the arts and many electives have always given students an authentic audience, while work in other classes is done solely for the instructor. Why? Personally, it wasn’t something I thought about much until recently. In the past, I had my students imagine an audience for their writing, but we rarely wrote for a real audience. This year, I’m starting to give my students real audiences for presenting their work. I’ve seen how sharing their work with a broader audience motivates and inspires many of my students. Still, I know I can do more and I want to hear your ideas.

These are the questions I have in mind, but they are subject to change as you contribute ideas throughout the week.

Q1 What makes an audience “authentic”?

Q2 How do your students create for authentic audiences?

Q3 How much audience participation do you want? How do you encourage or discourage it?

Q4 What is something you already do that could be enhanced with an authentic audience?

Q5 Where do you find an audience?

Q6 What is your “dream audience” for student work?

I’m eager to discuss this with you on #slowchated and I hope that you will take full advantage of the slow chat format. We have a whole week to find and post links, photos, and blog posts. Best of all, we have an authentic audience in each other, and audience participation is required. Ask questions, challenge assumptions, and learn from one another!

Cross posted at the Teacher With Tuba blog

For the love of reading…

Image from Personal Excellence

Reading. It’s the key to much of what we do as educators. Even the subjects that aren’t about “learning to read” such as Math, Science, and Physical Education still require “reading to learn.” And, of course, reading isn’t just about books. Reading is the key to digital learning, too. Heck, you’re reading right now so you will know what is happening when you read the #SlowChatEd tweets all week.

How do we become readers? How can we encourage our students to become readers? We’ll spend the week sharing titles and links to books, articles, and blog posts. Hopefully, these examples will reveal some of our personal experiences as readers and the experiences we create for students to turn them on to reading.

The Patient Art (and Flow) of Influence: #SlowchatED Dec 15-21

Courtesy of Maddie, @HallMiddle 8th grader

We often talk about influence as a commodity – something to be “peddled.” People make careers out of influencing others (e.g. lobbyists), yet the concept of “influence” can also have an unsavory undertone. Influence as a contagion, something difficult to contain once let out into the open; an idea or mentality (or substance) that sullies something pure.

What if we took more time to think and talk about influence as a spirit of connection, a frame of mind – one that encourages us to both share ideas with others (and perhaps see them take root) and open ourselves up to what other people think and believe (and to feel those ideas take root in us)?

Defining Our #EduFuture (August 18-24)

 

“The future” is a loaded term – one that evokes tremendous flights of imagination AND trepidation in myriad art forms.  Most science fiction looks into the future (or, like Star Wars, looks at societies from “long ago” that are clearly more technologically advanced than we are) and sees a mixture of fantastical technology and dystopic social realities.  The list is long: in the recent film Elysium, the technology exists to cure terminal cancer by simply lying down in a machine for a few moments, but this is only accessible to the wealthy who have fled Earth to live on a (really cool looking) space station; the rest of humanity lives in squalor and disease.

Our vision for the future – at least through the lens of science fiction – is rife with deep anxiety and stark dichotomies.

Is science fiction arguing that, the more powerful our technology becomes, the more fractured our social dynamic?  

Is Politics Still Taboo? – August 4-9

“I have solved this political dilemma in a very direct way: I don’t vote. On Election Day, I stay home. I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. Now, some people like to twist that around. They say, ‘If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain,’ but where’s the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote — who did not even leave the house on Election Day — am in no way responsible for that these politicians have done and have every right to complain about the mess that you created.” – George Carlin, comedian