Read “What an Open Pedagogy Class Taught Me About Myself” which provides one student’s perspective on the impact of an open pedagogy assignment on their self-understanding. Consider and respond to the following questions in a comment below:
- How does this student’s perspective change how you think about your assignment?
- After reading, are there things you might revise or do differently with your assignment?
- Is there space in the assignment to invite students to reflect and consider their identity as learners?
7 thoughts on “One Student’s Perspective”
For so long, I used to assign students to identify literary devices in Eng. 201. I presented these terms for students to remember, and I’m quite sure they will not recognize any of these terms by next semester.
I will have to make the course more student-centered and have students choose their material from the beginning of the semester. They would select their readings and create a mock panel from it. One of the students would pretend to be the author, another would be a critic, another would be an overall expert of the period the author is writing in, and so on.
After the mock panel experience, I would have them reflect and write about what it was like to play those roles and research the roles they had to play and what they have learned.
I loved this moment in particular: “NOW I was getting it. I was linking the Biology to my personal life which was my inspiration and in doing this I found more links (a genetic link) that I continued to explore even further in my next post.”
I had been thinking of the 9 panel comic as a kind of regurgitation and now…perhaps it needn’t be! Perhaps it is less of a retelling and more of a reaction. It can be personal, reflective, whatever the student wants to. bring.
This piece is making me think about offering less direction than I originally envisioned. Instead, I’d like to allow more space, more freedom.
And now I see I’ve sort of already answered the third question — is there space in the assignment to invite students to reflect and consider their identity a learners? NO, but there should be! I think the assignment itself can be a reaction and reflection, followed by more reflection. And perhaps not just reflection, but feedback, on the assignment itself.
This was interesting, and inspirational, but I kept thinking “This is a high achieving student — would a less academically focused student get the same outcome?”. Then I thought , isn’t that the point: Not every student will be able to articulate the process as well as this author, but hopefully they will follow the process and learn something about themselves.
Of course, there will be students who don’t get past the frustration stage….just the same way they do in a traditional class. Nothing is perfect.
I have a few places in my class where I ask students to reflect on their choices in how they consume art, but I am thinking that is not the same as considering their identity as learners. Often, I get push back on my concert report — students don’t want to go. Especially since the Covid lock-down, some students are intimidated by the idea of going to a concert space. Generally I want to push them out of their comfort zone, but I am wondering if I should give a second option — “Albums you need to hear”, for students who prefers being home or being able to listen to something multiple times….
Obviously, I need to keep considering this.
The course assignment that the student described are great examples of constructivist learning. The professor supported the student to make sense of new information through open-ended inquiry, and the student was able to own it and integrate it. This is generally my approach to the assignments I have for students, however there are always a portion of the students in each class that fail to engage in formal assignments. This will be one area I will focus on when designing my assignment. I have open-ended choice for students in terms of topic or theme. I will try to develop choice in terms of the format, so they are able to express their ideas in a format that is meaningful to them. I may have an interim assignment that asks them to reflect on what type of learner they are, so they can take ownership of choosing a format. I will also have to show them examples of different formats.
I found the student’s feedback on open pedagogy to be incredibly insightful and thought-provoking. It completely changed my perspective and opened my eyes to the power of metacognition. The student’s emphasis on reflecting on their own thinking process has made me realize the importance of incorporating different teaching methods.
One particular aspect of the student’s feedback that resonated with me was when they mentioned, “It’s not information that was dumped on me. It’s not information that I was forced to regurgitate. It’s information that I voluntarily sought out and connect with my personal interests.” This statement truly captures the essence of open pedagogy and has inspired me to think more creatively and develop lessons that are both meaningful and proactive.
As I revise this assignment, I am determined to go beyond traditional reading and comprehension. I want to empower my students to enhance their reading and writing skills by engaging in thoughtful conversations and recording their responses through podcast media. This approach, which I haven’t previously incorporated into my teaching, aligns perfectly with the principles of open pedagogy.
After reading this student’s response to open pedagogy, I am confident that implementing these innovative methods will create a truly memorable and enriching learning experience for my students.
The student’s post on open pedagogy was fairly interesting and yet so tied to the biology assignment, I don’t see it have much of an impact on my thinking about the assignment or what I might do differently.
I will say that I did love the open-ended approach to the assignment that was so open, that she didn’t know what to do. That approach won’t work in my course, but I thought it was so great that the student had to think to the point of frustration at which point she realized what she needed to do.
Reading that post made me think of one of my favorite English teachers in college (poet John Tagliabue) who gave us an option in a Shakespeare course to write something like 2-3 papers during the course or to (if memory serves) to keep a journal about the plays (which he would check weekly, I think) and one paper. I felt that I would retain the material better if I kept the notebook, but went with the paper-writing b/c I thought it would be less work.
I bring this up b/c there is certainly something about working with the material (like having to blog — or in other words, write — about it) that forces one to become familiar enough or even fluent in the subject matter to be able to say anything interesting about it.
I think writing in general is a way of getting to know oneself better, and almost across the board with every student in MES153, regardless of ability, the students who do the writing improve over the course of the semester. And I think that’s the most powerful part of the course. I don’t think reflecting on their identity as learners would add to their experience.
I was really struck by how the student’s confusion and struggles were so quickly replaced with passion and motivation. As someone who recently began implementing nontraditional assignments in class, I have clearly seen how students can find greater motivation and confidence with their assignments than they do with more constrained traditional assignments. When the student said, “It’s information that I voluntarily sought out and connect with my personal interests. My biology class is personal to me through my interests.” This showed me how valuable self directed research and learning can be for students when they have control over their subject matter.
His depiction of his struggles though did remind me of how some students are put off by research assignments that allow them to choose any topic they are interested in. I agree with Ina that for some students they will not get past the frustration stage. I teach at another college where they recently completely changed the research assignment so that students choose their own topic and their own medium. While some students do well at this, I have found it helpful to give students suggested topics as guidance as many are not used to having such freedom with an assignment.
This piece makes me both want to leave room in my assignment for my students to get creative and chart their own paths, but at the same time provide enough guidance and instructions for students who are more anxious when things are not clearly spelled out for them. Identity is a huge factor in my assignments, and I hope that my assignment encourages my students to both reflect on their identity and also bring it into their academic work with confidence.