Turn off the screens and let students write
Creativity and Concept Mapping Software - consider the Mary Jacob approach
Outlining Software - Good for planning and organizing documents
Dictation - "Writing by Dictation"
Avoiding Writer's Block
Concerns Expressed in an Andrea Lunsford Proposal for a "Folio Thinking" Project• Risk of fragmentation in the students learning career;.
• Low degree of reflection in the learning process due to a vanishing learning history on the
part of the student
• Decreasing student of motivation
• Lack efficiency in how students handle information
• Low level of reuse of information and knowledge by students
• Bad or absent meta-data system to help students manage their knowledgeAnticipated Outcomes
Folio Thinking is a set of behaviors and a mindset that leads to four ultimate outcomes:
• Improved student problem finding and solving;
• Greater meta-discursive analysis (Students conceptualizing their own learning);
• Increased student self awareness; and
• Increased awareness of others' ways of thinking.
"How will we reach these goals? We intend to reach them via a set of inter-related strategies
which include the development of guidelines for how students will engage in Folio Thinking,
with the guidance of trained elder students at each testbed and the involvement of testbed faculty
who will channel their course activities in such a fashion that supports the use of an electronic
portfolio. This project is enhanced by our co-development approach. We will test our ideas and
theories at the same time as we develop the requirements for an electronic portfolio technology."Review the entire proposal at http://sll.stanford.edu/communications/ news/wgln_projects_april_01/foliothinking_prop.pdf (download large PDF document)
Matt Barton's E-Portfolio Concerns
• Who is the owner of the items uploaded into an ePortfolio (the individual, institution or a combination)? What mechanisms are in place for resolving ownership issues?
• How will colleges and universities inform users of the rights of authors and publishers to documents stored in their portfolios, and what can and cannot be included, and what is possible under “fair use?”
• How will the system guarantee that the owner of the electronic portfolio created the work?From his post at Kairos News: "ePortfolio: Does the E mean 'Exploitation?'"
Two examples from Andy's students this year:
How can we encourage students to engage with audiences outside the classroom? To what extent do our students have a responsibility to their larger community? How will interactions with these communities (social, academic, professional) better prepare them for post-graduate challenges?
Outline of an "Engaging" class for English Majors
"Engaging the Community: A Workshop for English Majors"
Creative Expression
Write a poem and submit it to a journal (after asking "What do editors want?")
Write a poem and perform it
Write a play and have it produced
Media
In Print: Letters to the Editor and Guest Opinions
(The California Aggie, The Davis Enterprise, The Sacramento Bee)
On TV: DCTV
Education
California Poets in the Schools
The Writing Ambassadors Program
Other Volunteer Opportunities
Next Week (March 4): "Encouraging Independent Learning with Tools and Methods that Students will Love (Self-evaluation, collaboration, pod-casting, and blogs)"