Today is Wednesday of Week 3. Here is a link to Week 3. I hope you are enjoying this week's reading! The second reading assignment is due today, with the storytelling assignment coming on Thursday. Then, as people write their stories this week, I'll be adding those to the randomizer for commenting so you can comment on both stories and introductions this week: there will be lots of stories in the randomizer!
Class Procedures and Reminders
Canvas modules. Now that Week 2 is over, I've moved it down to the bottom of the Canvas modules list so that Week 3 is on the top, and I've done the same at the class calendar. I'll do that each week as the old week finishes and the new week begins.
Class Procedures and Reminders
Canvas modules. Now that Week 2 is over, I've moved it down to the bottom of the Canvas modules list so that Week 3 is on the top, and I've done the same at the class calendar. I'll do that each week as the old week finishes and the new week begins.
Reading like a writer. Each week your reading notes are meant to help you when you tell your own story. So, make sure you read all the pages of each reading assignment, but don't try to take notes on everything. Instead, focus your notes on the specific story/episode(s) that you would like to tell in your own way. More tips here. As you get more practice writing stories, you'll be able to see just what kinds of notes you find most helpful for your approach to your writing stories.
Project Stack. I've replied to all the assignments turned in before noon on Sunday, and I'll keep reading and replying to the Sunday items today. While you are waiting on comments back from me, you can check the stack to make sure I received your project.
Project Stack. I've replied to all the assignments turned in before noon on Sunday, and I'll keep reading and replying to the Sunday items today. While you are waiting on comments back from me, you can check the stack to make sure I received your project.
As the #ScholarStrike continues today, I'd like to share some important information about racism, white supremacy, and the policing of education, especially policing with educational technology (see yesterday's post for articles and videos about racism and Gen. Ed. at OU). So, in solidarity with those who are striking, here are some questions I think we need to ask about education in this country in the year 2020, four hundred years after the first enslaved people were forcibly brought to the English colony of Virginia; read more at The 1619 Project.
And now... connecting to higher education, starting with a blog post by Michelle Pacansky-Brock: Why Higher Ed Can't Change. Here are just a few of the questions Michelle asks, and they are the same questions I ask myself too:
- Why are so many college faculty, staff, and administrators afraid to make mistakes?
- Why are the ideas of treating our students with kindness and centering teaching in trust often received with defiance and skepticism?
- Why do administrators feel the need to control communications with written protocols, especially in a time of crisis?
- Why are so many faculty requiring students to turn on their webcams?
- ...see Michelle's post for many other hard-hitting questions...
And as Michelle argues (and I agree) the answer to these questions is this: white supremacy.
To realize just how white supremacy pervades higher education, see this brilliant essay by Tema Okun about white supremacy culture: perfectionism, sense of urgency, defensiveness, quantity over quality, worship of the written word, only one right way, paternalism, either/or thinking, power hoarding, fear of open conflict, individualism, etc. You may think these are all just "how things are" ... but they are instead part of a racist culture on which this country was founded, and if we want to reform higher education, then we are going to have to find ways to change that racist culture and create a new culture based on racial justice and social justice. That's what the #ScholarStrike is about.
Grading, for example, is a strategy that schools use to rate and rank students against one another, using perfectionism as a weapon to make people feel weak, focusing on their deficits, as opposed to the idea that teachers and students can all be learning together, using our strengths to help and empower one another. From Melina Juárez Pérez:
Surveillance is another way that universities attempt to control students and also faculty, with tools like TurnItIn and the LMSes like Canvas gathering information that is then used without our knowledge or consent. I've been documenting this data-grab by Canvas for the past year, and here's an account from a Canadian student, Bryan Short, trying to get control of his LMS data: Inside a Student’s Hunt for His Own Learning Data by Sydney Johnson at EdSurge (podcast with transcript).
And if you're wondering where all this surveillance ed-tech is going, here's an article about China, where the government has gone much farther in tracking and controlling students... but the students are fighting back: Camera Above the Classroom by Xue Yujie.
Now in the pandemic, more and more U.S. schools are using invasive ed-tech surveillance for test-proctoring, and students are fight back here too, with petitions against Proctorio and other forms of ed-tech policing. To learn more about that, here's a great essay by Shea Swauger: Our Bodies Encoded: Algorithmic Test Proctoring in Higher Education.
So, I hope you will take some time now and throughout the semester to ponder the question of racism and white supremacy in American higher education, and to also learn about how ed-tech is being used to police both students and teachers. And for more about the #ScholarStrike, visit the Scholar Strike website; they are sharing materials at their site throughout the strike today.
There was also a write-up at CNN!
