ePortfolio Cornerstone Community: Symphonic Reflections

on Different Ways of KnowingAAEEBL Conference Boston, July 20, 2010

Jean DarcyMichele CuomoBilly Jno Hope

Making Connections 2007QCC Team

Making Connections 2010QCC Team

The Student Wiki Interdisciplinary Group Project which partners English and Basic Educational Skills courses with an additional content course (currently in the following disciplines: Education, Nursing Social Sciences and Speech/Theatre) creates a shared student centered space through the technology of Epsilen’s Academic web platform which allows students to electronically archive and share their written, visual, aural compositions and research with others.

Wiki Collaboration TeamsSpring 2010

One Team Meeting in the Group Wiki

Symphonic ReflectionsThe guiding principle for this project comes from John Dewey’s “Art and Experience”, 1934. Here he claims that reflection occurs as a process as the individual makes form out of the disparate elements of experience.

To this end we have broken the reflection cycle into eight stages in an effort to make the process visible to students.

The reflection cycle is:1) Entering the Academic Community: Threshold Experience 2) Negotiating the Borders of Disciplinary Discourse3) Mutual Gift Giving 4) Selecting and Storyboarding5) Integrating Voice with Visual-Knowledge6) Producing and Distributing 7) Presenting to Audience8) Assessing Reflection: Part of the Reflection Cycle Itself

1) Entering Academia: The Threshold Experience

(Reflecting on Community)

• Welcoming “the live creature in his conditions.” John Dewey (1934)

• Recognizing the student’s meaning-making practices

• Helping students to see the relationship to disciplinary discourse

2) Negotiating the Boundaries between Disciplinary Discourses

(Reflecting on Borders)

• Communicating across disciplinary boundaries• Negotiating asymmetrical power relations (Mary

Louise Pratt “Contact Zones” and Randy Bass, Borders)

• Focusing on what we know and what we do not know in communal conversations.

3) Mutual Gift Giving(Reflecting on Collaboration)

• Writing is interfacing (Yancey, “Composition in a New Key”)

• Selecting web “objects”• Learning to Look at web “objects”

“What if I said that basically writing is … interfacing? …What about the circulation of writing, and the relationship of writing to the various modes delivery?” Kathleen Blake Yancey

“Composition in a New Key”

4) Selecting and Storyboarding(Reflecting on Choice)

• Deliberating on selections• Sequencing choices to create a narrative

5) Integrating Voice with Visual-Knowledge

(Reflecting on Different Ways of Knowing)

• Allowing for rich tensions between different ways of integrating knowledge

6) Producing and Distributing(Reflecting on Dissemination)

• Becoming a producer of knowledge• Developing agency in relation to audience

7) Presenting to Audience (Reflecting on Reception)

• Becoming aware of the relation between the public and private self

• Braiding and weaving personal stories into relation to other stories

8) Assessing Reflection (Part of the Reflection Cycle Itself)

• Online surveys taken a various points during the Reflection Cycle

• Aggregated survey data demonstrates student growth

• Recursive nature of surveys cultivates student awareness

“Songs of our Fathers”by a Freshman Composition Student

View the Digital Story

Lube - Soldat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xSOK7ODLSM

Lube - Soldat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xSOK7ODLSM

“Memories of My Mother”by a Freshman Composition Student

View the Digital Story

Circulation of Knowledge in the

ePortfolio Cornerstone Community

The LaGCC Making Connections Conference, Darren Cambridge in his presentation entitled “Authenticity, Deliberation and Integrity” proposes that teachers can scaffold assignments in a way that provides students with an experience of choice and reflection on choices that helps the students move through different discursive communities while seeing the self who composes there but, finally, understanding from those disciplinary experiences how to create a harmony amongst various forms of self, thereby, becoming a “symphonic self.”

Theatre and Theatrical Media

• Video Logs

• Aesthetic Distances

• 4th Wall and Direct Address

Javier performing Oscar

Student Essays as Dramatic Texts

• “I chose this character because it reminded me of myself. When I was young my family moved from predominantly black West-Indian neighborhood to a mostly white community. On my first day of the new school, I thought I was watching a “Happy Days” episode with a bunch of Richie Cunninghams. Her closeness to her family is the same as mine. Family is very important to me”

• - Navin, Theatre 120 Student on an essay by Farimah, EN 101 student

The Project as a High Impact Practice

• Common Intellectual Experience• Cornerstone Course• Global/Diversity Learning• Service Learning• Virtual Learning Commmunity

Educational Objectives

• Communicate effectively through reading, writing, listening and speaking

• Use analytical reasoning to identify issues or problems• Use information management and technology skills

effectively for academic research and life-long learning• Integrate knowledge and skills in their program of study• Differentiate and make informed decisions about issues

based on multiple value systems• Apply aesthetic and intellectual criteria in the evaluation

or creation of works in the humanities or the arts

Fall/Spring Retention

• Fall First Time/Full Time ’09:• 88.0%

• Fall First Time/Full Time‘09 Project Cohort:

92.6%

The Interdisciplinary Group Wiki Project which partners English and Basic Educational Skills courses with an additional content course (currently in the following disciplines: Education, Nursing Social Sciences and Speech/Theatre) creates a shared student centered space through the technology of Epsilen’s Academic web platform which allows students to electronically archive and share their written, visual, aural compositions and research with others.

Different Disciplines

“The project as a whole was great because it not only allowed me to sit back and reflect on my own personal metamorphosis into adulthood, but it also enabled me to apply psychological terms to experience”

Student #5 EN102 / PsychologyDenbo / Jankowski

  Survey #1 Survey #3 DifferenceNever 3.1% 2.2% -0.9%Not Often 9.4% 7.6% -1.8%Sometimes 30.0% 20.7% -9.3%Often 35.4% 35.9% 0.5%Always 22.0% 33.7% 11.7%

Never

Not Often

Someti

mesOften

Always

-10.0%

-5.0%

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

25.0%

30.0%

35.0%

40.0%

While doing this project, I considered how different disciplines influence one another.

Survey #1Survey #3Difference

11.7% Incre

ase in Always

What I Need to Learn

“One of the students from education informed me that I am on my way to self-actualization which means that I continually try to be the best by satisfying my cognitive need through reading books and articles. It actually makes sense, I strive for knowledge.”

Student #3Basic Skills - Kemmerer

  Survey #1 Survey #3 DifferenceNever 3.1% 2.2% -0.9%Not Often 6.2% 1.1% -5.1%Sometimes 22.0% 15.4% -6.6%Often 31.7% 45.1% 13.4%Always 37.0% 36.3% -0.7%

Never

Not Often

Someti

mesOften

Always

-10.0%

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

While doing this project, I considered what I need to learn.

Survey #1Survey #3Difference

13.4% Incre

ase in Often

Media & the Internet

“I could not help but be humbled by the positive reaction when I presented my digital story to the class….great things come from small beginnings.”

Student #10EN101 Counihan

 Survey #1

Survey #3 Difference

Never 4.0% 2.2% -1.8%Not Often 10.2% 4.4% -5.8%Sometimes 30.5% 19.8% -10.7%Often 31.9% 44.0% 12.1%Always 23.5% 29.7% 6.2%

Never

Not Often

Someti

mesOften

Always

-20.0%

-10.0%

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

While doing this project, I considered how media, including the Internet, influences my learning.

Survey #1Survey #3Difference

18.3% Incre

ase Often & Always

Think, Learn and Understand

“In the beginning I thought ‘wow’ this is hard. Then as one step led to another I saw it was easy. This project made me see I can do more than I think.”

Student #7EN101 - Darcy

Never

Not Often

Someti

mesOften

Always

-10.0%

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

While doing this project, I considered how I think, learn and understand information.

Survey #1Survey #3Difference

  Survey #1 Survey #3 DifferenceNever 0.9% 2.2% 1.3%Not Often 3.5% 1.1% -2.4%Sometimes 26.1% 16.5% -9.6%Often 39.6% 50.5% 10.9%Always 30.0% 39.7% 9.7%

20.6% Incre

ase Often & Always

Group Work

“This project helped me have more trust and belief in people.”

Student # 4Denbo / Jankowski

“It was an honor to interview the CLIP student.”

Student # 11EN101 - Counihan

Never

Not Often

Someti

mesOften

Always

-10.0%

-5.0%

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

25.0%

30.0%

35.0%

40.0%

While doing this project, I considered how group work impacts my own learning.

Survey #1Survey #3Difference

  Survey #1 Survey #3 DifferenceNever 3.9% 3.3% -0.6%Not Often 11.4% 8.8% -2.6%Sometimes 32.0% 26.4% -5.6%Often 37.7% 31.9% -5.8%Always 14.9% 29.7% 14.8%

14.8% Incre

ase in Always

Qualitative Analysis of ReflectionsName Memory Discipline Group Technology Project Presentation Change Future Like Reflection Stress/Challenge

Counihan 80% 70% 100% 80% 70% 30% 90% 80% 80% 70% 30%

Den/Jeff 53% 87% 100% 67% 20% 100% 33% 20% 60% 53% 27%

Darcy 100% 100% 100% 82% 41% 41% 36% 23% 64% 73% 27%

Arlene 27% 53% 100% 20% 7% 0% 7% 40% 100% 33% 13%

Lynch 0% 0% 56% 50% 6% 6% 0% 6% 50% 6% 11%

TOTALS 53% 63% 90% 60% 26% 35% 29% 29% 69% 46% 21%

Memory

Disciplin

eGroup

Technology

Projec

t

Presen

tation

Change

Future Lik

e

Reflecti

on

Stress

/Challe

nge0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

CounihanDen/JeffDarcyArlene LynchTOTALS

Value Rubric on Integrative Learning

Queensborough Digital Storytelling Example:

• The process followed during the Interdisciplinary Wiki Collaboration Project:

• English 103 Student – writes an essay and shares it with an Acting student

• The Acting Student "PRESENTS" the composition • The English Student REFLECTS on the collaboration process • Based on the project's collaboration, the English Student

revises/finalizes his essay and creates a DIGITAL STORY

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