Do I Help Too Much?

March 16, 2023 / Katie Winkler / Leave a comment

Simply put, yes!

Of course, I tell myself that I help so much because I care, and I do; more than that, I truly like my students–no matter what their age or socio-economic status. However, just like a too-permissive parent, sometimes I help simply because it is easier to do so than not. Yes, I could say that I’m being pushed to help my students more and more, but the reality is, I am helping more to help myself feel better. If I work more and they work less, while they still maintain an A, or in some cases a B, then maybe they will like me, and they, or their parents, won’t complain to the administration or give me a poor evaluation. Maybe I can keep my retention and success rates up so that the administration will see me as a good and effective instructor because the data will prove it, right?

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Therefore, I assign work due on a regular schedule and reinforce the due dates with reminders in the morning on the day something is due. These reminders appear on a Course Announcements forum and in the students’ college e-mail, but I am aware that many students do not check their college account regularly, so sometimes I go to our college’s retention management system where I can send messages to the student’s personal e-mail as well. If their grades get too low, I report that to the student through the LMS, copy that message, and send an alert through the advising and retention system, which sends messages to a team of people, including a “success coach,” an advisor, and sometimes one of the counselors. BTW, students can access their gradebooks at any time through the LMS and know exactly where they stand as I make sure to keep up with my grading, especially recording zeros when students miss work.

I also answer student e-mails and messages during each work day, usually within minutes, and often after 8:00 pm in the evening, on weekends, and vacations. If students say they need the assignment explained more clearly, I explain it again. They miss class and need to have more explanation than the thorough instructions already given on the LMS? Okay, I supply that explanation in an e-mail.

Why am I over-helping? I never did it before the advent of the early college or before so many online classes. Perhaps I never helped this much because all of society knew that to be successful in college, students would have to take on more personal responsibility for attending regularly, reading important material, following instructions, working diligently, and meeting deadlines. You know, like they will have to do in real life. For whatever reason, I’m helping too much, and I need to stop because it is bad for my students. Now that I’m teaching seated classes again, including a large number of high school students, I can see that doing too much leads to dependence and a lack of confidence, something I began to see in my students before March 2020.

The pandemic only exacerbated a growing tendency to lower our expectations for the sake of younger or underprepared students. High school students should be treated differently than college students, apparaently. I mean, how can we expect them to perform as college students when they are facing so much and times are so hard? Almost all of our students have to work, so we shoud be more understanding and offer more extensions on assignments when many of us already offer a more than generous late work policy.

We educators breed some of these problems because we want, we need, our students to perform better, on paper anyway, because that is how we are judged as educators by our data-driven society. We can’t afford to let the students figure out how to do things for themselves because then they might receivie less than desireable grades, withdraw, or fail, and if that happens, it is a poor reflection on us, so we provide as much as we possibly can. To do anything less would be wrong, wouldn’t it?

But now I ask myself, isn’t it equally as wrong to deny my students the opportunities to build the all important life skills that will mean more to them, and their employers, than anything else–skills like reading comprehension, time management, clear and concise communication, problem solving, critical thinking, respect for authority, persistence, and resilency?

Students acquire these skills only by being challenged. In order for that to happen, I have to stop trying to make the way quick and easy by smoothing over every trouble and answering every question. I must take the much harder route of leading them, sometimes painstakingly, to answers they discover for themselves.

Is Convenience Overrated?: An Educational Fable

February 12, 2023February 13, 2023 / Katie Winkler / 1 Comment

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So let me tell you a story:

The English instructor was in a rush that day, like too many other days, and she needed convenience. She hadn’t eaten much, and as a Type II diabetic, she needed to, but there was no time to go in, sit down, and have a decent meal, or so she thought. She decided, against her better judgment, to stop by a fast food place. She had heard that some places were offering more healthy options and that nutrition information is listed for the customer’s convenience, so she could just quickly get in line and get a salad or something.

That wouldn’t be too bad, would it?

The first place she saw she just passed on by because the line was so long. The next two places were no different, but the fourth place was a charm–short line. She got up to the board and found out why. The choices were limited–not really any healthy options as she had hoped– and the service was extremely slow and unfriendly. She didn’t blame the worker, though. Who wants to work for $7.25 an hour at a burger joint? And with the staffing problems these days, probably working double shifts as well.

Finally got her food. A Combo #1 because she mistakenly thought that would be the most convenient. Not exactly the healthy option she had hoped for. On top of that, it wasn’t really the kind of food that she could safely eat while driving, so she pulled into the parking lot to eat it while sitting in the car.

She thought it might be good to check her work e-mail while she was eating in case a student had a question or concern. For the convenience of the students, the faculty had been told to answer questions for students as soon as they can, you know. She reached over to grab the phone, accidentally hitting the lid of the container that held her food, including the three packets of ketchup that she had squirted out to put on her French fries. All of the ketchup and some of the greasy fries ended up on her skirt and blouse.

Therefore, when she returned to the college, she had to go to the restroom to clean up. Fortunately, she thought, she had a convenient little emergency laundry pen she carried in her purse for just such occasions that would take care of that ketchup in a jiffy. However, once she got to the restroom, she couldn’t find that little pen anywhere, even after searching through her purse for a few seconds, so she just gave up and did the best she could with a wet paper towel and a bit of soap.

Smelling still a bit tomatoey, she headed to her English composition class for workshop day, an opportunity for students to read each other’s essays and ask for advice, but before the workshop could begin, one student informed the instructor that he would have to leave in thirty minutes for a doctor’s appointment. Two students came up together saying they were up late the night before closing at the restaurant where they worked, so they didn’t have time to write the rough draft. Could they have an extension?

The instructor, having been told by her supervisors to do everything possible to accommodate the customers and to “find a way to say ‘yes,'” took the first student’s essay and told him that she would do the workshop herself, scan her feedback, and e-mail it to him, and of course, she would give the other two students their extensions. Then, they packed up their computers and began to leave, saying it would be more convenient for them to work on the essays together at home since they had the same work schedule. Of the remaining ten students in the class (there were 18 enrolled), two had partial drafts written in their notebooks and four students had rough drafts without the required in-text citations and works cited list. Only four had completed rough drafts with the proper documentation.

The instructor passed out the workshop worksheets and went to the computer closet down the hall to bring two students who had forgotten to bring computers despite numerous convenient reminders during class and through the LMS (Learning Management System). She came back to find that another student had packed up and left. “They said their hand was raised but you ignored it and then just left the room, so they went to ask last semester’s teacher for help,” said another student.

Then, there was Greg. Unbeknownst to the instructor, the previous day Greg had worked until six as a pharmacy assistant. He had taken the job to see if he was interested in becoming a pharmacist. It wasn’t easy balancing the job with all of the other things he had to do, but he was saving up to transfer to UNC-Chapel Hill, his dream school. After work, he had gone by to pick up his little sister who is a junior at one of the local high schools. She was at basketball practice, and his mother, a widow, didn’t get home until late some nights, so he was glad to help. He had to wait for his sister a little, but it gave him time to check on his classes. He saw the reminder from his English instructor that the rough draft of one of the class’s major essays was due for a workshop the next day. He hadn’t even started.

At home, he and his sister whipped up some whole wheat spaghetti noodles and heated up a bottle of his mother’s homemade spaghetti sauce that she had canned the previous weekend since she knew it was going to be a busy couple of weeks. They made a salad with some fresh vegetables from the garden to go along with it. Since their dad died, they were on a pretty strict budget, and the vegetables from the garden their mom started saved them a pretty penny. Even better, working in the garden was a good chance for them to relax and be together as a family. His sister loved it so much she was planning to take a class in horticulture at the college in her senior year. Right now, though, she wanted to concentrate on doing well in her high school classes, playing basketball, and helping out around the house.

Their mom got home about the time Greg and his sister sat down to eat. She joined them and they had a nice meal, talking about their days and laughing together, but Greg could tell how tired his mom was. She was a nurse and the long hours at the understaffed hospital where she worked were really getting to her. Plus, she was still grieving for their dad. They all were. His sister had some tough discrete math homework to do, and he remembered how hard that was, so he volunteered to do the dishes while his mom went to watch some TV and have a little downtime. His sister sat at the table and shot him questions when she ran into a tough problem. After he finished, he sat down beside her to help some more. It felt good to get off his feet.

He had some other homework to do and a test to study for, so it was getting close to midnight when he finally started working on the essay, but he knew it was only a “messy” draft, and as long as he met the basic requirements, a complete three pages, double-spaced with at least two sources cited in the text, and works cited list, he would get full credit. He was pretty tired and tempted to just not worry about the draft, but then he remembered his dream of going to Chapel Hill and becoming a pharmacist like he promised his dad he would. He went back to work and finished the paper around 1:30 am.

The next day in class, Greg waited patiently for his English instructor to look at his essay, but time was running out. Finally, she came around to him with about five minutes of class left. “I’m so sorry, Greg,” she said, “Now that classes have been shortened again for the convenience of students, we’re almost out of time.”

“That’s okay.” He tried to sound cheerful but was a bit disappointed. She had been an English teacher for a long time, and he valued her opinion.

“But I feel bad.”

He believed her.

“Listen, do you have time to stay and come to my office? I could take a better look at the essay and give you some feedback.”

“Sure,” he said. “If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all.”

They went to her office, and she spent thirty minutes with him talking about organization, sentence structure, and word usage. He even started understanding comma splices better, finally. He was definitely sleepy from staying up late the night before, but in the end, it was worth it.

After Greg left and his instructor turned to the dozens of assignments she had to grade before she could allow herself to go home, she smiled, thinking the same thing. Definitely worth it.

The End

And the moral to the story: A homemade education slow-cooked with care and concern by students, faculty, and staff beats a fast, “millions sold per day” credential designed, not to satisfy, but to placate. That kind of education wears off awfully fast, leaving the “customer” malnourished, yet ravenous, once again.

If You Ask Me…

November 12, 2022 / Katie Winkler / 1 Comment

When state performance measures came out this year and the Credit English Success (p.7) rate was below the average band, my first instinct was to become defensive. “It’s not my fault!” I wanted to scream and quickly blame someone else. Another instinct was to point the finger at society’s focus on data. However, after the initial flare up of self-protection, I calmed down and began to reflect more completely on the entirity of the report, which helped to put things into perspective. I want to be prepared to offer suggestions for improvement should anyone ever show any interest in what a retiring English educator with 33 years of experience thinks.

Although our college is considered below average in Credit English Success, we are above average in College Transfer Success (p. 17.) This is encouraging to me because it says that despite extraordinary circumstances such as the pandemic with its accompanying economic and cultural effects, our students who transferred to four-year institutions were well-prepared to continue their education.

Another encouraging factor is that while we are below the average band, only by .03 index points, I know we, and I don’t mean just the English department, I mean the entire college, WE can do so much more to help our students perform better in their English classes. One thing is already in the works, and that is a push to encourage, or even to require, students to take their English classes early in their programs. However, there is more that we as a college can do to help improve College English Success. Here are a few ideas:

Normalize high standards for reading and writing. If students heard from every instructor across divisions how important reading and writing well is to success in school and the workplace, and if instructors incorporated more reading and writing assignments in all classes, our scores would go up.
Improve the writing assessment skills of instructors. Although most instructors have advanced degrees in their subject area and are experts in writing within their discipline, few have had any formal education on how best to assess reading and writing skills. Understanding ways to incorporate reading and writing assessments within instructors’ particular divisions based on the writing assessment techniques already used in the college’s English department would be a way to permeate all programs with a consistent standard without violating any instructor’s academic freedom. Topics of professional development could include

incorporating vocabulary and other reading lessons into any course
adding consistent writing criteria into advanced grading methods such as rubrics, checklists, and marking guides.
composing engaging writing assignments with clear instructions.
teaching best practices of composition teachers and explore how to translate these techniques into the non-English classroom
how to save time when grading written assignments while maintaining high standards of written communication
Promote the importance of communication skills throughout the College, maybe even plan special events that highlight the importance of reading and writing in all disciplines. Many organizations are eager to partner with community colleges, groups such as PEN America and the National Writing Project that declares, “Writing is essential to learning, critical thinking, and active citizenship” (NWP).

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Across the campus, teach not only students but also faculty and staff the importance of strong reading and writing skills for school and for the workplace. Here are just a few facts.
- Reading well improves the ability to follow instructions, and reading complex texts, like literature, peer-reviewed scholarly articles, and professional journals, increases critical thinking, a skill highly prized by today’s employers according to World Economic Forum.
- An August 2022 article from Business News Daily, reports on the professional benefits of reading books, fiction as well as non-fiction, including fostering empathy and creativity as well as developing problem-solving and cognitive skills. According to the article, reading can even lessen stress and build perseverance, skills students definitely need now and in the future. Imagine if all instructors were curating interesting and engaging readings for their students. They would be expanding their knowledge of their own disciplines while encouraging their own students to develop their reading skills.
- The importance of strong communication skills in the workplace continues to be of high importance in 2022 as reported by major educational institutions like Harvard and MIT as well as career-seeking sites, such as Indeed, Monster, Zip Jobs, and Linked In.

Another thing we can do to work on the problem is to develop a college-wide system for remediating students who need extra help with their writing. For example, when I was a graduate student at Western Carolina University low these many years ago, I worked as a graduate assistant in the Writing Center. I would often tutor students who had received a “CC” on their essays in a course other than English. I can’t remember what CC stands for after all of these years, but I do remember that professors gave CC’s to essays that did not meet basic college-level English standards. Students who received two CC’s would be enrolled at no expense in a remedial English program. The word was that no student wanted to endure that class, so they would come to the Writing Center for help. I remember receiving a thank you note from one grateful student whose scores on all of his essays improved upon just a few visits to the Writing Center. Our college might do something like this–develop a system to identify students in non-English classes who have writing issues and allow them to complete revisions for a higher grade only if they visit the Student Success Center to work on that revision. We already have a referral system in place, but if all instructors could be more proactive in addressing the need to improve writing skills campus-wide, then our success rates would increase.

Just a few ideas of what the college as a whole could do to improve our English scores. Next time on Hey, Mrs. Winkler I’ll offer some suggestions on ways the administration can help English faculty as they struggle to help improve retention and success for our students.

Even if they don’t ask me.

Finding a Way

June 10, 2022June 13, 2022 / Katie Winkler / Leave a comment

I’m behind keeping up with my summer loves, especially reading and writing, because I’m working this summer. It’s not too bad a gig–Monday through Thursday schedule, three classes instead of five or six, ten weeks instead of sixteen with a two-week vacation at the end. I can handle it this summer and the next because I have something to look forward to–permanent summer break.

Yes, retirement begins on August 1, 2023. I’m a little excited. Can you tell?

In the meantime, I make the best of things in my temporary office in the library at our college as we await the final touches being put on the new multi-million dollar building that replaces two of the oldest buildings on campus. One of those buildings was my work home for 26 years, so as the building is being torn down, I admit I have become nostalgic. Who wouldn’t?

However, I am not too sorry to see it go. It served us all well over the years, but it was built during a different time and doesn’t meet the needs of a 21st-century student body or its faculty. My students being able to access the WI-FI from my office will be a nice change. I hear the adjustable stand-up desks are really rad as well. Do people still say “rad”?

So, I watch the goings-on across the lake, answer numerous messages and emails, occasionally chat with colleagues, teach one small seated class, and grade, grade, grade the assignments and essays of my mere 43 composition and developmental students. During regular semesters, English faculty usually teach six classes and have 100 or more students. To earn an overload, an instructor must have over 110 students or more than six courses, so this “leisurely” pace helps a little.

Despite the tedious nature of grading essays, I know from long experience that working directly with student writing through grading and conferencing and therefore establishing a relationship with students as individuals is the most important work I do as a composition teacher. I do not think there is any substitute for it.

Hence the dilemma.

The demand for English instructors to deliver online instruction is higher than ever, but course loads that already did not consider how much time an English professor needs to deliver meaningful writing instruction online have not been altered to reflect the nature of effective andragogy in the English classroom and how it has been affected by the increasing number of online students.

In addition, the number of students desiring accelerated online English instruction has increased. If you take the already heavy grading load of a 16-week semester and cut it in half, something’s got to give. Often times that is the student, who may or may not have been advised that the course must cover 16 weeks of material in 8 weeks’ time.

Currently, I am the only instructor at my institution who is crazy enough to attempt teaching eight-week online freshman composition classes. I must say, now that I have taught them for several semesters, the accelerated classes work extremely well for a certain type of student, especially those who are working towards degrees to gain a promotion at work. Highly motivated students like those in our pre-nursing, emergency medical services, and law-enforcement programs also tend to do well.

Students who are not good candidates for online learning, are not prepared for the workload, are not willing to make changes to their schedules to make room for the extra time they will need to spend, or those who do not manage their time well, along with those who are weak students or writers in general, simply should not take the accelerated course.

But they do.

So what is an English teacher who cares about learning for ALL students, whether they should be there or not, supposed to do? Furthermore, what does an instructor do if she wants to infuse her own personality into her course and resists the impersonal “canned” classes that so often do not fit her institution’s student body and do not help build the vital personal relationships that are required for good teaching of any kind?

Find a way.

With all that extra time (guffaw) I have this summer, I am continuing to make changes in hopes that the Mad English Person who, after my retirement, steps into the perilous land of acceleration will have an easier time of it. Here are a few things I have done and am doing to help that poor soul:

Adding lessons–In my learning management system (LMS), I can create multi-media lessons that help guide the students through the essential material. My own simple questions can be embedded throughout each lesson that is automatically graded by the computer, allowing an easy low-stakes grade for the student and zero work for me. Of course, I must take considerable time to build the lessons, but remember, I have all that extra time this summer.
Early in the course, assigning paragraphs instead of full-length essays–Having students write paragraphs of seven to ten sentences instead of full essays has been a game-changer. I can still teach multiple rhetorical modes as required by the state, including illustration, process analysis, classification, and definition, but now I have more time to focus on the basic elements of any good writing–thesis, support, conclusion, organization, transitions, sentence structure, diction, grammar, and mechanics. In addition, I can grade closely without overwhelming the students. My constructive criticism seems easier for them to digest. Best of all–it’s doable for even the weakest of my students.
Fewer and shorter essays–Beyond a doubt, less is more. In an accelerated class, I must limit what students write for both our sakes, but I have found that the writing is stronger because I have more preliminary work leading up to the final draft that is low stakes for them and little work for me. Win. Win.
Require rough drafts but give little direct feedback. If one of the learning objectives is for students to revise and edit more effectively, why in the world am I going to revise and edit for them? How does that help anybody learn? I am handicapping students if I give too much feedback on a rough draft. I require them because they help students with time management, and I have an earlier draft to judge students’ revising and editing skills. Because I give mainly completion grades for drafts (and make sure students are aware of this), there is little work for me.
Line editing less–In the “old” days, I felt like I owed it to students to mark every single error I could find. No more. I save time, energy, and my sanity, by line editing the first paragraph of an essay, and then marking and making comments occasionally after that. I used to spend 45 minutes to an hour grading one researched essay, but now I can effectively grade one in half that time.
Make use of the LMS advanced grading system–I am not a fan of Turnitin (subject for another day), and I’m too close to retirement to want to pursue a change in our relationship, but I do make use of the LMS’s built-in advanced grading system. I can easily build new rubrics and checklists. I also have access to a “quicklist” when I am marking an essay. I choose from a long, long drop-down menu of common comments. Over the years, I have added links to webpages that give students more information or offer exercises to help them with various writing issues. It has really helped me save time.
Adding more required online sessions and conferences–I am able to record the sessions, so even though few students can attend live, one or two usually do, and the other students are required to view the sessions. Logs on the computer allow me to verify if the student downloaded and viewed the recording. The conferences are even better because I can speak in person to each student, which helps to form those all-important relationships between us through discussing the student’s writing and listening to their concerns.

I may be old and worn out, and some people can’t seem to wait to put me out to pasture, but I’ve been at this work a long time, and I am not afraid to say it–I’m damn good at it. I know what works, and letting some AI, no matter how sophisticated, do the instruction, may lead to better data in the short term, but it won’t lead to better writing–only holding students to a standard, then compassionately working directly with them and their writing can achieve that.

Yesterday’s Gone

August 27, 2020 / Katie Winkler / Leave a comment

So don’t stop thinking about tomorrow. Okay, enough with the Fleetwood Mac allusions. I’m getting a little bit punchy. It’s been a whirlwind start after a quiet summer without the usual activities. Sad? Yes, in some ways. I miss being with my friends and extended family but also very healing–a time to focus on exercising, cooking, reading, and writing–for myself!!!

I did work a great deal on my classes, taking my knowledge of new technologies and integrating them into my already strong online classes. (No brag, just fact) Our distance learning staff has been doing a lot of course redesign training, and I am trying to put their ideas into practice. So far, students seem to be responding well to the changes.

Speaking of students, I need to get to it, but I will leave you with a link to a great article from Inside Higher Education about the positive side of remote learning and the incredible job some inspired faculty with a passion for education, like the people I am blessed to work with, are doing.

Not Glorified Skype

NEXT POST COMING SOON!!!

Look for Updates on Teach. Write. and Mrs. Winkler’s reading and writing.

Mrs. Winkler Keeps Reading

June 13, 2020June 16, 2020 / Katie Winkler / Leave a comment

Updated June 16, 2020

NOTE: Scroll to the end to see additions to this review. CAUTION: SPOILERS

I joined an online book club for Western Carolina University alumni, and The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg is the first book we are reading. The book has given me some food for thought and its simple formula for changing habit (cue, routine, reward) has been actually working for me. I have completed short yoga routines for 80 days in a row and am regularly meeting my quota of 600 words a day towards completion of my novel, writing six of seven days a week for the past three weeks, just to name two examples.

Not bad.

One of the main themes of the book is not trying to suppress bad habits but to replace bad habits with positive ones through changing the routine. Duhigg explains and gives examples of the idea that habits are born of cues that trigger the behavior and lead to some kind of reward. He calls it The Golden Rule of Habit Change: “You can’t extinguish an old habit. You can only change it.”

He shows how this works by using a multitude of examples. In the first part of the book he shows how mainly positive examples, including Tony Dungy, coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who changed the team’s habits to eventually lead them to the Super Bowl and Bob Wilson, the founder of AA, how the program’s success for so many people comes in part from establishing new habits.

But in both cases, Duhigg talks about belief, not necessarily a spiritual belief, but some sort of faith must be present to successfully form good habits and this faith is normally found by being part of a group.

The chapter that will be most useful to me as a teacher is “Chapter 5: Starbucks and the Habit of Success.” This chapter talks about how Starbucks had become a powerhouse coffeehouse chain by, simply put, teaching willpower. At the same time, Starbucks has found that giving employees a voice is one of the ways to help develop the self-discipline and willpower needed to train and retain productive employees.

The implications for teaching are obvious–our students need to have more power over what they are learning. If they feel they have choice, they will be more likely to exhibit the self-control necessary to complete their studies

Interesting.

One of the most relevant parts of the book for today is “Chapter 6: The Power of a Crisis.” Duhigg gives an example of a Rhode Island hospital that made radical changes for the better by changing institutional habits following the senseless death of one of their patients.

Following the example, Duhigg states:

“But sometimes, even destructive habits can be transformed by leaders who know how to seize the right opportunities. Sometimes, in the heat of a crisis, the right habits emerge.”

Updated June 16, 2020

In response to a question posed by our book club leader, I wrote the following about the chapter in the book I appreciate in some ways but took exception to in others:

Overall, I have a positive reaction to the book and its author, but my perspective changed quite a bit towards both as I was reading Chapter 7, especially the Target example. The author seemed to treat this example in a positive light at first–as if intrusion into a woman’s reproductive privacy is no big deal. It is only when the marketing team and the data researcher finally question whether his intrusive data collection would actually make money or not that they apparently begin to question how pregnant women might feel.

Interesting also that the author gives an example of an angry father to make his point about negative reactions from the public. I found myself wondering what was happening to the poor young woman who was the daughter of that angry father. How did she feel about the father talking to a manager at Target about her pregnancy? Did the father kick her out of the house because she got pregnant? Did father and daughter reconcile? Is he forcing her to keep the child or marry, or not marry, the father of her child against her wishes? How does the young woman’s mother feel about all of this? But none of this matters to the data collectors or the author of the book, it seems. Maybe it does, but not enough to find out and give examples of how any individual woman feels about this kind of marketing strategy, I guess.

Perhaps the author being a male and the subject of his example being a male was my cue to go to the routine of rolling my eyes at this obtuse behavior. The reward is another great example for my students of sexism and manipulative advertising tactics.

After reading this chapter I was reminded how important it is to continue teaching my students about the power of persuasive techniques that are legal but border on, or are downright, unethical but widely accepted as the norm because they make a lot of money. It is up to my students as consumers to use critical thinking when viewing advertising and recognize the incredible powers of data-driven marketing. It is up to me as their instructor to provide proof of these questionable tactics and for that, I am grateful to the author and his book.

One final question: Why did the author not comment on the initial question the marketers asked the mathematician to solve?

Here’s the question: “Can your computers figure out which customers are pregnant, even if they don’t want us to know?” (182). (Emphasis mine).

That’s okay? I guess so because “Figuring out whose pregnant…could make Target millions of dollars” (184), and this little gem “So for companies, pregnant women are goldmines” (192). Oh, I get it. Priorities.

I think if there is a new edition, Duhigg should consider leaving out Chapter 7. It was the reason I gave the book four stars instead of five. At the very least, he should spend some time trying to get at least one pregnant woman’s view of this kind of advertising.

I know I have harped on the bad, but there is much good to be gleaned from the book as well, so I am glad I read it and have taken part in the discussion.

Encouragement

April 24, 2020April 26, 2020 / Katie Winkler / Leave a comment

One of the employees in our public relations department at our college had a great idea to encourage students during this difficult time by compiling short videos from faculty, staff, and administrators. I have been enjoying watching them as they’ve come out and was finally able to record my own, but alas, I was too late to be included in one of the compilations, so I decided to show it to you. I will also link this blog post to my students.

This video took only a few minutes to complete. I used the camera on my laptop, which automatically downloaded as an mp4 file, uploaded it to YouTube, copied the link, and pasted it on the blog. Wallah!

This little video may not make it to many students at my college to encourage them, but making it sure encouraged me for some weird reason.

Mrs. Winkler in Quarantine

If you haven’t had a chance to read the latest edition of Teach. Write., I encourage you to take a look:

teach.-write.-springsummer2020_edited Download

Note: Edited version available for download. I will post the print version when it is available.

Still Standing

March 18, 2020March 18, 2020 / Katie Winkler / Leave a comment

A great deal has happened since my last post, and I have been busy converting my three seated classes to online (I already have two other online classes to maintain), readying myself to teach my classes from home. My transition has been easier than some because I have been teaching online for years and even prefer an online environment in many cases.

I know many of my students do not feel that way at all. All of my students are dealing with upheaval in their lives in so many ways, and now this. Therefore, I have taken some steps to help us move forward in our class. Here are some of the things I have done, am doing, and will do to help my students finish the semester successfully.

Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. Last week, when we were still meeting as a class, I started preparing my students for continuing as an online class. It has helped that I already have a robust online presence. For years, I have posted online resources, and all assignments are already collected and graded online. My students are already used to the online classroom environment in many ways. One of the first things I did was develop a survey to distribute through the LMS that asks a few simple questions about their readiness to continue online, their comfort levels as far as DL classes go, and most recent contact info. I added a comment box, where they could write any questions or concerns.

Be positive. In my communication, I am trying to be as positive as I can while acknowledging the obvious difficulties we are all facing. I try to emphasize that completing an education is more important now than ever and that strong writing and critical thinking skills, which have always been important, will be even more so in the days to come. I also tell them that I believe in them, and I do. They will face this crisis and move through it stronger than ever before. I tell them they have a resiliency that some of them don’t even recognize they have. My students are some of the best, strongest people I have ever met, and they deserve to get a quality education no matter what the delivery system.

Integrate interesting technology. I love educational technology and most of my students do, too, so have tried to add some interesting assignments over the years. They use PowerPoint and Google docs, of course, but we create infographics and annotate text electronically. I have created screencasts with my iPad to show them how to research databases using our state’s virtual library. I show them how to use Survey Monkey for conducting surveys of their fellow students. I do glossary assignments using our LMS that allow them to create study guides as a class.

I want to start using more interactive educational technologies that will allow all of my students to see and hear each other. Here are some that I have wanted to explore more, but haven’t had time to work with much until now:

Flip Grid—Allows teacher and students to ask and answer questions through a video format. Smartphone- and user-friendly.
Collaborate—Allows for synchronous or asynchronous meetings with students. Through our LMS, I can create Collaborate lessons within the course just like assignments
Lesson packages—our LMS allows us to create whole lessons where we can add our own discussion questions, quizzes, or other assignments within the lesson that the computer can grade and send to the grade book. These packages help track which students are actually viewing the material or not.
Zoom—Similar to Collaborate, it allows for real time instruction.
Google hangouts—I took an educational technology PD course a few years ago and experimented with Google hangouts, but I would like to use it more. Really great for tutoring sessions because I can share my screen
Google Maps—I have wanted to add a Google Maps segment to my signature travel project in Brit. Lit. Now is my chance to explore it.
YouTube—the live steaming feature will be useful.
So many more. I will blog about my adventures as we go along.

It is a brave new world, but I am determined that I will give my students the tools to navigate it successfully.

Pet Peeves

January 5, 2020January 5, 2020 / Katie Winkler / Leave a comment

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Not earth-shattering. Not life-destroying. Not important at all in the grand scheme of things, or even in the niggling scheme of things, but here are some of my pet peeves. I freely admit that I peeve myself at times, and I’m sure, others as well. But here goes anyway–for kicks and grins.

Using st, th, and nd when writing dates–Example–January 1st, 2020. In American usage, the convention has been, and will continue in my teaching, to be–write January 1, 2020 and say January 1st, 2020. The problem is that the British often use the endings when writing the dates, leading to understandable confusion. I am an anglophile from way back, so I’m not dissing the Brits, but I am also an American English teacher, so I will teach American standards. Here’s more about it from Daily Writing Tips: January 1 Doesn’t Need an “st”
Placing the end mark outside the quotation marks–Example. She said, “We are in America, so we should use American punctuation conventions”. Yes, we should, and in American English the punctuation almost always goes INSIDE the quotation marks. “We should use American punctuation conventions.” Here is more on the subject from Grammarly: Does Punctuation Go Inside Quotation Marks?
Leaving out the possessive apostrophe OR adding an apostrophe with a simple plural. We need apostrophes, yet we don’t need apostrophes. The rules are simple:
- - Use an apostrophe with contractions or to show possession.
  - Do NOT use an apostrophe with a simple plural.
  - If the word ends in s, then generally the apostrophe comes after the s, but there are significant exceptions, such as when using irregular plurals.
- It seems insignificant, and maybe it is sometimes, but not using the apostrophe when appropriate and using it unnecessarily can both lead to misunderstanding and also drives Mrs. Winkler crazy!
- An example–I cant attend the New Years party, but I dont want to go to Sherrys house again because I dont like her childrens’ loud toys’ that company’s seem to love selling at this time of year.
- Now my spell checker caught dont, Sherrys, and childrens’, but not the cant , Years, toys’, and company’s because although the spellcheck programs are more and more sophisticated, they are not (yet) sentient and can’t replace a writer’s own careful editing and revision.
- Here’s more on the subject of apostrophes from Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (OWL), one of the first and still one of the best: Apostrophe Introduction
It’s and its, a problem that gets its own category. Its own category–no apostrophe because it’s a possessive pronoun. It’s a possessive pronoun--I used an apostrophe because I am using the contraction It’s to mean It is. I think people understand the rule for the most part, but its an easy mistake to make (I did that one on purpose. I swear). Here are the rules again (not trying desperately to be clever this time):
- It’s is the contraction for It is–Example–It’s snowing on January 5, 2020. The little trick I give my students is, “Can you say, It is in place of It’s? If so, then you have correctly used the apostrophe.
- Its is the possessive pronoun–Example–The horse chewed on its hay. I understand why people get confused here: Its is a possessive pronoun. We hear the word possessive, and we immediately think apostrophe, but I tell my students, think of it this way– we don’t write hi’s car or his’ car do we? Nouns that show possession use apostrophes; pronouns that show possession do not. Here is an exercise to practice distinguishing between the two from one of my favorite grammar sites–Grammar Bytes: Word Choice–Exercise 13
Capitalizing when one shouldn’t and not capitalizing when one should. Okay, I get it that people don’t want to capitalize. It is sooooooooo much trouble to hit the shift key and type a letter, especially when writing with a smart phone. But increasingly I am seeing words that should NOT be capitalized being capitalized, especially doctor, lawyer, mother, father, even brother and sister, as well as a myriad of other words that should not be capitalized in academic writing. I am not too peeved by occasional unnecessary capitalization, often the person is just trying to show respect, but often capitalization errors show a lack of concern for proper writing, even when the person is writing assignments for a composition class! Here is more about capitalization from Grammar Girl: When Should You Capitalize Words?
I definitely get peeved when a person does not capitalize the personal pronoun “I” when emailing an English instructor. Come on, guys! Get with the program!

How much can an English teacher take?

I promise I won’t get peeved with you if you submit your best work for publication in my bi-annual literary magazine Teach. Write. Submissions are open for the 2020 spring/summer edition until March 1. See submission guidelines here.

Thoughts at Year’s End

December 26, 2019January 16, 2020 / Katie Winkler / 2 Comments

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I haven’t blogged much this year.

Oh, well.

It isn’t that I’ve lost interest or feel that the blog isn’t important.

I haven’t and it is.

I have been forced to…no, I have chosen, to put my efforts elsewhere.

It has been a pivotal year for me in some ways, and I have discovered many things about myself, my teaching, my students. That’s never a bad thing. It has sometimes been a difficult year, especially for some of the people I love, but even those difficulties are not without worth, without purpose. The sorrows of the year have been tempered with joy. They haven’t necessarily made me stronger, but they have helped me to realize that weakness is not a sin, not evil–it is human.

So here are some thoughts about my year as an English professor:

Individual conferences continue to be invaluable and should be done earlier and more often. I have long held research paper conferences with my students and have almost always found them effective, but because the research paper comes later in the semester, some students are too behind to gain the full benefit of a one- on-one meeting time with me, so in the future I want to hold conferences more often.
I have always liked Oxford’s “personalised learning” model of tutorials where small groups of students (three or four) meet once or twice a week with a faculty member to discuss readings and essays. Although this style of teaching is not possible when a faculty member has over 110 students in composition-heavy classes like I did this semester, I would like to move in the direction of more individualized instruction when I can and make room for it in my schedule.
Less is more. This year, I had too many students, too many papers, too many assignments. For example, at the beginning of the fall 2019 semester, I had 120 students–three first semester English composition classes (close to 60 students and 20 online), one second semester freshman English composition class (20 students), close to 20 online British literature I students (composition heavy) and the rest an online eight-week study skills course. That course may seem like the easy one, but I do a great deal of time-consuming direct communication with students because it is such an important introductory course.
I know, I know, some of you teachers out there are scoffing at my “light” load, but these heavy teaching loads are not good for us or our students, and I for one am determined to work on making my grading load lighter so I can do justice to my students and have the time to give more meaningful feedback to them, which leads me to my next thought.
Discovering what meaningful feedback is. This year, I have relied more heavily on advanced grading techniques provided by our LMS, particularly rubrics and checklists. I have spent more time tailor-making grading tools for each particular assignment, so each includes more feedback with less effort.
I still make some markings directly on more heavily graded essays, but I usually stop at the first paragraph or first page and include a statement from my “quick list” that says “I will stop line editing here. See the rest of the paper for any additional comments.” (I LOVE my quick list embedded in the LMS’s advanced grading system that allows me to save common comments and quickly add them to the graded paper.) Then, when posting the grade I include this comment or one similar to it: “See the rubric and comments on the document for feedback. Contact me if you need more information.”
My marks on papers are more useful to me than students. This year I have come to face the fact that most students don’t read or try to understand the marks that I make on their essays, but I continue to line edit the first paragraph or page and make spot comments throughout the essay because it helps me grade more accurately and efficiently. I typically grade ten or more essays in one sitting, so it’s easy to lose track of each paper’s strengths and weaknesses. However, if I have made comments, it’s easy to flip back and re-read them before marking the rubric.
The downside of plagiarism detectors. This year, I have encountered less direct word-for-word plagiarism but more academic dishonesty. How can that be? My theory is that students use the plagiarism detection software incorrectly or they do not understand or abide by the basic tenets of proper documentation.
Quite a few of my students, therefore, are turning in papers that are at best poorly documented and at worst out-and-out plagiarized because often they will only change around a few words or retain the syntax of the original quote. Sometimes, these quotes are simply dropped into the paper without any attempt to integrate them into the paper. In addition, some students will include complete works cited lists at the end of the papers but have no internal citations. Occasionally, they will question why this is considered plagiarism and seem truly baffled that I would give the paper a low grade or a zero. Next thought.
Our society thinks too highly of technology. Don’t get me wrong. Modern educational technology is a great tool. I love it and embrace it, but it is only a tool. It can’t do the heavy lifting required to be a good writer, which comes more from reading and comprehending complex texts than from any other single thing. But online writing, like this blog, does not lend itself to the deep, intense labor of reading that is needed to give birth to good writing. Also, technology makes the process of revision and editing easier in a myriad of ways, but I have yet found a truly effective way to motivate my students to use the tools technology supplies. One draft, and I’m done, seems to be the mantra.
Five Easy Ways. One way I have tried to help students grasp the concepts of revision and editing is through my “five easy ways” to revise writing. These are simple concepts that I learned in graduate school that can help students learn to find and revise errors. Not always effective when students have been writing one draft only for years. However, students who persist consistently improve. Isn’t that always the case?
The continued value of working with others. I am an extrovert. I tend to draw energy from being around and interacting with people. I like collaboration, working together with people toward a common goal. And I continue to enjoy my extroversion. One of the great things that happened this year was the world premiere of my play Battered, probably the best thing I’ve ever written and would have never happened without the director, who is one of my closest friends, the cast, crew, and so many others. It was wonderful–one of the highlights of my career as both a teacher and a writer.
On the other hand, I have also been learning the value of working alone. I have been a people-pleaser most of my life. It goes against my nature to do things just for me without someone suggesting or guiding me, or vice-versa, but as an effective English instructor with 30 years teaching experience, I now see the value of not trying to convince others that my way is the best way but simply doing things my way to the best of my ability, while listening to other voices I trust, like my colleagues at the college, continuing to research andragogy, the teaching of adults, and being humble enough to honestly assess my teaching and make changes when necessary.
One big change I made as a result of teaching an eight-week freshman composition course is streamlining the course–fewer papers, fewer assignments, less ineffective feedback, but more information provided through advanced grading methods, which are standard for all students, and personal communication, only when requested by the student (forcing the students to take more charge of their education has been a big plus). I do NOT plan to teach in the summer ever again, please Lord, no, but I did keep the eight-week model and spread it out to 16 weeks this past semester, and all would have been well if I had not made the stupid decision of picking up a third first semester freshman English course. My fault, not to be repeated.

I definitely have plenty of thoughts floating around, but this blogpost is getting a little long and have a novel to work on and some after Christmas sales to hit, so I will sign off for now and blog some more later.

BTW, this is fun and relaxation for an English professor on holiday.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Everybody!!

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