We’ve begun reading two books that use the frame of letter writing to tell a story about different aspects of life in academia. We were encouraged to consider topics and receivers for letters we might write to explore our experiences working in higher education.
The Spring semester began with Marcy Nicholas, lecturer in English, walking us through her use of memoir to reflect on her journey as learner and educator. As a follow-up exercise, participants developed chapter/memoir titles to capture significant moments or meaning in our teaching and work with students.
We closed the semester with a nice lunch – afterwards sharing our Haiku and the benefits of using poetry as a form through which meaningful reflections about teaching could be generated.
We are now preparing for spring where we’ll explore creative non-fiction and fiction as a way to continue reflections about teaching.
What are the moments that punctuate your year? Can Haiku help you to capture the feeling, the place, the context in a succinct way?
In this session, we explored some of Noel’s poems with patron saints at the heart. Is there a patron saint (real or imagined) that represents some aspect of your teaching experience?
This TLT-sponsored Faculty Learning Community is led by Dr. Noel Sloboda, associate professor of English at Penn State York. He is leading the group to consider the creative arts as an avenue to reflect on our teaching. Dawn Oswald (Library) Andrew Caldwell (Advising), Jen Nesbitt (English), Marcy Nicholas (English), Fred Haag (Art), and Suzanne Shaffer (Instructional Design) are exploring this topic with Noel.
We began our meetings on September 16th with a nice overview from Noel of our approach to reflective practice using poetry. In this first session, we explored lists as a poetic device, using the poetry of Tony Hoagland.
What kinds of lists can help us to reflect on or describe our teaching experiences?
List of excuses you get before the final exam:
List of reasons why you got into teaching:
Etc., etc., etc…