A Public Service Announcement! ;)

A Public Service Announcement! ;)

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Eval Has a Name...

As I eagerly await the arrival of my Spring 2014 evals at Washington State University to see if what my students told me in person -- that they enjoyed the classes, felt comfortable with me, etc. -- matches what they put on paper and correlates with quantitative equivalencies, I note a previous employer still has me listed on one of its major faculty info pages.

While I'm a little loathe to post it here since I know I have readers from El Paso check in from time to time, and I sort of like having access to the page and don't want anyone to get it removed, you can see basic eval data for every class I taught there from June 2008 to Spring 2013 by looking for the "Previously Taught Courses" here.




I'm happy to say they illustrate a sincere, reflective educator who learned how to navigate the best and worst of that campus & departmental/program culture. I hope for 3 things from my evals from Spring 2014:  1. They do indeed match up with anecdotal comments from students 2. They show how I quickly navigated that new campus/department culture after a tough, shell-shock of a first semester experience (possibly designed that way, as I reflect) and 3. They have not been unduly influenced or tampered with by outside influences.

Once I have the info and can see which of my hypotheses are correct or wrong, I'll post another reflective statement. I hope it'll be one in which I can detail changes made between Fall 2013 and Spring 2014 which paid quantifiable dividends in my teaching.

In the meantime, you can view some qualitative feedback on my courses via my Google Drive public folder (especially in the "Appendix" document).

Friday, May 02, 2014

Brian Michael Bendis on Diversity in Comics



He has a pretty interesting quote here, does the man who has probably made one too many white jokes in his comics but has done a great job of addressing the issues as he sees them. I'm using this post as a placeholder, because I've got something coming up for which this will be great, but you can enjoy it for whatever reasons float your boat.


Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day!

May 3, 2014. Visit your local comic shop, pick up some comics for you or some friends, and enjoy this multifaceted literacy event.

Thursday, May 01, 2014

@ The Chalk Face Plays "What If" w/ Standardized Testing


Over at.. um... @ The Chalk Face, there's an amazing, well-written article on the new slate of education "reform" and its accompanying reification of standardized tests as ultimate measures. Please, please read.

The author asks and answers the question "What if we knew the tests are WRONG… and still used them? What reasons could there be?"