From 2004, addresses Media literacy in a number of American contexts: K-12, college & university, adult education, distance ed., etc. Article PDFs aren't freely downloadable, but if your library subscribes to SAGE publications, chances are you have it.
http://abs.sagepub.com/content/vol48/issue1/
and
http://abs.sagepub.com/content/vol48/issue2/
From 2006, this issue is edited by Michelle Stack and Deirdre M. Kelly. It offers a number of interesting and timely articles on the topic of media education in public schools across Canada.
Best of all, the articles are freely available in PDF format from the Canadian Society for the Study of Education (CSSE) website:
http://www.csse.ca/CJE/Articles/CJE29-1.htm
volume 22, issue 1 (2007) is a special issue of the journal entitled "the visible curriculum".
the articles all relate to the importance of the visual in society's educational spaces, and how this typically remains implicit or transparent in activities that go on in (and discussions that occur around) educational settings.
you can find a list of the issue's articles here:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=g772402966~db=all
discussion--that ever elusive state of classroom harmony and functionality. i'm sure that for most of us who have TA-ed it's been a tough thing to accomplish. either there's not enough (an eerie silence in which you can hear the clock tick-ticking in the back of the room [Ryerson clocks don't tick-tock, if you haven't noticed]*), or there's too much (off-topic rambling, either by one verbally capable individual, or by you, the TA, that sets off a chain reaction of simultaneous, possibly angry, murmurings). rarely do you find a balance.
yet, too, rarely do you find yourself entirely at one extreme or the other. even if we dread doing it, most of us are able to maintain a classroom discussion on some level. most of us can figure out what we need to do, both before we get to class and then when we're there, in order to make with the (productive) chatter. it's only once in a while that it gets away from us, and even then we're usually able to bring it back from the brink.
the important thing, then, is to look at all these times, and try to figure out what we're doing. both the good times and bad, those within the classroom and without. what is really going on when there's silence, for example? let's say i've prepared a mini-lecture for the week's tutorial readings. i've just unloaded the spiel on the class, and am now asking the three or four discussion/comprehension questions i prepared--each of which is meeting with a cold, tick-ticking silence. stuck in the moment, how can i ask myself, "what am i doing wrong?" so that i can come up with a correct answer that satisfactorily fixes it?
maybe one thing to ask yourself is "how far back do i need to go?" remember: you're in (at least) three temporal spaces simultaneously in a tutorial classroom.
(1) first: the space of the class itself, which includes what you are doing in the tutorial, what your students are doing, and what both of you needed to prepare in advance of this meeting.
(2) you are also in the space of the course, which requires that you entertain each other for a specific number of weeks. not only do you experience fatigue and flagging attendance as a semester's assignments come due, but you are at various states of comfort and familiarity with each other. what happens one week may contribute to how class goes off in subsequent weeks; as a result, and without intending to, it may be that the only way to make progress in the course is to go back and discuss previous events (in-class happenings, course expectations, subjective experiences, etc.)
(3) finally, you are in the space of your (respective) generations. as a grad student, you have a certain relation to the information and knowledge of your field that is quite different from the relation your students have to the same field. knowing where you stand and knowing where they stand may not be enough--you may have to talk about where each of you assumes the other to be, and what that means in terms of what learning can go on in the classroom (e.g. if you cannot even get students to listen to you because they think they can only learn from an expert [which you likely aren't yet], you will probably have to go back to this assumption and address it before you can even attempt to get some discussion going).
besides asking yourself how far back you need to go, you may also want to think about whether the way you're doing it is the best way. again, let's say that you are doing mini-lectures. do you have any evidence that this technique works? are there ways of asking the students how they feel without giving them to believe you don't know what they are doing? are there other techniques you can try? are there different ways you can configure the information (presentationally & representationally)? the classroom space (geographically and proxemically)? the space upon the chalkboard (symbolically)? where could you go for these and other answers?
of course the danger here is in stunning yourself into silence or, worse still, taking the silence out on your students (a kind of blaming the victims, even if they really should be doing the readings). sometimes all you need, at least in the short term, is a bag of tricks--quite literally. a magic trick, a good (preferably non-offensive) joke, or a disarming personality can serve as wonderful tactics to change up the task at hand, switching gears to a different task, or just generally shifting the classroom energy and power dynamics to flow a little differently. perhaps some knowledge of feng shui would also be useful.
in short, i don't believe any of us can become experts in the actual practice of teaching--the actual, temporal, non-abstract, and physically embodied experience of facilitating the learning of a group of students. however, maybe we can come up with some short-term tactics and long-term strategies that get us as close to expert as the ephemeral and constantly changing nature of the classroom permits.
* (i'm just kidding about Ryerson clocks, by the way)
pedagogy: the art or science of teaching. we each have one when we step in front of a classroom whether or not we've really thought about it, and whether or not we want to admit it.
but there are many ways of doing "teaching" that we rarely consider. when was the last time you considered using forum theatre to help students understand a concept?
i'll post some mainstream and alternative pedagogies over the next little while, realizing that some we can never use, and others we may not even like. but i'll post anyway, hoping that something might make sense to someone, interest someone else, or irk another into reaffirming their own practice by contrasting it with another.
happy teaching!
. . . but "pdggy" (pronounced "p-diggy") sounds OK, doesn't it? the idea wasn't a stuffy, formal, strictly academic consideration of teaching and learning, but more about how we can (all of us) come to our jobs as teachers or TAs with a bit of creativity, playfulness, and enthusiasm.
so stick around, bookmark us, or link to our feed. hopefully you'll find something interesting and maybe even relevant here.
