Words, words: February 2013

I'm not sure this is an insight, necessarily. But as I think about what Training has to offer to Teaching, I find myself thinking about how I am using the two terms. The distinction is one that feels a bit arbitrary to me, because I feel like what I am doing now is simply a subset of teaching rather than a different thing altogether.

So what am I doing?

Right now, after 10+ years as a graduate student and postdoc, teaching between 1 and 3 sections of composition and literature courses to undergraduates at an R1 university, I find myself at the same university, teaching technology courses to staff. See? Teaching. It's impossible to get around it. When we talk about what we do in terms of mission/vision statements, it is always "training." What do we do? We train. But when we talk about what we actually are doing when we're in the classroom, it's always teaching. Where is Mary right now? Oh, she's teaching. She's actually teaching HTML. I don't teach HTML. I teach Microsoft Word (3 skill levels), Outlook (2 skill levels), PowerPoint (1 skill level), and Adobe Acrobat Pro (1 skill level). And the kitchen sink, for anyone who's counting. It's a far cry from "Composition and Rhetoric" and "Introduction to Literature"!

And how is it different, you might ask?

In grad school, when we talked about teaching, it was usually to define our role as teachers--our "classroom personae." We discussed different types of assignments--ways of "decentering the classroom," of "avoiding the banking model" (which I have discussed before, elsewhere), of promoting inquiry. We were excited about using technology to create community and to get students engaged with the material. We learned that it was not actually okay to be an expert in the classroom, and that students should be participants in their own student-centered learning, which meant creating group assignments and other assignments that allowed for investigation and critical thinking. At least, theoretically. My most successful experiment in decentering, encouraging active learning, and promoting inquiry involved student blogging. Hmmm. Go figure.

In technology training, on the one hand, we have a ready-made, hands-on, participatory situation. Each participant is in front of a computer. The are following along with the instructor, trying out the strategies that I introduce, and completing activities either on their own or as I show them on the projector. On the other hand, though "active learning" is a term that's all over training and professional development literature, I don't see what I'm doing as promoting active learning. They follow my lead. They repeat a model. If we're lucky, they remember something. If not, they have the book. Retention really only happens when there is something that registers as the answer to a problem or something that will be particularly useful in their own job contexts. As each of their contexts is unique, and as my experience with using the programs as support staff would do is limited, they supply the contexts and make the connections. I am largely unable to do that at this point.

At root, this is the banking model, hands on or not. I give them a skill (not knowledge--skill), and they give it back by showing that they know how to do it. Transference is big--how do we know that what they have learned in this 6-hour class will transfer back to the workplace? Well, we don't. And we have different skill levels coming in, changing job duties, and many repeat customers (university-affiliated staff--or their departments--don't have to pay) who come back to learn things that they didn't use after the first class, or that they didn't remember. They don't resent it, which is good. (Or most don't.) It is useful in a way that a writing or literature class seldom is, and so most participants are happy with what they can get out of the classes.

At the same time, I am very much expected to be an expert. I am not an expert. If I am an expert in anything, it is not in Microsoft Office. I would say that I'm getting there--certainly my comfort level is increasing. But I don't know the ins and outs of the programs--in part because I don't use them for any real-world applications. I am learning software for the sake of learning and teaching software. Hmmm. It actually feels a bit disingenuous--much more phony than teaching writing, which I definitely practice. I am, however, expected to be an expert. "Let's learn together" simply doesn't cut it here. "Let's try it out" is a little bit better, but there's definitely a bit of skepticism when I can't immediately answer the question, "What does this button do?" So having been taught absolutely not to lecture, and that the expert persona was rarely if ever the most effective way to teach, I am, in fact, having to lecture. I am, in fact, filling the role of an expert. (No, I'm actually not.)

I worry about this. A lot. Because this is not my preferred method of instruction. I like to be a co-collaborator and journey with my students. And being forced to seem the expert makes me feel completely incompetent, which is how some of my students (if not all, or even most) perceive me. And I don't want to learn this new mode at the expense of everything I have ever known about teaching.

So what does the training model offer?

There are some things that do transfer, but they are small things, practical things, approaches, methods, activities. But they exist within the sphere of training. Part of me worries about whether that crossover will be viewed askance by teachers in higher education. As universities are wondering what their roles will be in the changing perception of education, worrying about things like "customer service" and "utilitarian" models of education, I am coming from exactly that place. It could be that my insights will lend some rejuvenation and a sense of relevance, but I think it is equally likely that they will be dismissed as coming from exactly that threatening place. We do not want teaching to become training.

And what about the title of the post?

I return to the difference between teaching and training--particularly humanities teaching, which is where my interest lies. In the humanities, we teach because we are interested in perceptions--in "ways of seeing." We teach to change perceptions, or raise awareness of perceptions, or to promote new perceptions. I am thinking primarily of English and History, but the same could be said of Anthropology and Sociology, and perhaps even the soft side of Psychology. Of course, the groupings change, and I am aware that most of the above would/could be considered Social Sciences rather than, strictly speaking, Humanities. But perception is still key. (Some would, no doubt, correct or add that we are interested in "ways of knowing." I'll leave that possibility for now.) By contrast, training is about "ways of doing." It is practical. Applied. Hands-on. At least, that's the goal. It is the "how"--not the "why" or even the "what." (Well, it's a little bit of the "why," just differently... More the "what for?" than the "why?")

I'm afraid that by melding the "ways of doing" with the "ways of seeing," I will mark myself as irrevocably practical and applied. That my way of introducing relevance by way of training techniques, knowledge, and practices will be rejected because it is the Other against which, at this moment, higher education is poised. I stand to put a utilitarian spin on courses that are already marked as "service" courses, and I understand the politics of that kind of move, even if it is not my intent. And for a discipline that is struggling between being "unacknowledged legislators" and "mak[ing] nothing happen," it might not be the right moment for my insights.

This blog was created in response to a need. It is a personal need, on the one hand--to negotiate the space between teaching composition and literature, which I was trained to do, and working in training and development, which I am paid to do. The difference is an important one--the mode is different; the vocabulary is different; the expectations are different. And while working in the one area, I would like to keep my finger on the pulse of the other--in part, because I am a trainer at a university, which is sometimes a difficult place to be as an almost-but-not-quite-academic.

On the other hand, I believe that it is also a professional need. Training and teaching are, in many ways, not so different, and can learn from one another. I am grateful to my boss, who actually believed that someone with a Ph.D. who had teaching (but not training) experience could do the job--in this case, software training. I have not always been greeted with the expectation that I was good for anything, and that vote of confidence has been very important to me. But I am very much in a world that is separate from humanities teaching, where my insights are not always directly relevant, and where I gain new insights that could very nicely translate back to the undergraduate classroom. I wonder if they would be accepted in that arena...

As making connections is what I do, and what I love, I seek to bridge the gap. I know for certain that there are posts coming on these topics:

Classroom communication
REALLY using computers/software in composition classes
Rhetoric and Communication Styles
Personality-type reflections
Collaborative course guidelines/class rules

Words, words

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

"Ways of Seeing" vs. "Ways of Doing"

Monday, February 25, 2013

Another New Literacy-chic Blog

Teaching, Training, Blogging: An Introduction

Resistance

Objectives

Let's Communicate Like Adults, Pt. 2: The Class Contract

Computers in Composition - but really, this time