1.Tobin speaks to the different roles he thinks instructors "play" opposite their students and the way those roles are often received. Of the roles, performer, party host, parent, and preacher, which is the most dangerous to fall into playing too often? Or, should an instructor only play one role all the time?
2.Arola speaks to the "fall of design" in this week's reading. How much truth is there in the idea that the author of the words needs to control the design and form of their display in order to control the meaning of the message? Is the visual as important as the words, and must they be created by one author?
Hi Amanda,
ReplyDeleteI love both of your questions. Your first one is especially thought-provoking to me, as I am still unsure of what my identity as a teacher will look like. In general, the preacher metaphor was the most annoying to me, but in general, I think all approaches have their benefits and drawbacks. This may seem like a cop-out, but I truly feel like no one approach is the best or the worst. I think effective teachers are the ones who adapt and shift their roles based on the personality of the class. So, some years maybe I'll have sleepy 8am classes that will benefit most from a performance approach, and some years I'll have incredibly shy classes that benefit more from a parenting approach. I think the hardest thing to learn will be how to gauge the attitudes and personalities of the students and go from there.
Regarding your second question, it makes me think of the saying: The medium is the message. I forget who coined that, but it stuck with me. In other words, the way in which we display our content is just as affective as the content itself. I largely agreed with Arola's points about how the interfaces that we use have become invisible--and that's a bad thing. I think it's essential for us to be critically aware of how we represent our content and recognize why we make the rhetorical choices we do when we design its presentation.
Hi Amanda,
ReplyDeleteSpeaking to your first question: I think it would be dangerous to play any of the roles too often. Like Dorothy, I think effective teachers stay alive to what's going on in front of them, rather than following any game plan too rigidly. Teaching, I think, is more like improv in that sense than a play. I also think it's dangerous for teachers to play a role they couldn't play without making a mockery of it. If, for example, you don't have a religious bone in your body, why ever play the preacher? Students are great bullshit detectors. That's how you know they can do the critical work they're always complaining they can't. They know when they see something disingenuous, so, as trite as it sounds, I think it's important to play the roles in which you can be yourself.