Class May 31; prep for June 2

I want to start off this entry by saying that one thing that makes me truly, truly happy about our class is that we all are part of it because we want to make sure that people who haven't had good chances to be empowered, are given those chances. Of course, we differ on how we want to do this. And that diversity is VITAL to our productive group that has the flexibility to view (and review) Studio's Facilitator Training with multiple perspectives. Demonstrating that diversity is also what will allow the Facilitators you train to find their own preferences for how they facilitate. So, thank you for bringing to class your own identities & experiences & opinions, pedagogical preferences & careful consideration of others.

Our involved discussion about the assumptions underlying the language strategies--especially "Code Switching" [thanks to Eric and Sam]--productively unpacked a bunch of concepts and concerns that were under the table. We really worked through a lot of material here. Below, I'll get to the themes and principles that emerged.

And, like you guys said, maybe we stormed. Did we? With or without Lakey, I do think our conflicts were productive in that they helped us to see each others' personalities and roles within the group. Of course, we'll continue to do this. Going forward, I do want to make sure that we're respecting each other's ways of communicating, and really hearing the goodwill that we have for each other. In turn, this awareness related directly to thinking about the ways you're going to help your facilitators handle such communication differences.

Throughout our discussion of specific Studio Program revisions, several principles or themes recurred:
critical awareness and pedagogy
base practice in theory
base practice in experience
fostering student awareness of implications of writing with a specific purpose and for a specific audience
student-orientation of Studio practices; supporting student focus and agency; encouraging students; building student confidence where warranted
empathizing with student, and offering concrete and helpful advice
emphasizing an incremental learning model
emphasizing learning process (strategies for learning) over performance & outcomes
making Studio expectations clear, esp. to aid marginalized and hesitant students
collaborative nature of Studio--help group offer help and solutions; building group candor
[Additions? Please add in comments, or email me.]

After further discussion on Thursday--as we make our own impassioned revisions to the Facilitator Training Program--these and additional principles will need to be taken into consideration by the person who will revise the actual language of the strategies. Please consider if you are willing and able to represent the group's perspectives, and take on this revision task.
There is considerable conceptual overlap in this list, and there are clashes. Like I said, this makes for an effective Training. Also, it's pretty clear here that it would be harmful to standardize Mentoring and Facilitating practices. While we will each emphasize different things in our teaching, we're empowering the Facilitators to make conscious decisions about how they can best facilitate.

For Thursday:
Please rigorously investigate the various elements and documents (even handouts) of the Facilitator Training Program: https://sites.google.com/site/facilitatortraining/home. Select two or three that you really care about changing. Please make those actual revisions to the best of your ability, and post them to your blog. We'll discuss these as a class, identifying (and, no doubt, scrutinizing) those themes that our revisions embody so that we can clearly identify our values. In turn, those values will need to be considered by each individual responsible for rewriting her/his respective element of training next week.

Read Schunk & Zimmerman, Ch. 4, 5, 14, & 15. With this, we can do a Reading Studio again; we can work on bringing up the text's points during Training revision discussion; or another option?

Also, consider how you'd like to practice a Writing Studio, as we'd all benefit from a refresher, modeling and practicing.