{"id":35,"date":"2019-09-10T16:39:47","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T16:39:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.usnh.edu\/clusterlearningatplymouthstate\/chapter\/cathie-leblanc\/"},"modified":"2024-05-31T18:34:07","modified_gmt":"2024-05-31T18:34:07","slug":"cathie-leblanc","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.usnh.edu\/cluster-learning-at-plymouth-state\/chapter\/cathie-leblanc\/","title":{"raw":"Hope in Community","rendered":"Hope in Community"},"content":{"raw":"

Summer 2019<\/h4>\n[caption id=\"attachment_179\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"285\"]\"\" I took this photo on August 14, 2019, as I headed into the first day of University Days. I call it \u201cReflecting on PSU.\u201d[\/caption]\n\nWith more than 70 of my colleagues, I have spent a significant portion of my summer participating in the\u00a0Cluster Pedagogy Learning Community<\/a>\u00a0(CPLC). Although the community will continue to work for the full academic year,\u00a0our final assignment<\/a>\u00a0of the summer asks us to \u201cdiscuss your key takeaways from the CPLC experience so far, and explore how you hope they will inform your work at Plymouth State over the upcoming academic year.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>Here are my thoughts.\n\nMy takeaways regarding cluster pedagogy (which we are starting to call\u00a0cluster learning<\/em>\u00a0because pedagogy is a bit jargon-y and because we want to focus on the learning more than the teaching) are so many that I don\u2019t think I can list them all. For example, one of the ideas that has emerged from the community is one-pagers, which I\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0about earlier this month. (Here\u2019s the\u00a0final version<\/a>\u00a0of my syllabus one-pager.) I am creating a set of one-pagers of my own to help students understand the syllabus, the idea of a one-pager, etc. I am also going to ask students to create their own one-pagers about topics related to climate change as well as about the Habits of Mind (HoM) and their individual practice and development of the HoM. I love this idea for a lot of reasons but particularly because it presents a great way to discuss purposeful communication. As we talk about one-pagers, I will relate them to the various ways that we can communicate the same information and get students to start thinking about why you would use a one-pager in one situation and a research paper in another situation. Another takeaway regarding cluster learning is the idea that in project-based learning, the project is the main meal rather than the dessert. In many classes, students learn some concepts and then apply those concepts to a project. The project in these cases is the dessert\u2013it comes after the learning. In project-based learning, the students learn the concepts while they are engaging in the project. So to implement this in my class, I am going to have students work on the Digital Polarization Initiative as it relates to claims about climate change. The project involves investigating claims about climate change in order to learn about climate change. Students will publish the results of their investigations on a central web site called\u00a0https:\/\/climatechange.plymouthcreate.net<\/a>\u00a0(if they choose to\u2013it\u2019s important to give them choice about how public to make their work). Although I have seeded the site with some claims that students can choose to investigate, they will be allowed to investigate any claim they want. As I said, I have a lot of these kinds of takeaways.\n\nBut I have kind of a \u201cmeta\u201d takeaway about this work. The thing that has been most valuable to me about the CPLC is the LC, the learning community. As I said in a post on our Moodle site, \u201cWhat I was not able to fully express on Thursday is the level of anxiety and fear I feel for our institution, our students, myself as an individual, our country, our entire world. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m always aware of the level of anxiety and fear that I feel. Those are scary emotions that can lead to despair and\/or cynicism so I try not to give a whole lot of brain space to them. But this learning community, this group of people coming together to steward positive change gives me hope for the survival of the things I value. I am grateful for the hope and it helps me to keep working.\u201d This is something I want my students to feel. I want them to see themselves as part of a community. Even more, I want them to see themselves as agents of change, as people capable of creating the world that embodies their values. Helping students develop this sense of agency is the reason that I have been engaged in this work since the beginning. Helping my students understand their ability to make a difference in the world is the way that I have chosen to make a difference in the world. Working closely with 70+ people on this effort is a rare privilege. And it\u2019s difficult to express how profound the experience has been.\n\nI am entering the upcoming academic year optimistically.\n\n\"\"<\/a>","rendered":"

Summer 2019<\/h4>\n
\"\"
I took this photo on August 14, 2019, as I headed into the first day of University Days. I call it \u201cReflecting on PSU.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With more than 70 of my colleagues, I have spent a significant portion of my summer participating in the\u00a0Cluster Pedagogy Learning Community<\/a>\u00a0(CPLC). Although the community will continue to work for the full academic year,\u00a0our final assignment<\/a>\u00a0of the summer asks us to \u201cdiscuss your key takeaways from the CPLC experience so far, and explore how you hope they will inform your work at Plymouth State over the upcoming academic year.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>Here are my thoughts.<\/p>\n

My takeaways regarding cluster pedagogy (which we are starting to call\u00a0cluster learning<\/em>\u00a0because pedagogy is a bit jargon-y and because we want to focus on the learning more than the teaching) are so many that I don\u2019t think I can list them all. For example, one of the ideas that has emerged from the community is one-pagers, which I\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0about earlier this month. (Here\u2019s the\u00a0final version<\/a>\u00a0of my syllabus one-pager.) I am creating a set of one-pagers of my own to help students understand the syllabus, the idea of a one-pager, etc. I am also going to ask students to create their own one-pagers about topics related to climate change as well as about the Habits of Mind (HoM) and their individual practice and development of the HoM. I love this idea for a lot of reasons but particularly because it presents a great way to discuss purposeful communication. As we talk about one-pagers, I will relate them to the various ways that we can communicate the same information and get students to start thinking about why you would use a one-pager in one situation and a research paper in another situation. Another takeaway regarding cluster learning is the idea that in project-based learning, the project is the main meal rather than the dessert. In many classes, students learn some concepts and then apply those concepts to a project. The project in these cases is the dessert\u2013it comes after the learning. In project-based learning, the students learn the concepts while they are engaging in the project. So to implement this in my class, I am going to have students work on the Digital Polarization Initiative as it relates to claims about climate change. The project involves investigating claims about climate change in order to learn about climate change. Students will publish the results of their investigations on a central web site called\u00a0https:\/\/climatechange.plymouthcreate.net<\/a>\u00a0(if they choose to\u2013it\u2019s important to give them choice about how public to make their work). Although I have seeded the site with some claims that students can choose to investigate, they will be allowed to investigate any claim they want. As I said, I have a lot of these kinds of takeaways.<\/p>\n

But I have kind of a \u201cmeta\u201d takeaway about this work. The thing that has been most valuable to me about the CPLC is the LC, the learning community. As I said in a post on our Moodle site, \u201cWhat I was not able to fully express on Thursday is the level of anxiety and fear I feel for our institution, our students, myself as an individual, our country, our entire world. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m always aware of the level of anxiety and fear that I feel. Those are scary emotions that can lead to despair and\/or cynicism so I try not to give a whole lot of brain space to them. But this learning community, this group of people coming together to steward positive change gives me hope for the survival of the things I value. I am grateful for the hope and it helps me to keep working.\u201d This is something I want my students to feel. I want them to see themselves as part of a community. Even more, I want them to see themselves as agents of change, as people capable of creating the world that embodies their values. Helping students develop this sense of agency is the reason that I have been engaged in this work since the beginning. Helping my students understand their ability to make a difference in the world is the way that I have chosen to make a difference in the world. Working closely with 70+ people on this effort is a rare privilege. And it\u2019s difficult to express how profound the experience has been.<\/p>\n

I am entering the upcoming academic year optimistically.<\/p>\n

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