CEP 800 Storytelling Project

The Story of the Origins of Learning
(Daniel and the Tuba)

This was an interesting experience working with my son, experimenting more with technology and considering deep thoughts about the origins of learning. I never imagined that I would be taking sides with Plato! After finding Emily Bear and then listening to my son describe his learning process, I knew that was my angle. Yes, indeed, in some cases, knowledge is truly innate. Suzanne McKee

Click Here: CEP 800 Podcast Project MCKEE

Suzanne McKee's Podcast Project is complete! This was an interesting and challenging project. I struggled with Audacity, downloading it, using it and exporting it. In the end, I accomplished all that I was trying to do and more. I have been curious about using podcasts in some of my courses but have been hesitant to give it a try. This project has immersed me in Audacity and given me a wonderful introduction into creating podcasts.

Technology Steps:
Download Audacity (make sure it’s the right version for the operating system used)
Work in Audacity in WAV format
Download converter to be able to use WMA audio and convert to WAV
Save as WAV in Audacity
Download LAME
Export from Audacity to MP3 using LAME
Create a webpage account at box.net
Load the MP3 file to box.net
Link the webpage at box.net to the blog
Post the blog to the class in Angel

Bridge to Mosaic

So much of my life has been spent feeling pulled in different directions. This winter was a defining experience illustrating this internal push and pull. My teaching job had me pulled in two very different directions serving my department as chair and teaching a full load. My MSU course had me pulled in personal and intellectual directions that felt even more sub defined and different. I would like to take a moment to reflect and think about the various art topics and modules I worked on during CEP 882 to get a better idea of what I have learned in this journey.

Photography

There is some kind of artist deep within me that longs to get out and play. I have never tried to take good pictures before and found the process intriguing. Whether the subject is a landscape, a person or an event, the process is both thoughtful and intuitive. I can say the exact same thing about my better moments in the classroom. I need to be prepared and ready for class, just as to take good pictures, I need to have my camera charged and with me ready for action. Yet, in the moment, I may need to improvise and follow something other than the plan to really reach my students and have a great class session. Similarly, great photography is improvisational depending on the light that day and the flow of activity and all of the many variables that come into play. I see many similarities between taking great pictures and pulling off a great class session. Be thoughtful and intuitive.

Movie Making

For a variety of reasons, I would have never in a million years considered putting together little movies. Now, I am having inspirations on a regular basis for personal and professional applications for the program Windows Movie Maker. While the storytelling and artistic is of utmost important, the piece of this that was so critical for me was simply being exposed to and learning how to sue the technology. It would seem that there is no limit to the creativity that can be unleashed when planning and producing a mini movie project. There is the thesis, the music, the files, the text, the narration and on and on. My lesson here was to be creative and techy. I have been teaching accounting online for many years now. Accounting is probably not the best subject for the online world, but students are depending online occupational programs, and so I give it my best shot from one year to the next. Windows Movie Maker opens up a whole new world of online teaching possibilities for me. This is a tool that will greatly and very positively impact my teaching. Be creative and embrace technology.

Interior Design

I have considered interior design before, but I have never studied it in a serious manner. I am still fired up from this module. I have checked out interior design books from the library and started an idea book on my home. It is a sort of sketch book for ideas on everything from moving walls and making major transformational changes to ideas on paint colors and furniture rearrangement ideas that can be quickly and immediately implemented. Some of the big ideas that really stuck with me in this module are that silence can be powerful and complexity is not necessarily better than simplicity. I can really relate to the author’s point of view that as Americans our motto that “Bigger is Better” has gotten quite out of hand. We are spending and borrowing ourselves into oblivion. We live in huge houses and spend nearly all of our time away from each other. When I consider my teaching, it is not the physical space that matters. In my circumstance in teaching at a community college, it is not possible for me to design and decorate my own classroom. I rotate and teach in a variety of room assignments, which constantly change from one semester to the next. What inspires me about interior design concepts is the idea of space and simplicity. Keep it simple. Allow time for silence and pauses. Encourage students to have their own precious moments to think and analyze and develop their own thoughts unspoiled by a know-it-all, talks-a-lot student or even by an instructor that just won’t shut up. I have been playing with this idea in my morning Principles of Accounting I class. I set up short periods of time when the students think individually in silence to process and take us to the next level. I was afraid of silence. I was afraid that they would shut down. My experience has been quite to the contrary. This group is progressing at a faster and deeper rate than other similar groups. They are also quite talkative and engaged. These short bits of time for thinking have not dampened their engagement at all. Use silence and be simple.

Music

I adore music and have studied and performed for years. I was really looking forward to this module. Looking at music this time from a different perspective helped me to see that practice and variety are so important. Effective, powerful, inspired teaching requires many years of practice, preparation, study and improvisation. There is no one formula for becoming a great teacher. It takes a lot of time and willingness to experiment. The same could be said of becoming a great musician. It takes a lot of practice! Compelling music and compelling teaching include lots of variety. There are big moments and small moments, individual applications and group applications, and all sorts of flavors and moods and colors. In summary: practice and mix it up.

Fashion

Now this was a concept I had never given any thought to at all. After allowing this to sink in a bit and settle, I have more ideas on the subject than I did while going through the module. Most folks develop a wardrobe of clothes over the years. It is an accumulation of practical items, items on sale, special items and gifted items. This collection of clothes becomes our face to the world. Similarly in teaching, we pick up a certain way to work a lesson plan, a certain way to start a class, and end a class, and certain ways of doing things. It is our teaching wardrobe and how we present ourselves officially and outwardly to the world in our profession. The trouble is…it doesn’t take any time at all for our clothes and our ideas to become outdated. We regularly need to let go and take on the new, and this is a very hard thing to do. Be open to change and growth.

My mosaic is the composite of what I have learned in CEP 882 about how to live life well, create good art, and become a great teacher. My mosaic includes these key concepts:
 Be thoughtful and intuitive.
 Be creative and embrace technology.
 Use silence and be simple.
 Practice well and mix it up.
 Be open to change and growth.
 Never stop learning & growing!

What does it feel like when art is compelling?

Let me take a moment to focus on what it feels like for me when I experience compelling art. It is a deeply emotional, interior feeling. It is overwhelming and even embarrassing to feel that much. Sometimes I wonder if others feel what I feel. It could be compared to a deep religious experience. It takes over all aspects of my being.

Having studied yoga and the chakra system, it is a similar, complete mind-body experience. It effects all of my chakras at once. From my root chakra up through the sacral, naval, heart, throat, third eye, up and out through my crown chakra. The most recent compelling experience I had with an art form was my attendance at a rehearsal of the african drum ensemble, which is the focus of my WOA project for CEP 882. I was sitting cross-legged on the floor observing the rehearsal and letting myself go and be in the moment. As the drumming crescendoed, I felt the music throughout all of my being. The room was literally shaking from all of the movement and action, my root chakra was engaged and stirred up. There is a sensuality about drumming. The drum is secured between the players legs and becomes an extension of the person. Seeing this intimacy between player and drum engaged my sacral chakra. The players are thinking and playing and singing and chanting and playing. They are breathing and really sweating up a storm. Feeling this heat in the room from this exercise engaged my naval, deep breathing chakra. My heart was full. I felt alive and grateful and full of joy. My heart chakra may have been the most engaged of all. Throughout the drumming is lots of chanting and calling and singing back and forth from leader to players and back again. My throat chakra was also engaged sensing this communication. I had a lump in my throat as if I might cry at any moment. I was so full of emotion, I was ready to burst. I started having moments of insights into my life. My thoughts wandered from the meaning of life, to the goals of education, to how this particular leader was teaching and guiding without teaching, to what I really want to do with life, and on and on and around and around. My third eye was engaged and inspired to high levels of thought. My spirit was also stirred. Like a top note of a fine perfume, my thoughts wafted to ideas of sacred significance in this music. Surely there must be a god in this inspiring, captivating music. These thoughts and thankfulness about God indicate that even my crown chakra was in play.

For me, a truly compelling experience with the arts is a complete mind-body experience that moves my soul to higher places not at all a part of my common everyday experience. These moments affirm my humanity and thankfulness for being alive.

http://www.vnyoga.com/_/rsrc/1239121658927/about-chakras/chakras.jpg

Feeling Quite Poorly

Fashion is for skinny people with money. I am neither. It is profoundly discouraging to think and consider how I should be dressing when I have no available income for such purchases and when I do go out to purchase something simple like a dinner dress or a pair of jeans, I can't find anything that suits my shape and size. I am acutely aware of my appearance and clothing. I do the best that I can with what I have knowing that it really isn't all that great. There are only so many affordable jeans and dresses at Kohls and Penneys and they don't do it for me.

I find the hosts of the show "What Not To Wear" rude, condescending and arrogant. If I was the subject being humiliated and taunted by them for the purposes of cable entertainment, I would be devastated. My reaction to seeing this show was strong, emotional and enduring. I find myself still processing negative feelings a day later.

How then could fashion and education somehow be linked? Deep breath. Well, impressions are important. There is something to dressing the part and portraying a certain image in the classroom. Some female teachers look like "the mommy", others look like "the boss", others try to look like "the cool guy" but they really look like slobs or ridiculous or both, etc. For my particular teaching area with community college accounting students, I think it is important for me to look professional but also approachable. The whole point of the community college environment is to focus on teaching and reach students.

Looks and image are very important and do play a part in establishing tone in the classroom. I do the best I can with that.

Improvisation

I love music and I love teaching. What is it about these two processes that clicks for me? First off, let me clarify: I am not a music teacher. I teach college accounting. Upon reflection, I suppose I like playing the notes and not playing the notes. I like to go with the plan and go off of the plan. In teaching, the lesson plan guides the way. Call it a lesson plan or whatever kind of plan, I plan and think through the course and the semster and the chapter and the topic and put toether a plan. Most of the time, I work from my plan, sometimes adding a little here, sometimes taking a little there. Sometimes, I work completely off of my plan. I improvise in the classroom. Those are some my best classroom experiences with students. Improvisational teaching for me would not be possible without the plan. It would not be veering off track if we weren't on track most of the time. It is being completely in the moment and following where the conversation is going, where the questions are going, where the moment is taking us. It is always a little bit scary. In music, there is playing the notes written on the page, and then there is improvisation. I like them both and use them both in my teaching. I tend to stick to the plan, but when I do improvise in the classroom, it is a wonderful thing.

From reality to somewhere else

When considering what makes great music great, I think it all boils down to this: great music takes a person from reality to somewhere else. I have been analyzing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue as a likely finalist for my Music module project. What an incredible piece of music. If you really engage and listen, Rhapsody takes you away to another place and perhaps even another time. For me, it conjures up thoughts of expansiveness and energy. It makes me think of large projects and initiatives, as if I could take on the world and accomplish anything. It also makes me think of New York City, or any large city for that matter. I see and feel the hustle and bustle and energy in the music. You are really some place special in the thick of it and in the moment. It also makes me think of a great romantic love. This is a love with no bounds that means everything and transforms everything in a person's life. Rhapsody takes me out of the present moment and takes my mind to all sorts of wonderful, limitless places. And, I don't mean to suggest in any way that only classical music is capable of doing this. I think when considering what makes something compelling, it is that sense of "it". For some reason, thinking about what makes music compelling reminds me of what makes a design space compelling. It's that feeling of being somewhere cool, somewhere really on, somewhere beyond special. Music can do this. One of our assigned songs for the week was Christina Aguilera's "Ain't No Other Man". Just as with Gershwin, if I really engage and get lost in the music, I end up somewhere else. I end up at a club, dancing and spinning and being someone else. I feel cool, I feel in, I feel sublime. That transformative feeling is a rush. There is a somewhat recent commercial that typifies exactly what I'm trying to say about what makes music great, or what makes music compelling, or what makes music take you to another place. I think it is an i-pod commercial. It shows a young guy jamming out to his music. We can see the ear bugs dangling and swaying as the guy is moving and dancing and all over the place. He is truly free and totally engaged in his music. It's a youngish man, perhaps in his 20's, stylishly dressed in a rough kind of hip way. The ad shows him moving from place to place to place until he ends up at work behind a desk and then morphs back into his real self, which is a middle aged business man behind a desk. Music transformed the man into the free spirited boy, loving his music and loving life. I will do my best to try to find a link to that commercial, because that is it! Great music takes us from where we really are to somewhere else!

Now, it is interesting to lay this exact idea over the concept of education. Let's change "great music" to "great teaching". And so we have, great teaching takes us from reality to somewhere else. Yes, indeed! When I reflect back over the years and consider the best of the best teaching moments in my own life, it definitely has a ring of this element to it. I remember taking piano lessons with a certain piano teacher when I was in high school. At some point, he deemed that I was ready to begin playing Mozart sonatas, which was a big deal. I had to complete years of preparatory work before he would allow me to attempt Mozart sonatas. I still remember that day clear as a bell. His office was consumed by two enormous Steinway grand pianos placed side by side. He played, and I played. He played more and talked and danced Mozart. He described the times that Mozart lived in and what music meant to their culture. He emphasized the prevalence of dance in the music. So much music in Mozart's time has a physical element. It was not to be listened to solemnly in a concert hall. It was music for dance, movement, acting and performance. We were no longer in Indiana in a professor's crowded office. We were in Venice and Salzburg; and we were dancing and singing and playing. We were transformed to Mozart's time. To this day, I still enjoy playing Mozart, and I still remember that usually subdued piano teacher dancing and carrying on during my piano lesson. Great teaching does take us from reality to somewhere else.

...still looking for that music commercial...