Principles of Best Practice

Explanation of outcome: 

Identify and Apply Concepts and Principles of Best Practice to Facilitate Adult Learning

In Andy's class, ELP 521, Adult Learning and Motivation, I examined the ways in which older adults learn and retain what they learn, often being their own facilitators for learning and its processing. I learned about the various stressors that make that process difficult and what can sometimes lead older adult learners to disengage, if they are unable to obtain needed social supports to ensure their academic success. I learned about the ways in which older adult learners often have superior spacial intelligence, due to being able to see "the bigger picture." This relates to their additional life experience and other physiological ways in which their brain function is different and in many ways more effective than students who are decades younger.  

Most interesting to me was the concept of transformational learning in the lives of older adult learners and how it impacts them. I learned that assisting in that process is very exciting to me. Transformative learning transpires when a singular experience or a set of experiences causes a deep seated change in the structures and premises of our thinking processes, actions and emotional responses to stimuli. 

The shifts can cause dramatic and startling changes in our perspectives and can alter our understanding of the world around us, our history and the life histories and circumstances of loved one's, like family and friends. Learning about these concepts, as they relate to older adult learners was a way for me to further develop my understanding of the learning process and also a way for me to discover and hone my strengths as a writing instructor, becoming more intuitive as an instructor and more connected to the internal dynamics and struggles which may be affecting the older adult learner. 

ARTIFACT:

Professor: Andy Job 

Student: Mrs.Theresa Kennedy-DuPay

Teaching Application Project/paper 

May 25th, 2013

ELP 521

A Creative Writing Workshop for Incarcerated Offenders

Class Design: This class was originally designed for incarcerated offenders and is a creative writing class, that is intended to increase literacy skills, while at the same time encouraging offenders, (who are by and large a very disenfranchised at-risk population with histories of physical, emotional and sexual abuse) to gain insight and understanding into their behavior. This behavior is often violent, deviant, predatory, and sometimes even masochistic at core. The issues of early childhood abuse and trauma are explored through writing prompts, designed and presented to the class by the instructor. Later group discussion is encouraged, from “work-shopping” the material. This feature of the class is optional and voluntary, and promoted in an effort to dissect the material of the free writes for hidden meaning within the subtext.

Sample Study: The sample for this case study was arranged with the aid of a local women's shelter that I've volunteered for before, over the years, doing writing workshops and various creative activities near the holidays. This shelter located in SE Portland is at an anonymous address, because of the need for the women to be protected from former spouses and partners who have been abusive. This includes former partners of both genders. 

The volunteers were four women between the ages of 23 and 38. Their first names are Talisha, Grace, Joy and Gail. (Pseudonyms). The women were not incarcerated offenders but rather survivors of domestic violence. The workshop, conducted at the shelter, lasted 90 minutes. I wanted to try my curriculum, one that I had created, for a “curriculum and design” class I took. I created a diverse curriculum for teaching easy-to-remember grammar exercises, to assist in the writing process and clarity. For example, learning the difference of (There, their, they're) along with providing creative writing prompts, which would inspire personal reflection and introspection among the classroom participants were my goals.

Activities: The first aspect of the class was the instructor introduction and then after the introductory lecture, in which I told the learners about my history, expectations regarding classroom conduct and mutual respect, and they in turn introduced themselves, I asked that all four participants do a 10 minute free write, in which they could write 2-4 paragraphs about whatever interested them. This included writing about current events, poetry, fiction or memoir. I then took all four examples of the free writes, to be saved for later analysis and assessment. At that point, I delivered some simple grammar exercises. The first exercise was the handing out of a paper, with the proper usage of possessive's presented and displayed. With each word the meaning is made clear, by way of a definition. Later a second handout is given to learners, in which a sentence is offered on the page, a total of eight in all. The learners choose how to use the possessive's and fill in the blank spot, with the proper use of a possessive. Examples are learning how to correctly use...

• • They're, there, their

  • Pear, pair, pare

  • Affect vs effect

  • Lose or loose

  • May or might

  • Who, whom

  • Your, you're

  • Then or than

  • Who or what

  • Lay or lie

  • It's vs its

Explaining the significance of these often-made mistakes helps many people to progress in their writing and ability to be understood, and achieve clarity. After going over some of these commonly made grammar mistakes, we began a series of free writes with various prompts that I have chosen for their significance and propensity to spark honest writing among individuals who may have experienced abuse in their childhood or young adulthood. The writing prompts used are included here.

• • My parents biggest influence on me was that fact that they...

  • When I look back on my life I recall my greatest difficulties were...

  • When I was in grade school or high school my most powerful memories are...

  • I don't know exactly what my future holds but I do know that I want to...

Learning Outcomes: This creative writing workshop has two learning outcomes. 1.) To slowly absorb important but often confused aspects of grammar and improve on those important yet often confused aspects of correct grammar. 2.) To incorporate courage and honesty when approaching the topic of creative-nonfiction and self reflection, when writing about personal history.

This will be done by providing examples of commonly made grammar mistakes and providing fill-in sheets, for simple to execute and retain grammar exercises. The learners will be encouraged to provide correct examples of using the words, possessives for example and their proper usage, by filling in blank sections of a handout and then later, by writing full and complete sentences with the proper use of the possessive as their only guide. This will include the proper use of words, and will also focus on proper punctuation at the end of sentences etc.

Assessment of Learning: Writing is a social act and process; learning to write with any proficiency requires adapting to a range of purposes and expectations simultaneously. Proper assessment of writing is not a process that can be measured so much with calculated or mathematical results, unless using multiple choice tests to access various aspects of simple grammar.

It requires more complex observation but change and improvement can be determined. As writing requires participants to engage in contextualized and meaningful engagement, often a risky emotional process, the assessment of writing and its progress or improvement is more intuitive and is best done by examination of multiple examples of writing. The best assessment therefore is done by direct reading by human participants, who can compare former writing samples with current samples.

Evaluation of the Learning Process: After doing four simple grammar exercises and explaining the concepts and how important and really easy to remember they are, I asked the four women if they had a better understanding of the grammar rules and if they felt they could apply them better in the future. One of the women indicated she could and that it was easier for her to see the rules displayed simply on a large 8 by 10 sheet of paper, rather than reading chapters in a book, which with the different formatting, bold, italics, underline and other aspects of formatting were often confusing to the eye and to the reader, resulting in not being able to remember the rules as well. She said she would keep the hand-outs and by simply reading them as they were written, she would remember the grammar rules more effectively.

I then asked the women to engage in another free write (the third for the workshop) for 15 minutes and pay special attention to the content of their writing “be brutally honest, if you can” I told them. I also encouraged them to observe the simple rules of grammar that we had examined and discussed previously. After the free write, we read two free writes, of the four written, who were willing to share. After I read the two examples, I gave positive verbal praise and encouragement to the volunteers. I did not indicate where they had made errors or had misspelled words, as the first session with a group such as this, must be conducted with no focus on failure or weakness but only on what the participants are good at accomplishing.

I encouraged the women to begin keeping journals and to write in them daily and gave them information, in the form of a hand-out on the “Write Around Portland” writing groups that are sponsored in the Portland metropolitan area at which point I ended the session. The workshop lasted just under 90 minutes, at one hour 20 minutes, slightly shorter than I had hoped. By examining the 12 free writes, the first as compared the the second and then the final free write, I was able to see the manner that the women were able to internalize a better understanding of grammar, its uses and then to incorporate that developed awareness into their own writing. I saw the courage they displayed in the honest dissection of past trauma, betrayal and family discord. I was able to see from the first and final writing samples, particularly, that the women were able to use reason and critical thinking to gage where and in what ways to use the grammar rules I had presented and discussed with them. By having a better understanding of simple grammar they were better able to convey meaning and less encumbered by insecurity with regard to their writing skills. Though this manner of assessment is less precise than assessment of another discipline, such as math, science or geography, assessment can be done to see in what ways an individual is growing and developing better writing skills.

Conclusion: By conducting writing workshops with a focus on simple grammar, as well as specific writing prompts, transformational learning can occur within marginalized populations, such as incarcerated offenders or victims of domestic violence. By using a casual and fun approach, with a focus on appreciating the diversity of the group, internalized learning of simple grammar can become effortless, and can contribute to improving writing skills. By assisting these populations to gain personal insight into their hidden motivations and understanding we can help lesson the incidence of recidivist crime and self defeating behavior. This is my goal in any and all writing workshops I conduct; to help the learners engage in transformational learning and change their behavior and level of personal insight as a result of that engagement.

                                                        Works Cited

                   Davis, Barbara. (2009). Tools for Teaching. Second Edition. Jossey bass.