Sue Hellman

Hi Hillarie, I appreciate your kind remarks. If there's anything more I can do to support your process, you can drop a note here or contact me via email at suehellman.edu@gmail.com. Creatng this course was a learning journey for me. Over the next months I'll also be revising based on the feedback I received from the final evaluation and my observations about the drafts submitted this round to guide. Thanks for your participation. -S

Hi Leonne, 

I've waited a couple of days to respond to your second draft so that all the voices in the resources I shared and other drafts I read would fade. I'm not entirely comfortable in the role of online reviewer anyway. I'd much rather sit with you over a coffee and have a conversation about what you like in your piece, what I think best fulfills the 'requirements' (as loose as they are) of this kind of writing, and to test some possibilities together. In this case, I have my coffee within reach and will have to settle for imagining you with yours musing over my comments. 

Re: being on "a rant" -- I think that all ABE teachers have to feel their mission deeply in order to do the work well and over an extended time. Many of the students we work with are not easy. They depend on the fact that we believe in our mission and in their capacity to learn in order to to get through their most difficult moments. That's especially true in math. After all, it's the most hated and feared of all subjects. Society has decided that it's perfectly acceptable to be 'not good' at math. A pseudo-science has evolved to make it sound like this 'deficiency' is neurological which makes giving up the struggle just good sense. There are plenty of role models of high powered 'math zombies' including Judge Judy and Michelle Obama which makes giving up even easier. From my point of view, shaping one's life to avoid math (because even thinking about it causes extreme discomfort) is so unnecessary. That's where I get fanatical -- so ranting a little is permitted, even in at TPS -- although it might carry more weight if you accompany it with some statistics or research to back up your position.

I think you may be confusing injecting yourself into the piece as ranting, when it comes across to me as your inviting me into your world. I feel that I'm meeting you in those paragraphs, and I get a sense of how passionate you are with your using the word 'passionate' (big check mark). The point of a TPS is for the reader to get to know you as a teacher. Your first draft read like a how-to piece on ABE teaching. This one begins to paint a picture of what it's like to be in one of YOUR classes (another big check). 

So ... the big question is what to focus on next. Two things jump out at me: organization and examples. I suggest trying what's called 'reverse outlining' with the 2 paragraphs in the body https://scope.bccampus.ca/mod/page/view.php?id=15471. This is a way to more objectively find gaps and overlaps in a first draft. In this case, I'd (a) list all the claims you make. Attach to each, (b) whatever explanation(s) you've provided and (c) the specific examples from your work that illustrate and research/authoritative sources that support each claim. This approach might be called: assertion; elaboration; evidence OR assertion, evidence, commentary (see Claremont Workbook, pp. 24-28 for excellent examples & exercises). This will help you cluster your content thematically and ensure that you flesh out your claims with specifics. You can also use the new checklist attached below to make sure you've anticipated all the major questions that your reader will have about your work. This will also help the flow of your piece. 

Now for a few finer details: 

• sometimes you leap into a description without giving any background or definitions. If you're writing for an audience familiar with ABE courses and classes, this might work. If not, it can be helpful to set some common ground. If you explain/describe ABE programs and the 3 levels of students in one or two sentences first, that will set the scene for what follows and will get all readers onto the same page. 
• I would combine the first and last paragraphs and simplify. You might do the readability test suggested by Cathy Moore at http://blog.cathy-moore.com/2017/07/how-to-get-everyone-to-write-like-ernest-hemingway/ A score in the 50's would be the range to aim for in a TPS. She explains towards the bottom of the page how to do this using Word. 
• Where did the stuff about 3M's come from? A good TPS includes sources that back up pedagogical choices. Is there research about the effectiveness of mindset teaching? 
• "My success as a teacher is a reflection of my students’ success." This is a key statement. How do you measure their success and therefore your own? 
• The conclusion needs work. Try going in a new direction rather than recapping the same main theme. There are a few suggestions here under Structure -- https://scope.bccampus.ca/course/view.php?id=471&section=5

Whew!!! That's a lot for one review but, as we don't have the luxury of chatting back and forth, I thought I'd lay out what we might cover in several f2f conversations. I hope it's not too much. If you feel like sharing the next draft, I can be reached at suehellman.edu@gmail.com.

I can see a big difference between your 2 drafts. This is not an easy genre to learn, but you're on the right track. 

-Sue

You've got it exactly right, Gina. People think they can write a one size fits all TPS, but it just doesn't work unless you're always applying for similar work. Some people are like that. They do essentially the same job wherever they go for their whole careers (especially in high school math departments). I may want to borrow some of this reflection if I do the course again -- if that's OK with you. 

I was going to suggest somewhere that people imagine a reader, but so many stated that they wanted to do relective pieces for portfolio purposes that I chose not to. I think there might be something to that. In a reflective piece you would want to share a smattering of all different experience that illustrate who you are as a teacher. You could pick 1 big signature idea and show how that is expressed in different contexts. The result would be a useful document to keep as a starting place for any application, but it would also be a snapshot of you right now. 

This course has been a labour of love & learning for me. If you want to keep sharing, you can reach me at suehellman.edu@gmail.com once these forums have closed. 

-S

Hi Colleen,

I posted a reply to your TPS and then withdrew it because I got confused about who I'd replied to and who I hadn't. It was a 'duh' moment and I want to do more justice to your first draft, so I've started over. 

First I identified immediately with the young student portrayed in your first 3 lines. When one is good a math like I was, it can give one an exaggerated sense of self-importance. It wasn't until I began to see myself as someone who was a good 'mechanical' learner who didn't understand the wider applications of the problems I could solve that I began to rethink my role as a teacher. The second realization for me was that not everyone understands what you teach in the way that you teach it. Only then did I start asking a lot of questions of students to try to see their learning experiences through their eyes did I feel I began to feel truly effective. In Feb. I'm off to a conference in California (so I still haven't totally shaken the notion that I have important stuff to share) to do a workshop in rethinking what it means to be a struggling math student, and the most important thing I want the audience to walk away with is that not enough math educators can empathize with such learners. The experience of struggling is so foreign to them that they can sympathize but not walk in the shoes of the struggling learner. 

And that's the take-off point for my comments. For me our draft is more about you as a learner than it is a statement that enlightens me about you as a teacher. I understand your WHYs but I'm not getting a picture of what you do or how you do it. For example, you tell me that your class is a place where 'diversities are honoured' and 'self-discovery is valued' and that you are 'open and accessible'. The statement would be a lot more powerful if you showed me how that unfolds in your classroom by giving me examples so I can see how you express your values though the activities you create, the types of assessment you use, and how you interact with the students. I get my first taste of that with your last big paragraph above. If you're going to talk about giving up power, it would be helpful to know if that is supported in the literature, how you do or will accomplish that (example), and how you will know you're successful (measure the results). 

For me the issue isn't so much that you're being too general. It's more that you're relying on descriptive phrases and catch phrases (authentic assessment, reinvention and growth, collaboration) and are also assuming that those mean the same thing to me as they do to you. I want you to show me your unique take on these descriptors so I could tell another person what it's like to be in your classroom.

Quotations like the ones you've chosen at the bottom of your draft can be good starting points, but even with this those, I want to find out more about what 'assisting the art of discovery' and 'creating a learning community' looks like in your classes. Give me examples of how you turn those words into reality. Share some influential research or other scholarly writing that supports that those endeavours make for effective teaching. Then I'll have some insight into what sorts of learning experiences work best for you and for your students and why. 

Finally, it would be helpful if you briefly created some context by telling me what you teach and what the learning needs of your students are. I don't think that was mentioned.

Your first draft is doing the job of making me want to see you in action, which is a great start, but relying on catch phrases such as 'intrinsic motivation' and 'being flexible and reflective' doesn't set you apart from all the other teachers who describe themselves the same way. The job of your TPS is to show me how you differ from the crowd of self-professed forward thinking educators. The story is an effective opener because if shows the source of your empathy. My advice would be to shrink it to the 'precis' version. What are the essentials that are needed to set the scene for the key sub-themes you'll develop in the body? The rest is TMI for a TPS.

I spent last night on the first draft of a checklist. I've shared it below in case it might help. I hope you'll share the next iteration when it's done. I want to know more!

-Sue

I think you're right and that might give you an organizational structure for the body .... Use as a transition that you have 2 roles that many would consider very different, & discuss how. Then go on with the idea that  being in the role of a learner is a great leveler. In my experience, pro-d course providers think that teachers should be quicker on the uptake. What they don't get is that teacher-students experience the same insecurities and struggles as regular students and that being in the learner role again forces us to face all sorts of old business. I think you've hit in something that could be fantastic. Let me know how it goes. (suehellman.edu@gmail.com).