Jeffrey W. McClurken

Summertime mantra, or remembering why we do what we do

jmcclurken — Sun, 17 Jul 2022 03:16:34 +0000

As we get close to a month away from classes starting again at UMW, I am working (as I often do in this months long in-between space of spring and fall classes) to hold on to those critical interactions with students which are at the core of why we do what we do in higher ed. It helps that students have been on campus working on summer research, that HS students have been participating in an on-campus summer enrichment program about which I’ve only heard good things, that we have amazing students staying on campus to mentor in-coming students, and that I’ve been fortunate enough to work with a student on her senior thesis over the last two months. It also helps to be working through the course plans for the fall semester and the students I will teach then. [And I know that I have colleagues who have been working with students all summer and those who have been prepping their own classes and writing their own scholarship. And I have other colleagues who have been working hard to orient and welcome those students and support faculty colleagues. I hope they know how much I appreciate that work, and how much our students do too.] I also have multiple opportunities this summer to celebrate—through recommendations and evaluations—the work of multiple faculty-scholars for whom I have incredible admiration.

All of which is to say that I am grateful for my job, my colleagues (near and far), and for the opportunities I have to do this work.

A great class in a chaotic semester

jmcclurken — Wed, 12 May 2021 01:01:19 +0000

Grades are in a mere 15 hours before the deadline. Nine commencements in four days certainly delayed them, even as those in-person commencements for the class of 2020 and 2021 were a spectacular culmination to a remarkable year. But the fact that my students did great work this semester made the grading process not just easier, but deeply enjoyable.

And it’s not just because one of the students described the class in this way: “its environment harkened to a long-standing ideal that Alanis Morissette put into words in my favorite song, ‘Utopia.’”

Or that another described the class discussions as “consistently the best class discussion I have been a part of.”

Or that one noted, “I felt like everyone had a voice in the discussions.”

The appreciation for the digital projects assignments and syllabus that we designed together and the interdisciplinary approach we took to the class we created together, all worked better than I had hoped. And selfishly, the discussions, and the creativity, and the exploration of the history of information, communication, and technology with engaged and involved students…well, I needed that at least as much as they did, and I’m grateful to have had the chance.

Grateful that teaching continues to be part of my daily existence.

jmcclurken – UMW Blogs Sitewide Posts 1969-12-31 20:00:00

jmcclurken – UMW Blogs Sitewide Posts — Sat, 08 Aug 2020 16:30:24 +0000

On Teaching and Administrating and Grieving and Celebrating

jmcclurken — Sat, 09 May 2020 02:54:34 +0000

I started this post nearly six weeks ago, and couldn’t finish it. I’ve thought about it a number of times since then. But as we reach the night before what would have been UMW’s commencement ceremony, I find myself returning to it and to the sentiments it started with and that have continued to resonate with me since then.

I know that none of us in education were ready for what the last two ~~weeks~~ months have been, nor are we prepared for the days and weeks (and hopefully not months) to come. Maybe we should have been, maybe we could have seen the slow yet practically inexorable movement of the COVID-19 virus from other parts of the world to the United States and eventually to our own locales. But in the end it came and we are dealing with the consequences for our work and our lives, and they are not insignificant. Fighting this virus requires remarkable disruption in the daily activities, the gatherings, the human interaction, that are part of our schools, our social life, our culture. Even in this age of digital-mediated work and leisure, we still live in work and school settings that are inherently about being with and near other people.

In the ten days before Mary Washington made the decision to move to remote learning and send our students home, I spent an immense amount of time with other people. [More time spent than I did in most weeks, let alone one that encompassed UMW’s Spring Break.] And after we moved to our homes and away from campus, I continued to be part of teams working to figure out how my school could deal with the impact of the most serious disease outbreakswe have seen in the world in our lifetime. Initially, it was about deciding to close out the in-person aspects of what we offered, then it was dealing with the fallout of that move (such that our students and faculty and staff were not overly impacted), then it was what would the summer look like if students (and others) were not on campus, and now it is how can we, as a school that prioritizes the residential, face-to-face educational experience, imagine a fall semester that may or may not include students on campus, that may or may not include the revenues that residential campuses depend on to pay their employees and support their mission, that will somehow include social distancing and the latest thinking on public health, testing, contact-tracing, and hygienic practices.

I am blessed to be working with a dedicated, hyper-competent, thoughtful group of staff and faculty and Cabinet members, who believe in our mission, who are smart and dedicated to their students and their colleagues, and it is an honor to Zoom with so many of them each week as we work to build a future for our school and our community in the months and years to come.

I am fortunate to work with a President and a Board of Visitors who ask, over and over again, “what is best for the students?” no matter how difficult or complicated the answers to that seemingly simple question might be.

I am privileged to be able to continue to teach and work with the amazing students that make up the Mary Washington community, as they completed powerful senior theses on Women in Computing and the impact of race in historical portrayals of the Civil Rights Movement, as they built digital public history projects on James Farmer, UMW’s academic buildings, hundreds of letters from a Union soldier, and an array of scrapbooks from generations of Fredericksburg women.

I am lucky to have a home and a family who believe in the mission of education, a family who has supported all of its members during this stay-at-home order, family members who make each other laugh as we make each other meals and make each other at home in our house.

I am grateful that I am in a position to both teach and learn from our students AND to shape the direction of our institution at a time when nothing is normal. I am constantly aware of the responsibility that is involved in being both a teacher and an administrator at this time and place, and I am glad that most days I believe I am making a difference.

And then today, the day before commencement was supposed to happen, I got to preview the video that will be shared tomorrow with graduating seniors, their families, their faculty, and the Mary Washington community. And it broke me, at least a little. Don’t get me wrong. It’s funny, and heartfelt, and full of terrifically caring alumni, our president, my colleagues, and lovely sentiments. [I’ll link to it here once it is released.]

Maybe I should point out here that commencement is one of my favorite times of the year. It is unalloyed joy. It is a chance to meet students at their happiest, parents at their most proud, the community at its most relaxed. It is a payoff for all of us after the always-stressful spring semester (or even the whole academic year). It is goodbye, good luck, thank-you, and hell, yeah all at once.

And watching that video, knowing that we won’t be donning our regalia tomorrow, marching to the bagpipes, congratulating graduates as they walk the Campus Walk gauntlet of proud professors on their way to Ball Circle tomorrow, well, it broke me. Or at least it broke the dam of emotion that I’ve been holding back these months as we have all worked (students, faculty, staff, family) to get through, to survive (literally) to the end of the semester and school year. And I grieved for what we have lost as a community of learners. And I celebrated with happy tears what we have done together and apart. We are capable of both being sad and grateful, regretful of what is lost and thankful for what has been preserved, sorrowful at what was missed and yet celebratory about the amazing things that have been accomplished.

So, hear the bagpipes, sing the alma mater, hug your loved ones (be they near or far), and grieve what was lost and be grateful for what has been accomplished and what is still to come. And know that all of that is okay.

Reflecting on Digital History (Pandemic Edition) through Memes

jmcclurken — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 21:07:25 +0000

I asked the students in HIST428–Adventures in Digital History to close out the semester with a meme reflecting on the semester in general or the class in particular.

From Hunter D.

From Dennis G.

Two from Eilise M.

Digital History should be taken seriously meme

The Farmer group was very passionate meme

Kimberly E.

Erin A.

From Piper G. (And this is definitely an accurate take on my role for the last few weeks of the semester.)

Erin M.

Corey H.

Megan W.

I found this meme on Facebook but DIY’d it to say “virtually.” That way, it matches the Zoom Experience.

Glynnis F.

Emily J.

Katia S. “had this thought, in meme format, while captioning James Farmer’s class lectures on a Friday night two months ago, so I felt like it had to be shared.”

Cat K. noted, “When you’re already stressed because of your online classes and then your power goes out”

Noah P.

Mady M.

From Anna W.:

Before Adventures in Digital History vs. after Adventures in Digital History:

Presenting the Adventures in Digital History 2020 Class Projects

jmcclurken — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 12:48:29 +0000

[Cross-posted with the course site at https://courses.mcclurken.org/adh20/announcements/presenting-the-adventures-in-digital-history-2020-class-projects/ ]

In a normal year, yesterday would have been the day in the semester when the students in Digital History would present their projects to an audience at the History and American Studies Department Spring Symposium. This is a tradition that began back in 2008 with the first iteration of the class. It was an amazing debut of digital history projects during a day which previously had been reserved for presentations of 30-40 page research papers. It was an important moment for digital history projects in the department and has continued to be a wonderful moment for the students, their friends, faculty, staff, and project partners.

I’m sorry we won’t be able to do that public in-person presentation this year. Nothing about this semester has been normal, but I am happy to share the projects and the students’ presentations on them once again. I am incredibly proud of their work, even as they were pulled away from each other and away from some of the original sources they were working with to digitize, analyze, and share.

I encourage you to check out each of the presentations and the Digital Public History sites that students created this semester.

Rowe Family Scrapbooks Project

Presentation:

Project Site: https://rowefxbg.umwhistory.org/

Group Contract: https://courses.mcclurken.org/adh20/project-contracts/1121-2/

Farmer at Mary Washington Project

Presentation:

Project Site: http://farmer.umwhistory.org/

Group Contract: https://courses.mcclurken.org/adh20/project-contracts/james-farmer-project/

UMW Academic Buildings Project

Presentation: http://ckinde.com/ADH_Blog/uncategorized/explore-umw-tour/ (presented in five parts)

Project Site: https://explore.umwhistory.org/

Group Contract: https://courses.mcclurken.org/adh20/project-contracts/umw-academic-buildings/

Peirce Civil War Letters Project

Presentation:

Project Site: https://peirceletters.umwhistory.org/

Group Contract: https://courses.mcclurken.org/adh20/project-contracts/civil-war-letters-project/

There are still a few revisions to be done on each site, but check out what great work UMW students have done this semester.

Roanoke College Test

jmcclurken — Tue, 16 May 2017 15:52:21 +0000

Video

Joining OpenLearning Hub

jmcclurken — Wed, 18 Jan 2017 15:27:06 +0000

Looking forward to joining the discussions about Open Learning with Gardner Campbell, Steve Greenlaw, and others.

On Not Banning Laptops in the Classroom

jmcclurken — Sat, 06 Aug 2016 18:41:08 +0000

This post has been percolating for a while as a series of op-ed pieces and studies announcing that handwriting is better for learning or that laptops or other devices are ineffective or that tech shouldn’t be used in the classroom continue to emerge. I know I’ll get push back about this response, but I’ve needed to sit down and write this for a while now (and it’s easier to have these responses collected together so I can point to them later when these studies and think-pieces continue to emerge). [Apologies for the listicle approach to this post.] 1) Those studies about the wonders of handwriting all suffer from the same set of flaws, namely, a) that they don’t actually work with students who have been taught to use their laptops or devices for taking notes. That is, they all hand students devices and tell them to take notes in the same way they would in written form. In some cases those devices don’t have keyboards; in some cases they don’t provide software tools to use (there are some great ones, but doing it in say, Word, isn’t going to maximize the options digital spaces allow), in some cases the devices are not ones the students use themselves and with which they are comfortable. And b) the studies are almost always focused on learning in large lecture classes or classes in which the assessment of success is performance on a standardized (typically multiple-choice) test, not in the ways that many, many classes operate, and not a measure that many of us use in our own classes. And c) they don’t actually attempt to integrate the devices into the classes in question, a point that Kevin Gannon makes in his excellent post on the subject. [It’s possible I have missed one of these studies that actually addresses all of these things and builds in training for students (and faculty) in integrating devices, or maybe works with a population of students that has had access to a robust, integrated (not nominal) 1:1 laptop program for an extended period of time before the study. If I have missed it, I’m sure someone will let me know.] 2) Banning laptops is going to be a big problem when increasingly you have students like those in my local middle school who are exclusively using laptops in all of their classes to great effect and success. More and more students in K-12 are going to be doing that and a ban will be telling at least some students who are used to taking notes that way (who are actually BETTER at taking notes that way), that they can’t use the tools for which they have developed a process. Even for our seniors who loved to play 5 lions game on their laptop would be in trouble for losing the thing that make them busy and entertained. 3) Banning laptops is also going to be a problem because of the trend toward digitized sources: more and more campus bookstores are offering readings and interactive activities in digital form, sometimes because it’s cheaper, but often because it’s easier for them to manage, and because some students want them in that form. Some texts are ONLY being offered in digital form going forward, and many of the ancillary materials publishers are offering only work in digital form. Plus, increasingly faculty (like me, but many others) are assigning readings that are only online or in JSTOR or other online collections. That’s both because of access, but also because of economic fairness. And then, I want them to have copies of the readings with them and it’s not economically or ecologically fair to ask them to print those copies out and bring them with them to class. [In fact, having students collectively or individually annotate class readings with a tool such as Hypothes.is is a powerful way to improve classroom discussion that would be much more difficult without devices.] 4) Let’s be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that banning technology from our classrooms does not help with the general perception in the public that universities, faculty, and the education we offer is not relevant or adaptable to the modern age. [There are obviously many other reasons we seem to be losing this argument about the value of traditional education that have nothing to do with the laptop ban discussion, but my point here is simply that blanket bans on technology do not help the larger perception of academics. I won’t use the L-word, but you know that others do when they see op-eds from teachers about banning tech from classrooms.] 5) I’ve seen faculty suggest that laptop bans just results in students using smart phones more, even when there is a ban on that as well. So then someone suggests (usually jokingly, sometimes not) jamming cell phones. Jamming cell phones violates federal law, so, um, good luck with that. 6) On the point of incorporating these devices into our pedagogy: I want students to be able to integrate the wide array of other sources available to them with what they are learning in my class, and I often ask them to go out and find good sources to answer questions that emerge during class lecture, discussion, and group work. In other words, I work to integrate those tools and their connections to that larger array of information into the class. [Admittedly, it also means that sometimes students will say, “but this other source says something different.” That’s a terrific learning opportunity for us to talk as a class about sources, interpretation, and authority.] 6a) We should be working with students to meaningfully incorporate these devices into their learning. I have no doubt that adding devices that students use in a wide variety of non-scholarly ways outside of class without attempts to integrate them into classes or to teach students to use those devices in academic ways risks ineffective uses of them. I have plenty of conversations with students about how to take notes already. Most of the time their problem isn’t which device (pencil, laptop, phone, quill) they use to take those notes, but how to take them and how to use them to learn based on their own experiences, learning styles, and discipline. 6b) Incorporating devices into teaching will require faculty training and support. I suspect that some (though certainly not all) of the support for these bans stems from the fact that many faculty don’t feel confident in using technology broadly and in particular for academic purposes (for note-taking, for social media, for research and analysis, for blogging, etc.) themselves and so don’t feel confident in having their students use those tools in and out of class. [One answer to that at UMW is our Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies, our Center for Teaching Excellence and Innovation, and our student-centered Digital Knowledge Center, as well as the week-long Digital Pedagogy Lab institute. But there are more and more options out there to get faculty members the development they need to become more comfortable with digitally enabled pedagogy.] 7) Other critiques of laptop/device bans include: accessibility issues for studies with accommodations, the argument that bans are more about professors’ egos, the notion that bans demonstrate an inflexibility of approach, and the point that other distractions exist too. 8) Caveat: It’s the blanket ban with which I have such issues. I don’t have a problem with faculty asking students at certain points to close their laptops or put away their devices because the type of engagement at that moment is changing. 9) Caveat #2: When there are devices in the classroom, especially larger ones, a few students will use them in ways that will be distracting. I’m not opposed to strategies or explicit conversations about reducing that problem. It’s the throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater approach of blanket bans that are the issue here. 10) Finally, having conversations with students about how they use devices more generally and laptops in particular for academic success is important, as well as how best to take notes. I do it with students in my First-Year Seminar in detail, and in other classes in general. My school is working to develop these practices more generally and to support faculty as they incorporate technology into their classes. Encouraging good learning practices among students (and faculty) is a terrific thing to do. I’m just not convinced that entirely banning one set of those practices and the tools used to engage in them is the way to get either group to develop those practices more generally. [Thanks to Sue Fernsebner for pointing out the appropriateness of this discussion in the wake of the many pieces reflecting on Seymour Papert‘s life and work.]

A Plethora of Riches

jmcclurken — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 14:02:33 +0000

So, let me start by noting that this kind of post is not typical. People don’t generally write these kind of posts. And, frankly, there are good reasons for that. And yet, here I am writing it. I’ll explain why shortly.

But let’s start with the context. I’ve been working as the Special Assistant to the Provost for Teaching, Technology, and Innovation at the University of Mary Washington since April of 2014. It’s a great job where I get to be a faculty member (a Professor of History and American Studies) half time and the rest of the time oversee our Center for Teaching Excellence and Innovation, our Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies, our recently created (but thoroughly awesome) Digital Knowledge Center, and one of the coolest student-centered buildings in academia, the Information & Technology Convergence Center (now named after our current president, the Hurley Convergence Center). Although we’ve seen turnover this past year in DTLT (no year when you lose Tim Owens, Ryan Brazell, Andy Rush, Jim Groom, and Lisa Ames can be all good), we’ve also done some amazing hiring, bringing in Jess Reingold, Jesse Stommel, and Lee Skallerup Bessette, and soon Nigel Haarstad, with another superb new colleague soon to be announced. They are creative, terrific, brilliant people who have joined Martha Burtis, Mary Kayler, Leah Tams, Amanda Rutstein, Cartland Berge, Roberta Gentry, and Zach Whalen in the Teaching, Technology, and Innovation Unit.

So, despite these changes (in fact, partly because of them), I wasn’t looking for a new job. And yet, one came looking for me. A search firm contacted me late last fall about a new position at a Research 1 University at the Vice Provost level. I’m a big fan of this school, having worked for many years with great people there. The job is a new position that brings together a number of elements that exist at a university that is clearly on the move, clearly on its way upward, clearly at the forefront of the struggle over the soul of higher education. And after an application and an initial interview with the search committee, I was a finalist for the position with an on-campus interview. Now, I know that I’m operating from a place of remarkable privilege, a privilege that so many other academics have not and do not have. I have a full-time position and I love my job, one that has tenure and a good salary and terrific colleagues, and I’m fortunate enough to have developed a reputation within the discipline that has allowed me to travel around the country giving workshops on digital history, digital humanities, and digitally enabled pedagogy, as well as editing a section of a leading journal for one major organization on digital history projects, and leading a digital history working group for another major professional organization. Most importantly, I applied for this job knowing that I loved the position that I’m currently in with no risk of losing that position if it didn’t work out.

Yesterday, about a month after my on-campus interview, I found out that I am no longer being considered for the position, that they have offered the job to someone else.

Now we get to the point about why posts like this are unusual. Typically people don’t talk about these positions when they don’t get them, in part because they don’t want people at their current job to know that they were willing to consider leaving, in part because they are worried that they might be embarrassed by not getting the job, in part because they are worried about what the people at the job they applied for will think about them, and in part because they worry about how people at potential future jobs might view someone who talks about the often-closed search process. These are very good reasons not to talk about jobs for which you have applied but not been selected.

So, why am I doing so? I spend a great deal of time telling my students that they should create a digital identity that reveals who they are, that makes it clear what they want to do and be, that claims boldly what they believe in and what they want to do, and that acknowledges (even celebrates) failures or incomplete paths as part of the learning and development process. I was unsuccessful in applying for this job; now what have I learned from it?

You know what I’ve learned? That I’m glad. [Now, I know that it’ll be easy for people who don’t know me to dismiss this as simply me settling, or me rationalizing not getting a job. To them, I’ll just say, “That’s a reasonable point of view given the evidence you have, and you’re wrong.”] I’m really happy I didn’t get this job, and not because I have anything against the school to which I applied, but because I’m convinced that I already have an important contribution to make, that I have an amazing team to work with, that I have colleagues who value what matters in higher education right now where I am right now. [Let’s be clear: there was much to attract me to the school I applied to, and not just the increased money and significant promotion. It was a chance to work on a different stage, as part of a school that is often mentioned in conversations about higher education. And there were great, terrific colleagues there to work with as well.] But in the end, as I thought about the two positions in the weeks after the on-campus interview, I increasingly realized that UMW was the place where I wanted to be, a place where I was able to make a bigger difference, a place where my students continue to inspire me every day, a place where my team, my colleagues, and even my incoming president shared the values that I believe in, a place that keeps the focus on students, that believes that a liberal arts education is the best foundation for a changing world, that integrates digital tools into that liberal arts education better than almost any school in the nation (and has earned a national reputation and big grants for doing so), that balances teaching and learning and research and service and community in ways that represent one incredibly valuable path for higher education over the next few decades.

So, today, I’m incredibly glad to be at the University of Mary Washington with my colleagues and my friends and my students.