Attempt at a Self-Criticism

My writing style is straightforwardly argumentative. This is not, however, my teaching or speaking style (though my wife might complain that I am argumentative in conversations with her!). Part of the reason for this is that I am trained as a philosopher, and argument and critical thinking are the central methodological tools that we have. Another part of it is that when I am typing, as opposed to teaching or speaking, I tend to adopt my philosopher-researcher persona. This means that I “ought” to be defending a claim by argument or taking apart someone else’s claim by attacking their argument. An example of this is from my post to the Context and Content discussion:

I thought that Lambert’s “Context and Content” makes a mistake in suggesting that content and context are separable and somehow exclusive in assigning context to traditional education and content to distance education. Thus, I am not at all impressed by his concluding suggestion: “I submit there is place in academe for both contextual learning and content learning.” Of course! Both are necessary. There are all sorts of ways in which context is crucial for learning, just as there are all sorts of ways in which content is crucial. Without the appropriate content, there is nothing to learn; without the appropriate context, there is no opportunity for it.

In this post, I challenge the assumptions of Lampert and point out that his conclusion only makes sense if one accepts his false assumptions. I understand that an argumentative approach may serve to undermine the goals of an online community since some might take my arguments or criticisms to be decisive, thereby shutting down dialogue. Others might be wary of posting for fear that I might criticize their view. However, I do not think that I have adopted this argumentative style in my responses to others (though I would be interested to hear what others think about this!). I am aware that my mode of professional interaction (the parry and thrust of argument) does not necessarily translate well to other contexts. I imagine that, as an online instructor, my posts will more closely resemble my responses to others than my original posts.

Of the voices that Collison et. al. describe (Generative Guide, Conceptual Facilitator, Reflective Guide, Personal Muse, Mediator, Role Play), I am perfectly comfortable with (and indeed recognize from my own teaching ) the voices of Generative Guide, Conceptual Facilitator, Reflective Guide, Mediator, and Role Play. In my face-to-face classes, the theoretical options need to be clearly laid out (Generative Guide), the key philosophical concepts need to be formulated clarified (Conceptual Facilitator), the comments of students need to be refined and redirected (Reflective Guide), disputes need to be addressed and mediated (Mediator) and, at least in my class, we are always using thought experiments (Role Play). I am less comfortable with the Personal Muse voice. I almost never tip my hand, so to speak, in my philosophy classes.

Knowing the different voices and tones will help me to develop moderating skills by helping me to learn to identify when and what sort of post will most effectively move the discussion forward so that students will come to a better understanding of the material. By having an explicit set of options for responding to student comments, I can craft my posts more precisely and hopefully more effectively.

PS The title is a dorky reference to Nietzsche!