Notes: Participant A 10/30
Workspace: Mac flatscreen, small printer, some books on desk
J: By the way, I’m a fan of bSpace. I came from Blackboard and this is much better… I have a question
– how much user input like this interview went into the original design of bSpace?
D: I was on the original Sakai team, and we’re hoping user needs can more strongly drive development
in this case.
J: Good. That would be great.
How long have you been at Berkeley? 12 years.
How many faculty are in your department? That’s a good question. There are 14 full time lecturers, and
a varying number of adjuncts come in depending on need.
How much do you devote to teaching v. other activities? Mostly teaching.
Do you teach primarily small classes or large? Small. I’m teaching two classes this semester, each
capped at 17 students.
Are these classes mostly undergraduate? Yes, mostly undergrad.
How would you define ‘scholarly resources’? Well, I was just defining it to students in class as not only
peer reviewed but has to be a valuable source to their argument, as in just being scholarly isn’t enough.
They’re working on argument/research paper currently. Many students are working with sources that are
scholarly sources but that don’t add value to their argument.
Are their other kinds of resources you use to create your class? Well, we have all of our course texts
[included on the syllabus]. Maybe I need to redefine my definition of ‘scholarly’ here. Looking at my
syllabus, I teach literature and writing, so novels and other resources are resources central to what I
teach as well.
D: We are defining scholarly resources very broadly.
J: Just two minutes ago I came from a class and a student asked me a question about a “scholarly
source,” and we were discussing some of these same issues.
Describe a typical day at work. I’d like to think that today is not typical, but sadly it is. My first class
meets from 9:30-11. I get into the office 8:30, check email, go over my lesson plan for the 9:30 class,
which is CW 10A: Introduction to Public Speaking. Aside: Please tell me if this is too much minutia or
anything, I can go more or less deep. Today in CW10A we were finishing up persuasive speeches,
because one student had been absent and had to make his persuasive speech. Then I had to switch gears
into commemorative speaking and we did a class exercise where everyone in the class made a toast to
someone else in the class, which sets them up for making longer speeches. Then I rushed back to office
– it’s midterm time, and I had student conferences from 11-1, then gobbled down lunch while I worked,
and I then had I guess 15 minutes where I had to review one student speech between conferences. Then I
had a break, but not really a break, from 1-2 where I did work for my 2 o’clock class. Then he has class
from 3:30 – 5:30 again.
What were you working on during the break between 1-2? I reviewed recorded DVDs of in-class student
speeches. I’m happy to say that I am all caught up and can now start grading papers. (he records the
student’s speeches in class and then reviews and evaluates the recorded version)
Anything else that happens often in your daily work? Conferencing, teaching, assessing work - that
pretty much covers it.
What do you like most about your position? “I like teaching, I like interacting with students, I like the
classroom time. It’s the face to face interaction with students that I enjoy.”
What do you like least? “Um,… grading papers can be drudgery.” I don’t mind doing it but there’s a lot
to do. It takes a lot of time. So yeah, that’s my least favorite part.
You said you are teaching two classes… what was the second? The other is the second half of college
writing sequence, College Writing R4B. I should mention that I’m preparing also for a new class that
I’m teaching next semester, CW10B, Advanced Public Speaking. This is the first time I’ve taught it but I
helped develop the teaching materials for the original session.
Tell us more about public speaking 10A. This is different than many classes. Public Speaking wasn’t
taught at all at Berkeley, which is rare for a large research institution where many will go on to PhDs
and other fields. It came about because of a groundswell of outcry from alumni. My department
introduced this class 6 years ago, and I was asked to take it on because I have background in acting and
playwriting, whereas my co-teacher has a PhD in rhetoric. I really enjoy teaching this class; it’s very
popular, and students really clamor to take the course. I should mention that it doesn’t fulfill a
graduation requirement, and it’s by and large a true elective. Some departments like Pharmacy and
Nursing are starting to require it, but most students are there because they want to be there.
It’s just the one section? There are multiple sections – 2 each semester. I’m only teaching one. My coinstructor and I collaborate, share ideas, more of a brainstorm and run ideas by each other type of thing.
For that class it’s mostly sharing ideas [with my co-instructor], but in one class I have access to her
bSpace class to look at her course materials. It’s an online-heavy course [in terms of reading]. It’s also
somewhat rare - there are a lot of universities that teach intro to public speaking but no advanced class,
so there’s no bible/textbook out there that we knew we could use as a course text. We’re developing this
class from scratch, so we’re using a lot of online sources for readings and links and PDFs of sources that
she’s scanned. I have taught intro to public speaking since it was introduced, but in the coming semester
I will be teaching the advanced class fir the first time.
Tell us more about CW R1B. For many years, we have been offering CWR1A, a six-unit class for those
who need extra help with writing and research. 5-6 years ago we started to branch out and offer other
courses. I guess the punchline is that students are placed in R1A as a remedial measure, but can choose
to take R4B as an elective, so half want to be there, half have to be. The R1B classes often end up being
chosen by students who want to work on their writing craft.
Describe how you run the class? We [instructors] all choose a theme, and this term mine is humor.
I guess that means students want to get into your class? Yes, but sadly many find that, alas, they don’t
necessarily learn how to be funny. They learn about humor, but don’t end up coming out the class
clown.
There are multiple sessions? This semester we’re offering six different sessions of R1B.
Do the six of you instructors collaborate? Somewhat. When I first started teaching I went to others to
get their syllabi, and general pointers. My department also has an ad hoc committee of instructors to get
together and look at group of papers to decide what’s an A or B, etc. to achieve grade uniformity (which
we already had somewhat do begin with). We also share texts across the sessions, such as The Craft of
Research. About half of us are using this text.
What are the other scholarly resources you use? A play: Top Dog Underdog, a book: Typical American
My students’ first assignment is a literary text analysis. These two texts are not necessarily comedies,
but they’re meant to analyze how the author uses humor in the text. Along the way , I’m sure we’ll get
to this when we get to bSpace, they post a lot of ideas to the forum in response to the texts, like I’ll post
a question and they’ll respond, so we’ll get a preview of the discussion that will happen in class, and so I
can make sure they’re doing the reading.
[screenshot of R4B forum post topics]
Is this a weekly thing? It depends on what’s going on – once a week or two.
Are students required to respond? Yes, it’s their homework. There are lots of advantages to using
Forums in bSpace. Whereas they used to have to type and turn it in, now it’s just online. This way we’re
saving trees.
So you like this? Yes, I do.
Other scholarly resources you use? Backing up to CW10: public speaking. There is a textbook I use,
The Art of Public Speaking, which is required. I tell them that everything they need to know is in this
book, but I supplement this in classes with exercises and activities. Skill building.
How do you create the exercises? Some of them I make up. For example, the toast exercise I mentioned
earlier. The toast is a mini-speech that everyone is familiar with. Not everything I make up myself - I
look online, and at colleagues, to find ideas. And some things come from my performance background.
In which course activities do you make use of scholarly resources? We use these texts as the basis for
discussion. We read this, they talk about it in class, and so forth.
How do you illustrate the concepts to your students (of scholarly resources)? To transition into the
research paper they have to use outside sources. Assignment is that they have a smaller paper that
requires min 2 max of 4 outside sources. Very strictly defined: peer reviewed scholarly source. This is a
bit of their scavenger hunt, because they will need to use this in their final paper. Our library session
with you, Char, also helped introduce them to this.
Can you describe the research paper? Idea is that the R4A/B sequence includes addressing the
“research issue”. Some are 3rd and 4th year students, but presumably they have not been introduced to a
research methods class yet. They know libraries and sources somewhat already, but have not had a
research methods class. They have to write a 10pg paper, choose a topic related to humor.
What citation format? MLA, but can use another if they want to.
The assignment is a Word doc they turn in? Yes.
How did you choose the resources you use in R4B? Chronologically, I knew I was teaching this class on
humor so I just kept my eyes open for things in popular press, and saved URLs and links and eventually
I built this sort of file or list of resources. For the Freud book we use (On Humor), I had always wanted
to read the book, so it was a good excuse. I am a playwright, so I also wanted to use a play in class. I
also wanted a novel, and try always to reflect the diversity of the campus, so I try to use a book that
comes from this perspective. I should say that I don’t have a background in research, I have a MFA, and
so I didn’t do a dissertation in my career. So I was a bit diffident about taking this research-based course
on, because of this. But I find The Craft of Research to be very accessible. Then there is this other book
we use in class, Laughing out Loud, which breaks down humor in movies. This book just so happens to
be published by UC Press, so it’s linked free online [explanatory note: though a subscription via the
Univ. Library to ebrary], which is one less thing they have to buy. This was a no brainer.
The CW10A class. Is this something that you collaborate closely with your co-instructor? Yes, we
collaborate and share ideas.
For either, how do you use scholarly resources? In the 10B class, we’re really dependent on the online
list of articles we’ve compiled. It’s an electronic reader we’ve created online. I can show you her bSpace
site because I haven’t set up my bSpace site for next semester.
When do you usually do this? Honestly, at the end of the semester, because I don’t have time. I can
show you hers or my folder of links and articles on my desktop though. She and I both did this [created a
list of potential readings]. We went through a number of texts and articles and cherry picked articles that
would be relevant [showing online reader in colleague’s bSpace site – a list of PDF links in Resources
area]. This is essentially the reader they’ll use. There are Articles on body language, very specific stuff,
like job interviews.
As you found articles, you put them in a holding space? Yes.
How did you find these? Most are in PDF. This is her space, so I think that she probably found articles in
print and scanned. This is definitely scanned [title page is crooked, laughs]. This one looks like Google
Books. [Gives example of text: “Listening to Your Audience” (chapter), comes from a book How to
Move a Room: Audience Centered Speaking.] We wanted to include an Obama speech, so here is a
transcript. Oh, here is an example – here is a scanned chapter from a text book on anxiety. We scanned
the chapter because we didn’t want to use the entire book.
So you said you were collecting your own list as well as drawing from hers? In my own folder on my
desktop, I save speeches and articles as I go.
Is this time you find these resources set aside, or is it serendipitous? What makes you want to save an
article? It’s not like I have time to set aside a week to look for things, so it’s often serendipitous as
things come across my desk.
Demonstration of Resources in R4B class: So this is my, uh, I just call this Resources, as I find resources
in various places, newspapers and magazines, lots of these are URLs, and some are word docs here.
[screenshot of R4B bSpace resources folder]
Some of this I assign during the class, but I also collect these as a ways o inspire or pique interest. Last
week I asked students to look through this full list and pull out one that interests them. Out of the 20 I
actually assign 5 to read and the rest is a clearinghouse of articles. This took be about a year to build and
I’ve added a few things this semester. I’ve added a couple of items. Do you plan to hold on to this list?
Yes, although some of those will be outdated – like, one was on what it would be like if Obama was
president, and that’s outdated. I was listening to the radio and I heard something on RadioLab on
laughter so I went to the RadioLab site and found an entire episode on laughter so I linked to it. I
recommended this RadioLab site specifically to one student. I doubt that I set up my bSpace site much
before I usually do, so I think I collected these all then threw them into my bSpace list later.
I have a syllabus with readings, but collect this list of class resources in bSpace as well. Wait a minute,
[finds a link to a list of readings in bSpace he can’t identify] I didn’t realize I had something called
“Ancillary Readings” in here:
[‘Ancillary readings’ list in bSpace]
I think I was just making a word doc of a list of URLs that I made for myself. I think this list was part of
a much longer list that I was cutting a pasting from another list. So when I click this, here is this article
from November about sitcoms from the New York Times.
Can you show us the syllabus, can you talk us through how you created the syllabus? Are you talking
about my policies? No, more like your resources, how you work them in. Some of this is pro forma,
some of these are the requirements of R4B, required number of pages, attendance, and group work. Then
I go into the schedule.
How many readings are required, and how many are supplementary in bSpace? Well, they’re sprinkled
throughout. Have you heard of the website Jester? This allows them to log in through bSpace and rate
jokes. If there’s a reference, I’ll have them go to bSpace to do that. For many of the hard copy readings,
they’ll have to go to bSpace to respond. Like in my syllabus, I note the places where they need to do
bSpace responses. I see the syllabus is the first line introducing them to resources, then I’ve set up a
little library for them as one further step (library is resources links. He called this the “clearing house”),
so then they can be led to your library [University of California Berkeley Library], like when we had the
research session with you, Char. So that’s the progression, syllabus to small bSpace resource library to
larger library, so that now that they know what they want to do, like we they start in a little wading pool,
but there’s a larger ocean out there.
bSpace forum posting narration: I use bSpace mostly for posting into 2 categories; I’ve got research,
and reading responses. So in this forum posting, from the reading assignment that they have they have to
write a response to what they’re reading in Laughing Out Loud, so this would be a reading response.
[selects topic title in Forum]. Hold on, let me pull out my notes here. [brings out notebook and hard copy
of Laughing out Loud], flips through both
In bSpace CW R4B course site:
Topic title: Laughing out loud, pp. 1-16, etc.
Short description: “First impressions of LOL.”
Description: [few sentence prompt on LOL]
So this is just a prompt for them to respond to, so they can see what everyone else has said so we can
kind of start the discussion mid-stream, and so I can see that they’ve finished the readings. This seems to
be a really useful way of getting the discussion going.
[Forum posting detail from narrated assignment creation]
Anything else on scholarly resources? I just love the fact that this entire book [Laughing Out Loud] is
online and that they have access to it - I love the elegance of that. That they can both read this online and
respond to it. So it’s right here. So they go online and read this. So there is kind of a disadvantage here,
there’s been a discussion on Teach-net [campus pedagogy listserv], about the advantage of online
readings or printing things out and marking them up. So I personally like the printed volume and
marking it up [grabs/waves around Laughing Out Loud], but I’m older than they are. I’m very cognizant
of the cost of textbooks. So I wish there was a hybrid.
So, if I was going away for the weekend, I love that I could get access to this book online and their
responses to it. On the other hand, I’m oldschool, so I also want them to be able to mark it up and touch
it and doing a close reading. So, can I be ambivalent? Put me down as ambivalent. But it just so happens
with this book that they don’t need to [print and do a close reading].
So in terms of print v. online, it depends on what type of resource it is? Yes, sometimes online is
sufficient, but other times I want them to engage with the print.
Anything else? Does the library site play into how you discover resources that you link in bSpace? I
would like to be able to use the library more. I guess it is serendipitous. I would like to be able to take
them more into the library site. So I give them this bank of resources. So I wasn’t well versed in the
library, I was well versed in popular culture so that’s where my readings come from. I’d like to do more
of this in the future. And I would welcome any way that you [Char] could facilitate that. And I think
there is consensus in the department there. So the way we get to the library is to set up a workshop, and
that’s the introduction to the library. So what happens after that, I make my students make an
appointment with a librarian, but I’d like to be able to “integrate it sooner and more gracefully” into my
syllabus this year. So if I’m pressed for time, that’s the first thing to go – I can’t get rid of a book, so I
get rid of a library session. Maybe sprinkle more of that [library research] through the semester
somehow. So maybe third week assignment, then 5th week assignment, so instead of now you’ve done
this, and how you’ve done this, and now it’s library time. So just make it happen less suddenly.
What did you think of the interview? I liked it, I didn’t know what to expect. Like I said, I was eager to
participate, because I like bSpace and want to make it better. Thanks for letting me take a bathroom
break.
Anything else to add? [Consented to inclusion of screenshots, etc.]
Prepared by Char Booth, 30 October 2009. cbooth@library.berkeley.edu