I recently came across this interesting post from Cult of Pedagogy describing a practice called "dogfooding" (the term isn't originally from education, but from tech, apparently). From what I understand, it comes from the idea that you shouldn't feed your dog something you wouldn't eat yourself. By extension (to tech and ed), it basically advises that a developer/instructor should test their product by engaging with it like a consumer/student before assuming it's appropriate for release. So applying directly to instruction, it means looking at the activities we engage in or assign to our students from the perspective of the student--doing them ourselves first if need be. The takeaway: If we would find an activity (e.g. conjugation exercises, contrived role play) boring or confusing or frustrating or unauthentic, and subsequently wouldn't choose to work on it ourselves, why would we assign it to students? I realize I've definitely already put this idea into practice (without having heard of it) in a few courses I've taught where I've inherited materials or instructions from prior instructors. I've revamped assessment for a course on contrastive Spanish/English grammar analysis, ditching chapter tests in favor of writing assignments, because I looked over the pre-prepared exams, and I couldn't even figure out what some of the questions were asking! I'm not going to give students a test I couldn't confidently take myself. I've retooled writing assignments for intermediate Spanish students from "research reports" (vague, dry, language above their expected level of acquisition) into Choose Your Own Adventure stories (fun, contextualized, still easy to incorporate the research info), because I would have dreaded writing the kind of product being described in the directions. Then in full "dogfooding" spirit, I did the project myself first. I let the students pick my particular research topic, and then I gave myself the homework of creating a CYOA story as a model for them. When they got to begin their own, I was able to give really clear instructions for how to map out and present the story, because it wasn't hypothetical. So what activities that we typically assign out of habit can we pause and examine critically, taking on the perspective of the student? Are there improvements or changes we can make so they are more clear, more interesting, more engaging, such that we would comfortably take them on as learners? It's basically the Golden Rule of teaching. Go eat your own dogfood!
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AuthorThis is a place where I record thoughts on second language research and pedagogical theory Archives
June 2019
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