Coming About

 Whew! That’s usually how I feel after the first day of classes in each new semester.  I don’t know what it’s like from the students’ perspectives (but, perhaps they will comment on their blogs and tell me:-), but as seen through the faculty lens, it’s a relief to get the semester underway and off to a good start.

At least for me, there’s a certain amount of tension associated with these beginnings — first, the challenge of pulling together what you think are the “right” course materials, everything from text selection to journal articles that the class will read, to the actual design and structure of each individual session in the semester.  I want it to be sufficiently rigorous to challenge our learners in the Adult Learning program, but not so much that it is overwhelming.

Finding that right balance, and creating a learning space in the classroom that is collaborative and conducive to the development of a learning community is what it is all about for me. And all of that generates a certain amount of angst during the first week.  I often wonder, “Will they respond well to these assignments?”  Sometimes I create exercises that I fear they will think are silly or not worthwhile; othertimes, I wonder if I have correctly judged the time requirements necessary to do the work I’ve assigned. Fortunately, the maturity of the learners in our program means that they will let me know, and we can make adjustments as we go along in the semester if we need to do so.

Thursday night’s ADLT 623 Organizational Learning class got off to a good start, I think. I was really pleased to look at the blog designs our students chose and the very creative names that they selected to begin their writing experience in this Web 2.0 medium– blog titles such as Serendipity, Crossing the Threshold, Spontaneity, and Thinking Out Loud – what great names!!! Erica Inge created The Jumping Off Point, and has already transferred all of her e-Porfolio documents from the last couple of years to a portfolio page in her blog: WOW!    Looks like our students won’t be needing this book!

 I’m listing the blogs our students create in the Blogroll on my site to make it easy for them to have a central place to find each other.  This foray into the blogosphere is new for most of our learners, although a few are bloggers in their personal lives. It promises to be an exciting semester for all of us as we learn from our collective thinking out loud!

For most of them, however, this will be a new experience in publishing in a public forum, a way of “making their thinking visible” (the idea behind cognitive apprenticeships, a key concept in the communities of practice literature).  By the time we had been to the computer lab and set up the blogs, I think most were pleased and excited with this new opportunity to engage in reflective practice.  We’ve also designed an assignment to have them exchange ideas and reflections with each other during the semester, an exercise I’ve called “Reflector-Mirror” — this, too, is a new experiment in learning. I’m sure I’ll be writing more about that in weeks to come.

Photo Credits: VCU Commons, Uploaded on October 27, 2007
by CoredesatChikai

Blogging for Dummies: Uploaded on September 24, 2006
by Somewhat Frank