Monday Master Class: How Two Extra Hours Can Make Your Paper Two Times Better
You glance over the relevant readings, crack your knuckles, sigh loudly, check your Facebook feed once more, just in case some vital change in a friend’s relationship status requires immediate, intense attention, then, with great resignation, start writing.
“What do I really think about these topics?”
“What did this writer really mean?”
“What are different things she could have believed instead, and why did she choose this particular angle? “
“What would I have said?”
“What do I really think about this? Why?”
Dig out a tiny gem of thesis that fits your personal take on the material.
settle down in the most inspiring possible room
spend just alone with their thoughts, sifting through, in a complicated inner monologue, what they believe and why. Essays and small papers offer you this opportunity. Most students ignore it and instead just blaze ahead blindly in their comfortable, “I hate papers!” writing-centric approach.
Take a 1 – 2 hour idea vacation before your fingers hit the keyboard.
Conventional wisdom says: studying happens on campus, or, if you’re feeling particularly crazy, maybe in a Starbucks near campus. And that’s it. It is supposed to be a grind that takes place in in the same old boring libraries surrounded by the same old boring people.
Just because it’s “tradition” to spend the week before exams holed up in the library in some macho display of academic self-flagellation, this doesn’t mean that you have to follow this path.
If you take up the adventure studying challenge — and I hope you do
It is important to create an online community to shift the course from a teacher centered course to a student centered course. We want to facilitate our courses and guide content, but let the students dig deep to provide a rich and diverse experience that has meaning to the participants.
So what have I learned? I have learned who I am as a learner, and what I appreciate in a professor. I have learned that I need to let my voice and personality be known to my students because that is how we will connect and become emotionally connected to our course. I reflect on Professor Pickett’s introduction by her daughter. I immediately connected and realized that there was a human being behind the words, and she was relatable. This course is challenging and pushes my abilities, but the interaction with students and the professor helps me know that I am not a lone, and gives me space to evaluate my goals and reflect on what my presence is in our class and in developing the course.
Hey Heather
Thanks for reminding me of this tool. It looks very cool! Lucky you to go on vacation, must have been tricky. I have been in the same predicament, being enrolled in a course and being on vaca. Definitely a challenge, you just have to be very, very disciplined. But all of us have that in common.
Hedy
When I read the post prompt of “Where are you?” I know that Professor meant in the course, but I immediately had a flash of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot. “The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage (Sagan,2011) .”
so, you may think this course is about online teaching, but it is really about changing the world. : ) I need you to help me. Together we can do more than alone. "where are you?" is a multilayered question.
What I have realized in this course, is that teaching presence and social presence and cognitive presence come together to create meaningful learning environments for students and teachers. We want to facilitate this in our classrooms but also in our schools, buildings and districts. We want to create shared spaces where teachers are working together connecting, asking questions, working together to find solutions. When we look at the Seven Principles of Effective teaching, all of these principles are centered around communication and interaction. It is about forming relationships and understanding each other. It is about connecting, creating and understanding.
This course held a mirror up to the learner in me. Inside I want to connect with others. The social element in learning is vital. I want to connect, I want to be validated and I want to feel safe in my learning spaces. I want to learn from someone who is passionate about their subject and teaching. I want to be inspired and I want to feel like I am making a contribution. All of these elements have been present in our discussion forum. We have exchanged ideas, thoughts and we have been able to thoughtfully disagree.
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