When it starts to feel like a mandated collective environment, things can get very ugly for those involved. What's the expectancy? Can it be the same across a diverse organization?

The class watched the Phantom Menace Review in class towards the beginning of the semester. This just seemed like a good way to sum up the course.

We hoped this activity would require students to critically explore the topics they selected and make connections between the themes inside and outside the course. Carolyn and I sat down to reflect on the project and recorded this podcast.

Thinking about it, the best teachers I ever had impacted me at this level. The subject matter was different, and certainly the methods were not the same but, what all the experiences had in common was their ability to have me challenge myself. To question who I am and why I am this way. Maybe that's what it's all about.

So when people ask me why I care so much about providing platforms for digital expression one of the first stories I tell them is the one about my own children and how I want education to be able to support them in all sorts of ways. I want them to be able to do what they can do at home inside the walls of the school ... I need them to feel like the things they make are an important part of who they are today and who they will become. I need them to feel the power related to thinking about their thinking and I really want them to actively reflect on what that means to them. As I sat looking at her travel blog I actually got goose bumps thinking about how important our work really is -- and how important it is to build opportunities for how it should be in the future.

A key quality these early academic social media adopters share is the hacker mentality. I know the hacker mindset well because I used to be one. In the early days of personal computing, I was very much involved in hacking, phreaking (sorry, Ma Bell), and the budding bulletin board system (BBS) community. I won't get into the finer details about hacking culture here, but can summarize it by saying that hackers are interested in manipulating technology for greater personal and social/community benefit. There is a strong antiestablishment ethos that is woven through hacker culture that traditional educators can learn a lot from.

Enter Comm110, better known as Media and Democracy: a 300 person general education course, taught by Professor Michael Elavsky, which explores the role that the media plays in shaping our impressions of politics in our world.  As you might imagine, any substantial current event could demand class coverage and discussion.  But how do you facilitate discussion in one of the most intimidating venues imaginable for your average college freshman?

"Now in my role as an instructional designer, I get to ask why a lot, albeit without the gravitas that Sister June possesses. But it is nevertheless an important question, an attempt to get subject matter experts to differentiate "why I love this discipline and dedicate my life to its study" from "why does my discipline matters in the world." I ask why to shift the emphasis from knowing to doing, to distinguish core learning objectives from nice-to-knows, to ensure assessments align with the objectives. I ask why because I want to collaborate on courses that are highly relevant and that develop skills that apply outside of the classroom."

"But the professor isn't some noble, sitting up in the stands and looking on impassively, they are just as stuck in our struggle as we are. While beneficial to the professor (as has already been explained in recent comments), this is similarly beneficial to the students. By seeing the professor struggle with the material, attempting to come to grips with it by the student's guiding, the students learn ways to approach unforeseen problems. Instead of copying the motions of the master and getting by on technical knowledge of very specific occurrences, they learn where those techniques came from, and can carry that ability with them when a new instance is faced. "