I appreciate your feedback Dr.Nelson. I am enjoying the process of learning and discovery that is unfolding in your class. Now that I have been made aware of the difference in teaching technique, style, and outcomes, I’m finding that I’m questioning everything. I spend time scanning my memory for moments in education that made a big impression on me (for better or worse) and I’m trying to identify why they stand out to me so distinctly (Out of the thousands of hours I’ve spent in one classroom or another, what about each memory is significant?) This is a big time of growth for me and I am grateful for the privilege and opportunity to get to learn, reflect and take this journey.

Also! Thank you for the kind words about my daughter. She is definitely getting better, we look forward to her being back to her normal self soon!

Hi Chang, thank you for sharing your experience with me. I can think back on almost an identical set of memories: the lessons are fuzzy, but the teacher and their approach is clear in my mind. This question of engagement is a good one. At the college level, we are probably better at what we do as teachers when we know our topic really well–or at least well enough to recognize what we don’t know–and maybe use that as a place to start exploration for the class. I envision giving my students design tasks that will ultimately generate really nice products that they can use again in their portfolios. Also, I’d like to help them discover a few things about themselves-like how they learn the best, what about the course really interests them-and then help them reach their end-goal on their own terms. I think this might be a way to add a layer of mindfulness to my classes. Have you thought of what you might want to do in your own classes in the future?

Thank you, Jyotsana. She is doing much better, it was SO SCARY for us there the first handful of days. We really didn’t know what was going on and it was extremely stressful for all of us.

I am looking forward to checking out that TedTalk–I appreciate the referral. I feel like I’m asking the “how” a lot lately. We’ve been given numerous examples, but I haven’t yet put into plan or action what that will be like for me. (But the Syllabus exercise looms on the horizon, so I think that will be a huge help!)

Thanks so much for this, Sarah! I’m sorry you had such a rough week and am really glad that the little one is better. This sentence in your post really jumped out at me: “Just because we were trained in our formative years to be good little students doesn’t mean that we were actually being trained to be good learners and thinkers.” That’s so true —
and your post does a wonderful job of raising awareness around how we as teachers need to mindful of what we do and why.

I am definitely tuning in for the next episode.

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I really enjoyed the post and there has been a lot of great discussions. To reach that balance that A. Nelson described, maybe we first need to have an awareness of the various options and expand our view of what is around us. Once we have this awareness, we can then evaluate the risks and rewards before adopting a change. Too often, I feel like I don’t know what approaches are out there. Being open to things outside of my comfort zone doesn’t mean that I have to adopt a particular approach. But once I am aware of something, I can make a conscious decision.

I agree with Rudi — that experience sounds like an ideal class. Connected, networked and learner-centered. Wow.

I agree with Amy, and would love to hear your ideas for how you might carry over the idea of multiple approaches and remixing from cooking to the classroom.

This was a great post! I loved reading about your exploration of mindfulness on your journey to McAfee Knob. It was such a great visual for the learning experiences you describe. I think often times students are in classes and they have no idea why they have to take that class or how it all relates to what they are planning on doing after they get out of the classroom (I never could figure out why I should learn heat and mass transfer). I love your example of ways to bring that context into the learning environment to give students a snapshot of the top.