Thanks Kathryn! I have started warming up to annotating what I read with Hypothesis! I’ll see you there and yes, let’s keep the conversation going beyond the scope of this course.

Thanks Grace for reading this week. I haven’t gotten to Miguel Andres’ or Ethan’s posts, but now I am going to seek them out. You are quite right about the development of empathy and emotional intelligence. The BIG lesson from school we tend to forget about is the one about learning how to be a good person. Thanks for bringing up the point. It’s arguably the most important think we can help our students with.

Thanks Jason, I appreciate your feedback. I like that you bring up innovation in the classroom. It was a topic I really wanted to write about for this post, but I felt like I was pushing the limit for my blog post being overdue so I left it out. I like what you said about believing in innovation, but not at the expense of the other reasons why it’s important for students to attend class. This is a valuable distinction. I loved the readings about teaching innovation this week. I don’t know that any one teacher can “teach” innovation to a student in a single-classroom-experience, because I believe it is a skill that takes a long time to develop (with practice, like any other hard skill). But, the more students are exposed to the concept and the conditions for developing the thinking process required for innovation, the better off they will be in the long run. Eventually, they won’t need teachers to show the way because they will know how to do it themselves. As a teacher, I see part of the job description as helping students develop this skill by nurturing their ability to think critically and develop their unique approaches by creating environments that encourage thinking and new ideas.

Hi Amy, thank you for your feedback. It is good to get a little bit of validation from the instructors especially at the end of a course. It was a great experience this semester. I learned so many methods and techniques and theories on teaching. I can’t wait to connect with students in new ways in the future.

Thanks Emma, for your comment. Its great to hear you connected with what I was trying to articulate about giving students a meaningful experience in the classroom. You’re so right–why would anyone care about coming to a face-to-face if they thought they could get the same instruction online? There are different paths out there for all students, but the ones who come to see us will get something unique. I think it’s our job to serve our students as best we are able. I agree with you about the importance of the course content and the physical classroom. The material and space have everything to do with creating a stimulating environment.

Hi Alex,
You present an interesting breakdown of Godin’s talk. When he was rattling off his 8 takeaways, I was having a similar reaction to the things he was saying. I think it is good for us to be having this discussion, but I tend to agree that some of the things he was saying didn’t sit well with me. Thanks for including the video of the guy doing the TED talk on “Nothing.” I could only stomach about half of it before I felt like I had seen enough. There is a particular style that these talks tend to follow and this video really does point out how it tends to happen/unfurl during any TED presentation. While I do love TED talks, generally, I am also finding myself jaded as I watch some of them–there’s a lot of focus on “what we don’t know” coming from these seeming Experts, and not many offerings from them on “what they might know.” When I go for this kind of media, I want enrichment… and that substance is often lacking from TED these days. Thanks for your post this week.

Hi Syeed,
I think you bring up a very strong point about the purpose of education is to make us more humane–and that this element is often missing from curiculua in general. I think we should always be asking ourselves what the ethical implications for our choices, behavior, and research are. Thanks for this thoughtful post!