Thursday, August 27, 2015

How Do You Think About Teaching?

Enjoyed this piece today in the Chronicle of Higher Education "These Videos Could Change How You Think About Teaching" - I'm a fan of  Mike Wesch  @mwesch , and especially appreciate his attitude about teaching. I had the privilege of hearing him speak at an Educause conference years ago. In person and online he comes across as genuinely authentic, and I'm sure his students sense that. 
I'm also glad to hear of his new site, My Teaching Notebook. The videos below and more can be found there. "He is working on more short videos – they're essentially visual op-eds – to post, all of them about his philosophy that college teaching should focus on transforming the learner." 
That last part, "college teaching should focus on transforming the learner," that is what resonates with me, that's what I believe.  

I'm a big fan of risk taking and failing, this one is my favorite so far:


Lastly, as an academic librarian I teach short one-shot library research classes (typically 45-60min), and as an adjunct I teach fully online courses. It can be challenging to connect with and "transform learners" in short teaching sessions or in fully online courses. I work hard at this in my teaching and have seen pretty good results so far. I hope to break new ground this year by reminding myself of the philosophy of Mr. Wesch.  
As always, comments are welcome.

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