I’ve been teaching an undergrad class at the University of Regina each and every semester since the summer of 2007. Semester classes last 13 weeks. Last spring I taught it during intercession which lasted 6 weeks. That was real challenge. Beginning Monday, I’ll be teaching this course over 3 weeks. I’ve already resigned myself that this won’t be the same course. It can’t be. 13 doesn’t go into 3 very easily.
My major themes always include the following concepts:
- Learning is social and connected
- Learning is personal and self-directed
- Learning is shared and transparent
- Learning is rich in content and diversity
These concepts for the most part are not discovered and realized in one or two classes. They must be experienced. The first three concepts often take students several weeks before they start to understand them. You can have a look at my course and see how I’m planning to meet these objectives. The idea of learning being social and connected is the most challenging as the building of a learning community requires trust and time to develop. This is where you come in.
I’ve never really pushed twitter on my students but I’ll be asking them to give it a go in this class since I feel it’s likely the fastest way to beging developing a personal learning network. What I’d like to do is connect them with you within the first week. While I could easily give them some lists and sites to explore on their own, I’d like to give them the names of educators who will be looking out for them specifically. By June 1, you should find their names here. If you’d be so kind as to follow them back and make some informal connection with them on twitter, you may be the spark in setting some young teachers on to personal learning networks.
So if you’re willing, please fill in this form and make a connection with some pre-service teachers for the month of June. Thank you in advance.