Feeling Like A Beginner
I have been teaching in the North Carolina community college system for twenty-three years. You would think that I have extensive experience with open education, and to a certain extent, I do. I try not to reinvent the wheel if I don't have to, and if I can find something online that works much better than what I could have developed, I definitely make use of it. There is also a community of practice among my colleagues, and we do tend to share with each other what has worked for us. Many times, one or more of us will adopt a practice or assignment that sounds really promising.
On the other hand, as my subject line indicates, I really feel like a beginner at times. Life was in many ways easier when ideas were confined to specific "nodes" like textbooks, library resources, and other publications or conferences. These spaces were clearly identified, and their scope was clearly defined. In any measurable way, things should be easier now because of the proliferation of resources available on the web, but the problem that I have now is trying to track down where these resources are. This is one of the things I'm hoping to gain from this course: handy "road maps" to finding the gems that I know are out there.
I'm also looking forward to specificity. As much of our reading indicated, institutions, including mine, are often better at insisting that certain conditions be met rather than actually defining what those conditions are. (As a related example, the system introduced a new course called English 112 about three years ago. The state sent us a course name and description but then completely failed to give us any guidance on how the course should be put together.) I like being given explicit descriptions of how things should work rather than "consultant-speak" with large abstract ideas without any information on how to actually put those ideas to work.
I'm looking forward to being given the tools to find the best resources available, and perhaps even contributing resources of my own.
Hi Jeffrey, great to have you here. What I hope will happen in this course is that we'll give some specific guidance and participants will create clear examples. So far, so good, I'm seeing a lot of great work and a lot of different ways of going about it. Often the best resources are recommended by people in your network, and this also seems to be a strength of this course. Let us know if we can be of service for any open resources that would enhance the work you're already doing!
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Jeffrey, you have managed to convey my own thoughts and feelings more eloquently that I ever could. I am a full-time computer engineer currently managing projects within the IT Department for the City of Santa Monica and teaching computer science two nights per week at Santa Monica College (community college). One might think that I would be more comfortable in this arena.
I am comfortable with the technology, but find myself bewildered with the options available to us as educators. I am comfortable and successful designing my courses around a well crafted textbook. My problem is that the things have just gotten too expensive. All too often, I find students in my courses trying to manage without purchasing or renting the book and trying to make do with the copy I keep in reserve in the library. That is not a likely formula for success.
My goal here is to discover the tools that I need to find and exploit the open resources that I can use in my courses.
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It is easier for us to be confined to notes, etc, because "that's how we learned it." As you know, education has changed, in that, nearly everyone goes past high school now, and we have to teach everyone. And there is this internet thing that we have to keep up with. I feel the same way, trust me, I wish it was all confined, and then I don't sometimes. It would make my life and your life easier, but that would be no fun in teaching. Hey, you've stuck with it longer than a lot of people. And you know why? You've adapted. You're not stagnant. You don't need to keep up with everything. That's really overwhelming! You ARE doing it! Pat yourself on the back and keep going! I know you like being given explicit directions, but then you're not free to explore the possibilities. (Which are totally scary, I'm with you) But you know we need to grow, along with our students. It's all for them, in the long run.
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