For the Semester to Come
I could say many things about my first experience as a professor at Quinnipiac University. We are about to complete the academic calendar for the fall of 2015. I loved teaching this class. The vision and concept of the class fits perfectly with my experience, expertise, and preparation. I had the opportunity to join a great faculty and to make new friends in the process. I am proud to say that I had the chance to be the professor for a fine group of freshmen who I’m sure have a great future ahead of them. I’m pretty sure I’ll see them again. I was granted the opportunity to teach in the spring as well, and to join a great group of academic advisors. I am sure this is going to be another fantastic experience.
Now that the class is almost over, as an instructional designer I evaluate the processes and results, and the overall sequence and presentation of the class. I don’t only evaluate the performance of my students but also my own. I look through each lesson and how they connect on each phase towards the final product. This is also preparation for the semester to come. I moved lessons around on the calendar with the intention to build a solid foundation in the development of self-regulated, lifelong independent learners.
I hope my students have all the success in the upcoming years and that my participation at this stage of their lives had some significance. I also hope the next two groups are as exceptional as this one. I guess it is going to be almost inevitable to compare all other experiences and groups with the first, but in a good way. I can’t deny the mix emotions as I see these students go. It is a melancholic feeling, but at the same time I am happy for them, and I wish they look back at the experience with gladness, as I am.
In honor to art discussion week we sculpted in class to understand Inquiry as a non-linear process comprising DESTINATION, DIRECTION, PURPOSE, and ACTION. It is a way of finding purpose through inquiry and clay. With clay in hands the students are presented with these concepts. You can observe four types of approaches to inquiry as you do with sculpting. These can happen in any order and intersect each other multiple times during the activity. It is very important to observe behavior, and moreover make students aware of the behavior in light of these concepts to allow them to understand their own path. Each path is different and there is no “right” or “wrong” but different approaches to learning.
You Will Get Offended
“You will get offended at some point. Someone is going to say something that will go against what you think or believe, and you will get offended. However, getting offended is a choice. There is another choice. You can look back at this selfie and understand that you only have one view and a very small part of the complete story.”
Inquiry is a fancy label to seek understanding of multiple points of view. In the process, we discover that we don’t know everything, or have all the answers. Interestingly, with all the advances in technology, specially in astronomy, some people still believe that the universe revolves around them. Some people assume that their current knowledge and understanding, and self-gained experience is the one and only irrevocable truth. As I often tell my students, and share with other people in conversations, the earth was flat. Through a process of investigation we realize that it is not.
In life, what we think we know today can be challenged, and it can change for our own benefit. We increase knowledge when we allow ourselves to understand different positions and points of view. Our world expands when we can see it from multiple perspectives, but not so much when we only look through the scope of our self-righteous, self-absorbed understanding of the world around us like there is nothing else. It is very easy to talk about tolerance and acceptance, when the only thing we tolerate and accept is what we believe. Then we get offended by opposition. Nevertheless, there is a big difference between tolerance and acceptance, and to surrender your believes and principles for what someone else understands is the truth. Understanding you is not going to change what I believe, but I get to see your point. That is a subject for another conversation.
We all have a selfie, a small view of the world around us. You choose to be offended or to allow yourself to understand other points of view. Some people will choose to hold on to their wisdom and allow their world to shrink with their self-righteousness. Others will grow their wisdom and understanding by investigating and learning about different perspectives on the subject matter.
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