Thinking even further ahead

Chalkdust 101 has a link to a video interview with Michael Wesch.  I have been reading about him, but this was the first time I really decided to sit down and see what he has to say.

Wesch says that his approach, which he calls anti-teaching, starts with

loving and respecting your students.

How cool is that?  It should be basic and understood and taken for granted, but it isn’t.

The video has me thinking ahead.  Next semester is pretty well set, and it it is a move in the right direction, but there is a lot more to be done. One of the things I have to do is provide a way for ESL students in different majors to learn English using content from their majors.  That is a little tricky to do when we have students in four different departments and with many different majors within some of those departments.

This video really got me thinking.  Wesch talks about  the intelligence and knowledge of students. He talks about inspiring good questions.  He says in a lecture class of 400, each student becomes an expert on some small topic and then they share the knowledge. I think there is something there that I can use.

If I first of all put students in groups according to their majors, I can then let them choose things they want to investigate and learn about.  This approach would suggest a blog or wiki as a place for each group to share and explore their knowledge.  Probably, too, there have to be individual blogs for students to use to reflect on their own learning as they go along.

I need to think about this more and see what I can add to my plans for Spring to act as more of a bridge.  A bridge for me more  than for the students as in the fall I will have new students.  But if I have the experience, it will be easier to make what I envision for next fall reality.