Time to reflect and write

..... well, I do that every week or two really, don't I?

Today I had to bring my library books back, now my desk is half empty. For the first time I had them there in front of me for two months, and did not look at them except to go quickly through the chapter headings.  As a result I had to choose very quickly what to make note of and sacrifice the rest - that's what happens when you break your new habits.

When I got back home I was straight on to Amazon to look for some more books, but better to wait a bit - might need to see where my study takes me next year as I am still working through that.

Class on Saturday was great, a lot of insight into teaching, others thinking and a lot of laughter, that always helps the day get better. Feedback was good overall despite me giving my feedback with Page 2 first, as you couldn't really tell this week where it started and ended (and I saw that most of my paragraphs were quite self contained when I wrote it out....)

Going through the criteria for the second assignment I noticed that we are to reflect on and evaluate our learning taking per feedback into account. What I have written in my Patchwork texts is not a problem, but what I have neglected to do, is to take stock of our collaborative conversations offering insights and interpretation, that went so naturally, I better go back through this blog and see what I might have hiding as comments or noted statements. It refers mostly to the first and the third reflection, so I should be able to gather something out of my ramblings. It was all so organic I haven't consciously captured enough in my waking thoughts - so that might take some effort. Going through the Community should help as there will be some comments and queries to trigger my recollections.

So my goals for last week were all achieved and on time, yay for that, there was a LOT to get done. The voice over to the TE application turned into a marathon nightmare, I couldn't get the microphone and sound settings to stick and ended up going to bed at 1am an 3am for 2 nights. However I was very happy with the end result and so was Marc, who has always been a very fair critic to me. This has taught me that each computer will sound different though and the quality of my laptop speakers is really not that great - am I thinking about investing in a laptop again after all that and working from a usb stick after all? I'm not yet inclined to do everything through Google Drive although I can certainly see how and why I would ......

Goals for this week:

1. Make a good start on the MLT Assignment - I really have to dig around in my brain (due on Friday, 21 October) for how I can set out the collaborative and interpretive part of the feedback process
2. Make a great start on the TPA Assignment, as that is due in 4 days earlier (due on Monday 1 October)
3. keep a few in the moment times as well, Myrddin posted a great reminder of that this morning as he was enjoying his morning coffee in the sun.

The seeds of learning have all been germinating and now it's up to me 

to nurture them into strong trees for knowledge 

Reading and Writing

In preparation for Saturday's class I need to summarise my learning over the past fortnight and share that with my classmates.
We were kindly give access to an amazing PowerPoint analogy of a garden as well as a poem describing how this persons felt coming into study as a adult. Very inspiring and touching, and got me to wondering what I could do. After some consideration I realise I want to keep updating this blog, and use this for my summaries. I'll keep adding links, pictures and my thoughts and everything will be in one place.

So......the first two weeks of Special Topic are nearly done, and it's time to share where I've been, when I'm not here. My thoughts are still scattered through my class notes and the beginnings of the assignment. This blog is now well underway, and I went to the Library this week for some literature. I came across Teaching the Unprepared by Kathleen F. Gabrielas an extra reading. What a helpful book!
It reinforces a lot of my current thinking and will articulate a lot of the half thoughts I have about how to improve the relationships I build with my students. Learning centred learning  is the  main topics here, one I fully support but need to keep evolving. This book has great strategies to increase student engagement as well as give them solid support. In particular, by establishing a learning inventory early in my next course, I hope to begin empowering students to take responsibility for their learning, thus letting them take control and make the transition to become a successful student.

Next I need to establish the order of investigation into my subject, the wording of which still needs refining. Some discussion will clarify what I need to tweak. Setting goals will help me round the search out, and then to gather all of the reflections and findings into a coherent body of work for presentation. Focussing on that should prevent too much procrastination, something I do very well.

I have made some good footprints, now to continue the journey by making my own path - with the help of my students, classmates, teachers and colleagues, oh, and a bit of well thought out referencing, something amazing is sure to happen.