Commitment On My Own Terms

I made the decision today to commit to participating in the thoughtvectors course that just started at VCU. But, I’m doing it on my own terms. As an open participant, it was liberating to be able to skip all the grading stuff and think about what I am hoping to get out of the course for my own learning. It was this paragraph in the syllabus that convinced me:

In addition to the specific assignments above or others required by your instructor, which will include many rough drafts of, and reflections on, your budding inquiry projects, you will also need to write write write. And create create create. And explore explore explore.  In other words, you should participate robustly in free-range learning and sharing. What you do should be relevant to the course, of course, but please think of “relevant” as potentially a very large set of things. A large part of this course depends on consistent, robust, and relevant participation. Without it, the course is just a bunch of assignments. Good assignments, mind you, but not an adventure or a journey. What you will make, and the total of what we make together, will be visible to the world and might even inspire others. Actually, if prior experience is any guide, it will inspire others. And we could all use some inspiration.

I have a statement somewhat similar to this in my own courses because I think this element of learning has been left behind in typical grade-centric courses. The best learning comes when you commit your whole self to the experience and worry less about the grade and more about what you are both giving and receiving as part of a community of learners. By not having to worry about the grade at all (aah…the power of a terminal degree), I can just focus on that second part.

I am very much in need of a learning community right now, one where I am a participant rather than an instructor or facilitator. I want to have an excuse to close the email tabs for a bit, tuck the to do list in the drawer (yes, I am still using a paper/pencil to do list) and write, create and explore. I particularly want an excuse to write. I tinker with blogging, run through ideas for posts, and then get distracted by everything else. Creativity in any form takes discipline and I’m hoping that is part of what I get from this experience. I’m taking a course and even though I am doing it on my own terms, it requires commitment.

I’m getting ready to post my “nugget” about Vannevar Bush’s article As We May Think and I know I’m not planning to follow the assignment but that’s part of doing this on my own terms as well.

3 thoughts on “Commitment On My Own Terms

  1. John Roberts

    Welcome aboard! I too am an open participant, and have my own goals which I’m concerned may diverge somewhat from the primary UNIV200 objectives. As yet I don’t feel “liberated” from the grading stuff, I feel stressed because I want to participate fully but am seriously time-constrained by full-time work and busy schedule of family activities. I wasn’t able to get started before Tuesday night, so hope to use a chunk of this coming weekend to prepare drafts of next week’s assignments and finish off this week’s. I plan to make appropriate choices on which items to do when. For instance, tonight’s assignment is 10 comments and another post; I’ll probably make a short post (rather than taking hours to complete it), and comment on as many posts as I can, but probably won’t make it to 10. I also don’t think I’m going to sweat the 11:59pm deadlines, unless I learn it somehow affects the students negatively.

    Most of my goals can be achieved within the inquiry project, although it may take longer to complete than the duration of the course. I’ll have to do an “initial” version which is complete with respect to the course, and then continue to expand and extend it until I’m satisfied it’s complete with respect to what I want to figure out. In the very near term, I’m planning a blog post defining what I was hoping the course would be, what my goals are, and how I plan to achieve those goals within the context of the course.

    Of interest, while at first glance my goals may diverge, I think in the larger sense they will not: I’m going to be gathering a bunch of information, and tossing it and a bunch of related knowledge I already have into the “concept space” of the course, which I’m very confident will benefit all the participants.

    I’m very glad you’ve chosen to commit to participation, and look forward to interacting with you over the next several weeks! I hope to see a blog post from you sometime in which you outline (mostly for yourself) in a bit more detail what your goals are and how you’re going to approach them. You’ve started that above, but can flesh it out in more detail, to enable a more concrete action plan. And given that, the rest of us can gather round, help you focus on those goals, and contribute ideas and information which facilitate your efforts. I’m looking forward to that!!

  2. witchyrichy Post author

    Hmmm…now I’m a little stressed out thinking about defining very specific goals 😉 I’ve been out of formal education for awhile and mostly want to dip back into the academic world and connect with a learning community without taking a formal course. Not sure I have more specific goals beyond that except those that quoted from the course description: write, explore and create. Mostly, I want to have a little fun on the Internet. That probably sounds frivolous but I do most of my work online and sometimes forget that connecting and collaborating can be about personal learning and not always about work. I’ve been having a blast today just exploring and reading about items of interest to me, even popped into a Google hangout to listen to two really smart people talk to each other.

  3. Pingback: The Challenges of Choosing to Learn | Ivy Run LLC

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