Category: Uncategorized

Hi Class — First, many thanks to our two Point Guards — Bhumika and Manal — who are doing an excellent job!

Glad to introduce you to one of my heroes, Helen Keller.

Your new Weekly Assignment Folder is Live. Please look there for your current assignments. Please do the “Name Name” assignment first! (You already got a head start on thinking about it during class.)

Name Names will give you a good basis for approaching the “How I” Draft assignment. And that assignment, in turn, will be an excellent basis for your first Capstone Assignment.

All the assignments in this Unit build upon each other.

I will also give you some readings soon.

See you Thursday.

Hi Class,

As we go into the first week of September, I want to reach out and show you some of the ideas we are engaging with right now. One is the “what kind of learner are you” concept; the other is note-taking.

As you now know from your reading (see our First WEEK ASSIGNMENTs), this is the VARK system:

Are you a “visual” or “auditory” or “read/write” or “kinesthetic” learner — or a mix of two or three or all?

As you can see, I am a mixture (“multimodal”) according to the VARK test– here is my personal result:

I think I am classic “kinesthetic,” and I think you can tell that, too (even though you have known me only a short time). Some clues: I am always rearranging the room; I am always interested in what happens between people and I especially try to jump in and do my own assignments with the students, because I feel like I understand both my assignment and my students better that way. Jumping in: that is very kinesthetic.

But yes, okay, “aural” is up there, too, I admit, as I am constantly playing music and creating “word poems” out of thin air. So, yeah, the test is pretty cool.

Honestly, “VARK” is only one system of may, and it can be pretty simplistic.

However, I chose it because it does start good discussions and it does foster self awareness. And you will need self awareness to work on your first Capstone Assignment for UNIT 1, which is coming up at the end of next week. So please, do explore VARK, and as I mentioned before, please don’t spend any money on the website. This is just for the purposes of exploration.

On to Notes.

I can’t really say enough about how cool and important — and individual — note taking is. Each person has to figure out their own method of taking notes for themselves. It’s almost like an autograph, or a fingerprint. And what’s more, you probably need more than 2 ways of taking notes, since you have so many different things going on in your life.

Next class, please remind me to show you some samples from my previous 1121 class. I had the students share their styles with me, visually. I also do want to show you a classic note-taking method called “Cornell Notes.” Meantime, here is a really good video, also from Cornell. Please take a look:

One more thing: next Thursday, I am taking my 10AM class to the computer center on the 6th floor of the General Building. There are a handful of seats available, and if you want to join us, you are welcome. We should be there around 11AM. I would have taken all of you guys — of course! — only the Computer room doesn’t even open until 10. Talk to you soon!