Some say the only way an adventure can truly be an adventure is if there's a little bit of fear involved. The first time I taught a course using project-based learning (PjBL from now on), I was petrified - for a lot of reasons I won't go into. For the second winter in a row, I find myself teaching a PjBL course that really stretches me and until I decided to start this reflective blog, I wasn't feeling the fear. But it's here now...
I decided to commit myself to a blog and regular reflections this quarter for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I wanted a way to document my growth in using PjBL. If nothing else, this blog can serve as an archive and proof (to myself) that I did stretch and grow this time around.
Another reason to create this blog is that I needed a place to house information and updates for my fellow faculty members who have agreed to work with the class that is fairly easily accessible. Short of creating a new Canvas space for us, what could I do? Ah, I thought. It's time to step into the realm of creating an intentional digital footprint for myself and here's a great way to start - providing information for colleauges and reflecting on my teaching journey in this course.
As a true obliger, my commitment to ideas like this work best when there's external accountability. (If you're unfamiliar with the term "obliger" I recommend checking out author Gretchen Rubin and her Four Tendencies framework, a nutshell version of which can be found here).
And thus this blog was born. I'm committed to doing two things here: providing information about the course to my faculty collaborator colleagues (including links to documents, assignments, etc.) and reflecting on my experiences teaching the course.
As you might expect, I'm also committed to genuine reflection and growth while also protecting the privacy of the individuals I work with, so I won't use any student names or identifying details in this blog, nor names and details of my faculty colleagues.
I'm looking forward to this adventure - and it certainly is an adventure now that I'm practicing some of the "public learning" I'm asking of my students this quarter!
A note for my faculty collaborators: links to documents that have details and information that need to remain confidential (such as permissions for class activities from the institution and other details) will require you to enter your email to access them. Please don't hesitate to get in touch with any questions.
Karen
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