Summer Project Week 6: Fresh thoughts for the late Middle of the Course

I am going to celebrate my anniversary tomorrow, Sunday the 7th of August, so I am writing this blog even though I am ill. Tomorrow, hopefully, I will not be as sick as I was these past few days. I am sleeping on a rubber or foam mattress that seems to have developed a peculiar smell that is making me very ill. Each episode is getting worse. After some research on the topic it seems I am not alone. Other people are getting ill from several brands of foam mattresses. Apparently today, many of these beds are made from petroleum-based chemicals, foams and flame retardants. These are not stable compounds and inhaling them hour after hour can cause damage to the immune and nervous system. My bed is seven years old. I began to notice the problems after I had chemical treatments due to an illness and developing asthma, about a year and a half ago.

Reading the assignments and discussions in the course, the students are expressing deeper thought patterns. At this point in the course there is supposed to be a shift as the learners or students move toward self-directed learning while sharing in the learning experiences of fellow learners. So far I have not observed this behavior. The course seems to moving along at the same pace with about the same format. I would like to think, I could change this pattern a bit by turning the discussions into an upside down inside out” Q & A session. Since the students have been reading and discussing course content for several weeks and the official end of the term is in circa 5 days, I would like to play a game called “…stump the expert,” posed by Boettcher and Conrad. The idea is to require the students to reflect on the course and come up with questions they would like answered by an expert in the field or from their instructor regarding the course content on any subject to date.

The idea is to have the students develop questions that make them pause, think and reflect on the knowledge they have gained. But more importantly have them reflect on the knowledge or concepts they did not understand or may have missed or something not covered they may want to learn more about. This exercise aids in the critical thinking and problem solving skills of the students. Adding an expert speaker or creating an event with an expert in the field may move them toward a deeper investigation of the field they are being introduced to. It may add newer insights and answer questions they may still have about that field of study.

During a introduction to sociology course, my instructor brought a FBI agent into the class to talk to us about the agency and the work they were doing. It was the reason I eventually pursued a sociology degree in my bachelors program. It was the reason, I chose a criminology emphasis of study in that field. To this day, I have not forgotten the instructor, the class or what that agent told us. He opened a whole new world for me.

Therefore, I believe experts may be able to add interest to the course when it is close to wrapping up. The expert should be able to bring new and current ideas to the students in the course. It could lend a new perspective to the course and its content in the present. The students would be able to research the topic the expert will speak on before the event; what the expert is doing in the field; and answer some of the questions they may have on the topic or topics in the course.

Although this has nothing to do with the topic of the course, the video is an example of how you could use an expert in your course. This of course is a video, but it could be interactive as well. The students could ask questions if it was presented in a forum such as Skype or Elluminate. Or in a hybrid course, this could be one of the days everyone meets in a classroom. Finding experts with the knowledge needed in most courses of study should not be too difficult and may be worth their weight in gold.