Taking on a Student's Perspective

After teaching online for more than four years now, I will finally be taking an online course myself. This should be interesting, as I will for the first time (I hope) really understand where my students are coming from when they comment [read: complain :-)] about taking online courses with me. The course is entitled Problem Based Learning through Drake University. It's a graduate course, which is nice as it will help me towards my promotion in a couple years. Beyond such benefits, however, I do have a real interest in the topic of PBL. It's not something I have much formal knowledge of, but I suspect it is something I have worked with over the length of my teaching career, as many of my projects have been inquiry-based, which is a buzz word I am hearing more and more when discussing PBL.

As part of the course, we've been asked to keep a journal and learning log. In fact, it was suggested that we keep this as a blog. I figured what a great opportunity to bring my "Teacher's Notebook" back to life especially since its been scarcely alive since I launched it about two years ago. So why not? Over the next ten weeks or so, I will be using this space to journal for my PBL online course and to keep my "learning log." If anyone's reading, enjoy watching me struggle as I have enjoyed (lovingly) over the years watching my own students struggle as they contend with new ideas.