D'Arcy Hutchings's List: Ed 655 Course Essentials

• I began to wonder if that was how I came across to my students, especially when responding to their concerns about grades or worries about speaking Spanish in front of their peers. In the past, I had the tendency to tell them not to worry, that we are all friends and they should not be worried. What if my Chemistry professor asked me to get up and start speaking extemporaneously about electron orbitals? Would considering my peers in the class as friends somehow make it a more enjoyable experience? No way!
• One of the most compelling passages from Benander is on the “confusion of novelty that students experience.” I have experienced this many times and in fact, I did so as I began this assignment. The start of any new course presents this feeling. Like arriving in a new city or new school, the space itself is overwhelming and disorienting. I followed links to the online articles, made sure not to miss anything, read and re-read the Unit 1 assignment, checked the announcements page to make sure I had not overlooked anything, read and re-read the actual assignment to make sure that I had pre-loaded the right questions to be aware of while reading, and so on. Then I used Diigo to bookmark the articles and fiddled with that while reading. It was my first experience with Diigo and again I tried to make sure I was on top of things. There were matters of when and where to complete and post the assignment, as well as stylistic, length, content, and format uncertainties. These are all the challenges of the learning novice.
• The novice is beset by new environmental and cultural insecurities as well as uncertainties of expectations.
• They are often frequently the authors of the “social constructions and cultural expectations specific to the experience” that are mazes and mysteries for the novice. Free from these stresses, experts generally have more space for joy and pleasure in their topics.

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