Learning about Learning

Faculty members, administrators and instructional support folks in higher education need to get serious about learning about learning. I do not profess to have all of the answers, or even to know all of the questions. This blog is my attempt to chronicle my attempts to learn about learning and to (I hope) provide some interesting insights and observations about the future of teaching and learning in higher education.

I purposely have not included "teaching" in the title of this blog because I think we need a paradigm shift in higher education. We need to think much more about learning. Instead of asking "How am I doing as a teacher (or instructional designer)?" we ought to ask "What's going on in our students' brains? How will they be different because they "bumped into us" for awhile, be it in a course, a one-on-one consultation, a mentored research project, whatever? I'm purposely forcing myself to take this perspective in hopes that it will help me break out of the traditional didactic, sage-on-the-stage model and instead focus on the most important goals of post-secondary education--preparing students to be productive citizens, parents, neighbors and (oh yeah) participants in the global economy.

I welcome your input, criticism, responses, whatever. Afterall, my attempt here is to learn about learning and I'd love to learn from you.