Greetings Friends:

I come to you today in yet another pathetically transparent attempt to encourage us all to chat a bit about teaching and learning at our college.

I know, I know, it is week eight! What is wrong with me!

But week eight is just the right time for some rejuvenation — just the right time to bring that pulse of energy back into our onsite or online classes with a new discussion technique for your bag of tricks.

You may even find yourself injecting discussion leadership strategies into some of your meetings (they worked for me when I was on jury duty).

And every one of us — staff and faculty — has experienced discussions both enthralling and stultifying. We all have opinions, ideas, and tips to share.

Not surprisingly, we are not alone in our interest in this topic. And during this week-long celebration of discussion (wait…what?!), I will be sharing web sites, and books, and other tools we can use to sharpen, expand, reinvent, renew, restore, recalibrate and otherwise transform our discussion skill set.

But for now I will limit myself to 2 invitations:

1) Respond to this email with one cool discussion tactic you have used as a teacher or experienced as a student, and I will share your idea with the MiraCosta world. You can also post directly to our blog if that’s how you roll!

2) Join us for the first edition of “The Conversation,” an occasional Thursday night series where we invite Miracosta faculty to gather together in zoom for an online open forum style discussion on a teaching and learning related topic. For our first meeting, this Thursday October 12 from 7-8 PM we are gathering in this zoom discussion space:
The First Conversation! Designing and Facilitating Discussions
https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/108160481

Feel free to join in for all or any small part of the conversation — come late, leave early — just give yourself a chance to talk some pedagogy with your colleagues outside of a formal structure. You can count it all of flex or just indulge for the sheer pleasure of doing something else when you know you should be grading or spending time with beloved family members.

I hope to see you in my inbox, on the blog, or in Zoom for a discussion designed to discuss discussions.

And speaking of discussion…

How To Join the Discussion Inside Our PDP Canvas Site

When I sent out my invitation last week to visit one of our discussion pages in Canvas, I neglected to mention (because I did not know / understand) that to view / participate in one of the discussions, you need to take a few minutes and enroll yourself as a student in the PDP Canvas class. You can find the link to do this on the right side of your screen.

Lisa M Lane has prepared a dazzling clear image showing exactly how to do this. You will find it prominently displayed when you visit the Project Joy page in PDPs Canvas site.

Thanks!

Prepostero
PDP Coordinator / P3 Prince of Pedagogical Playfulness
Bearer of Joyous Tidings
artist formerly known as gym sullivan
951-505-2232

Note from Lisa – actually, the above log-in has problems! Instead, go to

To join, you need to be a “student” in the course. You can join here:

Or if you’re logged in to Canvas, you can scroll to enroll: