What I Think I'm Supposed To Have Learned...or Mentoring 101

At the end of our section on Matrix Modelling, I am confident (no, really, I AM confident), that my students here in Swan River will be more than capable of teaching their peers in Dauphin some of the finer points regarding what we've covered so far.

Specifically, what they'll be doing (or what you'll be doing, if you happen to be unfortunate enough to have landed on my class list this semester), is this:

photo credit: http://www.svleck.com/images/helping%20students%20stat.png

1. In your Blog Team, begin a series of posts describing the 'ins and outs' of one sub-topic in the unit on Matrix Modelling. I'll tell you in class who your team is, and what your sub-topics are.

2. Your language is critical to the success of such an experiment. You need to talk on the blog like a high school student speaking with another high school student (whom you don't know), since that is exactly the situation that we're in. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation are really important, since you don't know whom you're speaking to, and the only thing that they have to base the quality of your instruction on is your language....Having said that, I think a sense of humour is really worthwhile, as is the sense that the world is much larger than our small piece of geography in the Parkland...

3. I hope that it's obvious that I expect you to post screen shots, recordings, external links, etc....including anything and everything that might help the students in Dauphin learn what you're supposed to know...Be creative, and think carefully about what you're posting...

Rationale: Am I expecting my students to 'create' learning opportunities for other students in other communities, just because? Believe it or not, I'm not really that crazy about 'busy work'....Teachers as well as students are busy, and need to trust that their time is well spent in learning environments/opportunities....So here's my take...(and I take absolutely no credit for this idea, it's just 'common' knowledge, especially to first-year teachers)....

"Having to teach something to someone else
makes you learn it yourself, really, really, well...."

....which I hope does a quick job of explaining at least one of the reasons why we're doing what we're doing....

RM