I’ve attached my philosophy assignment at the bottom of this post. I’ve written about a half dozen of these by now and every professor in the School of Education has told me to keep them pretty short, and since we didn’t have a length specified, I tried to do that. I also tried to not retread water, so to speak, and to make sure everything in here was kind of new and pertained specifically to online education since that is, of course, what we’re in. So this is kind of unrelated to the normal philosophies I’ve written.
Also, I guess this is goodbye. Obviously there will still be comments made on people’s posts but this is the last assignment posting for the course, so I’d like to thank everyone for their input and feedback over the course of this semester. I’m not even done going through everyone’s final units yet but that seems a lot less final than “the final post.” I tried to get this assignment done early to make sure I had time to make comments on everything. Your posts are all just so interesting I feel the need to read them all!
I’ll keep this short and say I enjoyed meeting and interacting with all of you, and I’ve learned a lot from everyone’s posts this semester. This is my last ever ONID course (at least for a few years) so I doubt I’ll bump into you all again. Take care!
Goodbye, and I hope you all have a fine winter holiday!
As usual, your piece was thoughtful, insightful and well written. I appreciated your emphasis on problem solving, lifelong learning, skill development and especially your acknowledgment that students have much to offer regardless of the level they are currently working at. As I read I kept making internal comments. ‘Good point!’, ‘nicely said’, ‘that’s so true’. Have a great break!
Hi Nicholas,
Excellent piece of writing. I particularly liked your closing statement, “Online education, by nature of its existing in a space that has come to dominate our lives, offers students heretofore unseen opportunities for learning and growth. However, that does not mean that the role of the teacher, as facilitator and guide, has radically changed as well. Opportunities, feedback, guidance and good old honesty still make up the backbone of education, and likely will for a long, long time.”
Good teaching is good teaching. We all aspire, I’m not sure we ever arrive. I know I still am deep in aspirations.
It was a pleasure having you in class. Your thoughts and comments were always insightful and honest, even when critical – especially when critical – which I appreciate.
Best wishes,
Owen