Transparency in Teaching and Learning: Common Sense Reigns, or not

I am now involved in a faculty learning community (first one) on TiLT. We had our first meeting today, with a great discussion between a business professor, an education professor, a mathematician, two  literature teachers, a biological psychologist, an instructional designer, and me--not sure how to define myself, mostly communication, some English, some social science, and mostly administrator.

We talked about our first thoughts, to some extent skeptical, about TiLT, and where we hoped to take this.  I'm excited about it, because I'll be teaching a freshman public speaking class later this semester and that is probably where TiLT is most needed.

Our misgivings were sort of around "hand-holding" and not letting the students experience complexity, ambiguity, and ill-defined problems, to "muck around" in an intellectual task. That's valid, but not entirely what TiLT is against. It's against vagueness, purposelessness (perceived), and detachment from the real world.

Nothing really seems more common sense than being abundantly clear about what you are doing in the classroom and expecting students to learn and produce, but . . . as academics, we like to argue, or pretend to.

I'll keep you posted. 

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