What about a learning environment outside the classroom?

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From recent posts, we can plainly see that men in skirts are very effective.

Though not helpful to Emily right now.

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men in skirts.

And, I could do the research for you.

Hmm... Research.

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What about a learning environment outside the classroom?

Sure, sure, that would be fine... but I can't think of any of those, either.

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but I can't think of any of those, either.

A class that moved outside?

When you've had to learn something on your own? At home? At the library?

Learning to drive?

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I mean, there are classes I enjoyed, but it looks like the main thing that made those particularly effective was the subject matter. Looking at the other aspects of the "environment"... they have rather little in common.

For me, the most compelling environments were one where the instructor and the subject matter meshed well, just made sense together. There were moments that changed everything for me when that happened and the subject mattered more to me at the end than at the beginning.

But there were others when it was obviously just the right person in the front of the room -- and it wasn't going to change my life, but it was going to change the way I looked at the subject from then on...

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dcp, I don't mean I can't think of other environments, just that I can't think of particularly effective ones. Heh -- learning to drive was particularly ineffective.

I'd just like to share a couple of anecdotes from tonight, if I may. First off, we did a little "inquiry" project in groups of four (in my class on secondary curriculum design). Given two paper cups (one cut up, one not), two marbles of different sizes, a balloon, a measuring tape, and a stopwatch, we were to conduct inquiries into how fast things fell. Everyone in my group was convinced that the large marble should fall fastest of all. Because, you know, it's heaviest. (To be fair, this is probably one of those subject-area-bias things -- I'm not great with science, but I consider it pretty important to remember the really big science concepts since I'm in a related field; if I were a Spanish teacher, I might not be so concerned with it.)

Later, we were grouped by subject area and asked to come up with some of the "enduring understandings" for our subjects. We had some trouble with the concept of "enduring understanding" in my group of proto-math teachers, but we were also delayed by the need for two of us to explain the definition of pi to the other three people in my group.

(ETA: Actually, they sort of knew the definition -- if the definition is "three point one four blah blah blah." They had no idea what it meant. Talk about your enduring understandings!)

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Cat stuff (I figured I'd give warning)

So I'm sitting on the bed, wearing not much and enjoying the air conditioner. Shadow hops up on the bed, hops over me, then leans against me for a few moments. I scritch his ears for a bit, then he hops over Hubby and settles down against him to go to sleep.

A few moments later, I realize my hip is wet. I reach down, feel some liquid, raise my hand to my nose.

"HE PEED ON ME!"

Hubby: "He did what!"

"HE MARKED ME!"

Hubby's starting to giggle. "'And this is mine, and this is mine--I don't want that you can have that.'"

I'm sputtering.

Hubby: "Wait, didn't you say he leaned on you?"

"Yes."

"Oh. He just came from the litter box, right? He, um, dribbles. He's done it to me, he's--blotting."

"I AM NOT A CAT BUTT BLOTTER!"

"Well, you were going to take a shower anyway."

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Go Red Dwarf-referencing husbands! Er, who should certainly take cat-peeing-upon more seriously.

Hey, how cool is this! You can actually watch a video of an astronaut from Apollo 15 doing the hammer-and-feather experiment on the moon! (That is, since air resistance affects the falling speed on Earth, they dropped a feather and a hammer at the same time from the same height to verify that mass really doesn't affect how fast gravity pulls them. Which is to say, that bit from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, only without the feather-floating punch line, because no air. And so no air resistance. And I'm not making any sense, am I?)

I'm going into paroxysms of geeky delight here. You might want to stand back. Who knows when the glasses might fly off.

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If you guys do the research, I'll do the site. I think.

Or perhaps it would be excessive.

I taught today!

Not only did I teach my level 2 class, but the level 3 instructor decided I should teach his whole class too.

Mark Valley is very short.

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