What an amazing adventure this course has been. Here we are at the completion of the three days of incredibly intense instruction. I’m delighted to sit back and take a look at the wide array of new tools this last 60 hours has left in its wake.
Today began with a fascinating, in depth discussion of the Second Life website. Our first adventure was an amazing virtual tour of the UTEP Galapagos Island Lab. Then Mary Cuadrado shared her personal experiences with Second Life. These accounts made me wish for better time management -- so that I could have the time to really explore this intriguing alternate reality. It certainly appeared captivating.
The process which placed us in our permanent groups for the remainder of the semester was also very surprising. It began with a short questionnaire regarding our perceptions about doing work in groups and ended with the five of us sitting together as our team, The Aztecs. After quite a bit of house-keeping type/ground-rule setting exercises, we conducted a really interesting comparison of our teaching and learning styles.
During our questions regarding the observations we will be doing this fall, Dr. Meeuwsen shared fabulous news about UTEP's recipients of the Regents' Awards. It really was thrilling to hear how well UTEP fared, as opposed to the rest of the UT System.
Although today's session was complete about 45 minutes before the time we had planned to leave, it felt as though no one was in a great rush to depart. Actually, it seemed many of my classmates were, in fact, lingering. I don't recall witnessing this hesitancy before...normally it feels like there is a prize for the lucky one to be first out the door. I attribute this slow motion to the strong sense of community Dr. Meeuwsen led us to build in these three powerful days.
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