The thing I want my students to leave my class with most - more than even their historical knowledge - is to begin with the end in mind. Knowing where you are going forces your mind to make a plan, whether you realize it or not. I start every unit plan by writing my test for the unit so I can make certain that I've taught everything I need and so I appropriately pace my lessons. Having students look at the final exam, understand it's length, digest the questions, shows they how they need to think through my course. The first week of my class is all skills based and the rest of the course is spent using those skills to understand history so they're able to master the final.
Because of this character trait, the first week of this class has been difficult. Like I'm sure many people will say, I didn't know what I was doing at first. I didn't know who was in the class, who was setting up the Google Groups account (I'm still curious how many of them were set up) or how to use the ASU class website. I'm still not sure where we're going, but it's nice to be on this ride with some friendly faces, even if I've never met them in person. I'm just glad our professor has been on this ride a few times and, even if we're not sure where we're going, he is.
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Once i attended a lecture by an educator who explained that while instructors may say stuff like, "let's explore this together..." that was kind of like a river raft guide saying he had no idea what he was doing. Was an interesting analogy.
Hey, I wonder if that's a waterfall I hear up ahead...?
I forgot what I really wanted to say- when you start a journey with the end in mind, the journey is usually taken with the end in mind. In other words, your goal is arrival. I would posit that for many journeys it is the journey itself that makes the trip, not the destination. If I got thru life with the end in mind, or even each year, what does that say of my life, or my year? Do you really want to live now thinking only about then?
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