Friday Learning Community Style. . .

 

A somewhat more relaxed approach to teaching and learning at the college-level this morning.  Once a month, typically on Fridays, a colleague and I host a small online faculty learning community (officially sanctioned by our institution) on digital learning and collaborative problem-solving, something we've done for the last three academic three years.  Besides the few MSU faculty who join us, the community also includes a few professors from other institutions here in the U.S. and several from India and Nepal, who join us late in the mid- to late evening their time.  

Much of our ongoing discussion -- a remarkable blend of Global English, Hindi, Nepalese, and one or two indigenous Himalayan languages -- during the last two years has been about how artificial intelligence is already influencing and changing higher education.  We focus our discussions on how we might get out ahead of that development in ways that actually contribute to student learning, something that will culminate, we hope, in a few collaboratively written journal articles.  We'll actually discuss that more concretely in about an hour.  

Attire-wise, these meetings are pretty casual affairs for most participants, but I like to tuck in my shirt (always) and wear a jacket of some kind as a nod to our professionalism.  I can assure you I am the most "dressed" of the bunch for academic guys in their 30s-60s from around the globe although no one turns up looking like they have just changed the oil in their car, or cleaned out the garage on a hot summer day.

On a loosely related sartorial note, the J. Press items have begun to roll in the last couple of days.  A few broadcloth shirts and what will likely be the final navy blazer I purchase since I am easy on my clothing and shoes anyway and went for quality with this particular selection.  The usual minor alterations will follow with my tailor next week when I'll also ask him to move my university buttons to it from the 20-year old blazer it replaces.  

I know, I know.  As comedienne Joan Rivers used to joke about the Queen of England 40-odd years ago, "Fah-fah-fah-fah!"

-- Heinz-Ulrich