Learning Contracts

After a lot of thought and discussion, I decided to significantly redesign my "Teaching with Technology" course. My goal in the redesign was to provide my students with more flexibility to pursue learning goals that were important to them. This requires the assumption that teaching with technology is something that they want to learn about. When a course is required, that's a big assumption.

The day that the learning contracts were due, I overheard a conversation in my class that made me think that I might be on the right track. One student excitedly said to a friend, "What's on your learning contract? I'm going to learn PowerPoint." I have to admit, that I had hoped (and still hope) that my student would set her sights higher than PowerPoint as the pinnacle of educational technology, but she was excited about learning and excited about being in my class.

This semester, I've noticed a different attitude among my students and I can't help but think that the learning contract has something to do with it. The other thing that I think makes a big difference is that I now have a personal philosophy about technology and learning, something that I was just beginning to figure out last semester. Last semester, I was trying to help students "teach with technology", this semester I am hoping to help them learn with technology (and about technology) so that they can help others learn as well.