Feeling Legit.

So this afternoon I found myself standing with slightly trembling knees in a conference room on the third floor of the administration building in front of BYU's Academic Innovation Task Force, all eyes turned expectantly toward me.

So how exactly did I get into this particular situation, you may ask?

Well, I was talking to Dr. Burton after the Digital Civilization class that I'm T.A. for, and he told me that he had been asked to give a presentation on his ideas for innovative education at the meeting of this task force in a few hours. They had said he could bring a student with him to give the student perspective, and would I like to be that student? 

Why yes. Yes I would. 

So Dr. Burton gave me the place and time, and that's how I wound up with shaky knees standing in front of this group of people dedicated to promoting and implementing innovation in BYU courses. Gulp.

Dr. Burton started off with a little bit about self-directed learning and how he has implemented it in his pedagogy.  I gave a short overview of how my educational philosophy has evolved from just getting a grade to becoming a self-directed learner, creating my own learning outcomes and taking control of my education. After we finished our overview, we opened the floor for questions.

And they didn't just ask Dr. Burton questions. They asked ME questions. Me specifically. And they were genuinely interested in my answers!

They asked me questions about how I thought students antagonistic to a more innovative, technologically-based learning model could be brought in, what kinds of things teachers could do to encourage student innovation and use digital media, how to give better education to a larger number of people using less money--questions about real issues they are facing in implementing educational innovation. 

Question: "With this new media, is there a need to come to a classroom at all? Should we move more college courses online?" 

My answer: "I don't believe we should completely do away with the face-to-face interaction, because there is real value in that. Sometimes we distance ourselves from people by only interacting through interfaces. However, some courses lend themselves more to an online-based structure. I believe many survey courses with 200+ students in them could greatly benefit from watching lectures online and participating in an online discussion with other members of their class simultaneously."

There are so many things I wish I could have said, but didn't have time to. It was crazy--I actually felt comfortable standing up there. I felt that I could speak confidently and authoritatively about these ideas because I had researched them and talked about them over and over again.

So I stood in front of this group of people and told them my ideas. And they LISTENED. And took notes! Pretty heady stuff. It was so validating as a student to be able to present my ideas intelligently to a group of educated people who have a say in policies and practices that will impact the university. It was such a confidence boost to know that these people and others were taking my ideas seriously.

But even more gratifying than that was knowing that my ideas could make a difference.

This was one of my biggest points in my presentation today--that we must teach students to take their ideas seriously. We must teach them that their ideas have value--that they can have a very real impact. But in order for their ideas to have the greatest impact possible, they must have the courage to own their ideas and seek out ways to share them. And we have the means now more than ever, through digital media, to be able to do that.

So yeah--today I'm feeling pretty good. :) When people ask me what I'm studying, I want to say,

"Oh, you know. English major, editing minor, and changing the world on the side."