Tag Archives: learning project

In-Depth Blogging, or Learning in Public (Part II)

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Stretch your limits once in a while. You may find you have more range than you thought.

This week’s prompt for the #Talons in-depth blogging gave me the impetus to indulge an idea I had yesterday after recording a brief video (the one above) as my own contribution to my guitar class’ assignment repository this week.

Back in September, I conducted a little Learning in Public, taking on the open-D tuning and tricky strumming pattern of the Pearl Jam classic, “Daughter.” Partially in response to a project Dean Shareski was working on with pre-service teachers in Saskatchewan, the series was a compelling motivation to follow through in learning the song, share my struggle (and eventual success) with an audience, and hopefully put a little learning out there to help others looking to do the same.

And while I haven’t been documenting it in the same way, I have still been learning to play guitar (I doubt it is a project with any sort of ‘End’), and make music that excites me, that I love. I’ve collected a year’s worth of recordings into a definable album of original demos, collaborations and covers, continued to develop some veritable lead-guitar chops, and begun to make a habit of getting together with friends to make noise in a local jamspace. While challenging, rewarding, and motivating to continue all at once, the process has been mostly informal.

Which is why, at the outset of this new semester of guitar – with a new Assignments-scheme cribbed from the DS106 setup – I wanted to set for myself a definitive goal, and model the documentation of learning I would like to see from my music students, and that my TALONS co-teacher/facilitator is looking to see from the class’ In-Depth posts, around a topic of personal passion and relevance.

Namely: lead a rock band.

It’s my aim to stretch myself, and expand my range as both a musician and as a teacher / leader / facilitator, and figure out a little more about how this thing called Rock ‘n Roll works.

Learning in Public

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You can view the continued installments here: Day 3, Day 6.

It’s been said and discussed often here and many places that a real shift for educators is moving from teacher to learner. Not so much moving, we still need teachers, expertise matters but until we see ourselves as learners and intentionally show are students we can’t be the educator our students need us to be. The Learning Project

I have been following Dean Shareski‘s recent drive to learn guitar as part of his work with preservice teachers in Saskatchewan, and thought I would extend my support of his Learning Project into my own instruction (of guitar) by making it a goal to learn to play the Pearl Jam song, “Daughter.“

My students are working toward a performance next week, and as a challenge to them to use their class time until them to make the best performance possible, I vowed to work out the rhythm and intricacies of a song that – for the moment – is beyond my grasp as a musician, and plan to document my progress (and presentation) here, and on Youtube.

As it is pretty serendipitous that he is doing it at the exact same time, I’m amending this post to include reference to Alan Levine’s efforts to share his journey in learning how to play the harmonica. Alan points to four things he admires about the process Dean kicked off:

  • As a teacher, he is doing the same project he is asking his students to do. I cannot say how powerful this is, it is the thing Jim Groom has done all along in his digital storytelling courses (even before ds106) and was something I always respected Barbara Ganley for doing when she was teaching writing at Middlebury College. This changes the entire student/teacher dynamic.
  • Learning is happening in public. Dean is showing the example of examining what he is doing by putting it out in public. Not the final project, but the process. This ought to happen all the time.
  • The network is providing People are responding to his posts with suggestions, resources. etc.
  • Narrate the process doing this in video makes you reflect to an audience, but more importantly yourself. As you progress, the videos should chart your progress (can someone say “assessment”?)

Thanks to  @DrGarcia for connecting the dots and helping the learning continue.