New cafe overlooking the park. (2nd-floor balcony used for reflecting)
Hello Everyone,
My students live in a society (Japan) that values conformity and avoiding confrontation. Many students are reluctant to share ideas publically in online discussion forums and prefer to remain silent in face-to-face class discussions. You may have noticed this in your classes with international students, as well. When I see the same students discussing a topic on social media, I see everyone engaged. I'd like to bring in this enthusiasm from social media into the class discussion by introducing more reflective practices.
I enrolled in this FLO course to enhance my thinking on the importance of integrating reflective activities and understand better what types of activities are working for others that I could use to help my students become more self-learners.
What do I know about metacognition? Some but would like to know more. One of my favourite books is "Engaging Minds, 3rd Edition" by Davis, Sumara, Luce-Kapler so you can see my interest is with student engagement, especially as it applies in online learning.
This FLO course is my fourth FLO experience so I'm not sure when one becomes a FLO Enthusiast. It is increasingly difficult for me to pass up an opportunity to collaborate with other professionals to reflect on my thinking so I think I qualify! FLO reminds me of the time when I participated in a "world cafe" sharing ideas but done online.
Everyone has their favourite spot to relax and reflect. The photos above are of a house that was just converted to a cafe nearby and overlooks the park nearby that I'm going to try out as a new spot where I will stop and reflect on our discussions this week!
I look forward to meeting and sharing ideas with everyone this week.