The PhD Chronicles: Day 1; Semester 5
It went off without a hitch. As a cohort member said a few weeks ago, we've been through a full cycle (or more rather) of the program. We've hit our stride in a manner of speaking and feel comfortable as doctoral students, as cohort members, and as practitioners.
This semester we are tackling Quantitative Methods and Teaching & Learning in Higher Ed. They are quite different courses (as has happened before) but I'm excited about both. I feel like Quantitative Methods will help me in areas where I am weak and I feel like Teaching & Learning is a return to the familiar where so much of my work exists (as instructional designer, instructor, and student).
Sometimes alignment works quite well and you have to wonder if it was intentional or accidental. In this instance, they have the Quant class early and the Teaching & Learning class in the afternoon. I feel like I would be more ready to handle numbers and such in the morning, than in the afternoon after a class of intellectualizing the teaching and learning process. That is, I imagine after being somewhat meta in Teaching and Learning, doing numbers might be a bit challenging, but for some reason, the reverse doesn't seem true.
Either way, both classes were good. We had the professor for Quant, our very first class so it was nice to return to him now and talk about where we've been. The Teaching and Learning professor we experienced for the first time and I think it will be a great class to help me think even more broadly about teaching and learning as a student, instructor, and instructional designer.
One interesting moment in today's conversations that hit me was when I started to wonder (aloud) if I was done with academically exploring open educational resources. After writing the papers in my Globalization course that essentially set off a light bulb for me and helped me form what I feel is a strong and well-considered critical view, I'm not sure I have much else in me to say about OER. I could (and may be) wrong, but I was surprised to find myself saying so today in class. It looks like this semester we won't have as much of an opportunity to explore our own subjects as we have been doing, so maybe this is just the right time for me to take a break from OER before we start to delve into qualifying paper territory.
Anyways, it was a good start to this semester and I was glad to see me cohort members and celebrate in the start of another semester (#5) together. The end still seems far away but we do feel like we've made some progress!
Want to keep up with my PhD adventures? Check out any of the links below:
Did you enjoy this read? Let me know your thoughts down below or feel free to browse around and check out some of my other posts!. You might also want to keep up to date with my blog by signing up for them via email.
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This semester we are tackling Quantitative Methods and Teaching & Learning in Higher Ed. They are quite different courses (as has happened before) but I'm excited about both. I feel like Quantitative Methods will help me in areas where I am weak and I feel like Teaching & Learning is a return to the familiar where so much of my work exists (as instructional designer, instructor, and student).
Sometimes alignment works quite well and you have to wonder if it was intentional or accidental. In this instance, they have the Quant class early and the Teaching & Learning class in the afternoon. I feel like I would be more ready to handle numbers and such in the morning, than in the afternoon after a class of intellectualizing the teaching and learning process. That is, I imagine after being somewhat meta in Teaching and Learning, doing numbers might be a bit challenging, but for some reason, the reverse doesn't seem true.
Either way, both classes were good. We had the professor for Quant, our very first class so it was nice to return to him now and talk about where we've been. The Teaching and Learning professor we experienced for the first time and I think it will be a great class to help me think even more broadly about teaching and learning as a student, instructor, and instructional designer.
One interesting moment in today's conversations that hit me was when I started to wonder (aloud) if I was done with academically exploring open educational resources. After writing the papers in my Globalization course that essentially set off a light bulb for me and helped me form what I feel is a strong and well-considered critical view, I'm not sure I have much else in me to say about OER. I could (and may be) wrong, but I was surprised to find myself saying so today in class. It looks like this semester we won't have as much of an opportunity to explore our own subjects as we have been doing, so maybe this is just the right time for me to take a break from OER before we start to delve into qualifying paper territory.
Anyways, it was a good start to this semester and I was glad to see me cohort members and celebrate in the start of another semester (#5) together. The end still seems far away but we do feel like we've made some progress!
Want to keep up with my PhD adventures? Check out any of the links below:
- Acceptance...and acceptance
- Orientation
- Day 1
- Week 1
- First 2 Courses Completed
- First 2 Courses Finished
- Semester 2, Here We Go
- The Existential Crisis of the Week
- The Balancing Act
- Negotiating Privilege in Higher Education
- Zeroing in on Research
- Completing the Second Semester
- My Educational Autobiography
- So Starts the Third Semester
- My Educational Philosophy...for now
- PhD'ese
- And Sometimes, You Feel It
- Semester's Endgame
- Year 1, Officially Done
- Year 2, Week 1, Day 1
- Year 2, Week 1 Done!
- 1/3 Complete!?!?
- Click...
- Day 1; Semester 5
- Share and Share Alike
- Mindful and Mind-Filled
- 5th Semester Down
- Day 1, Semester 9
- The Two Demons of My Doctorate
- When Senioritis Kicks In
- The Final Friday
- Dissertation Journal #1
- Dissertation Journal #2
- Dissertation Journal #3
- Dissertation Journal #4
- Dissertation Journal #5
- Dissertation Journal #6
- Dissertation Journal: QP Revised Edition
Did you enjoy this read? Let me know your thoughts down below or feel free to browse around and check out some of my other posts!. You might also want to keep up to date with my blog by signing up for them via email.

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