117. This Is Your Brain on the Internet: The power of a great professor
[From Seth Godin, Stop Stealing Dreams http://www.squidoo.com/stop-stealing-dreams]
Cathy Davidson teaches at Duke and her courses almost always have a waiting list. Interesting to note that in the first week, about 25 percent of the students in the class drop out. Why? Because the course doesn’t match the industrial paradigm, can’t guarantee them an easy path to law school, and represents a threat to established modes of thinking.
Bravo.
In her words, “Sometimes the line outside my office was as long as those at a crowded bakery on a Saturday morning, winding down the hall. Students wanted to squeeze every ounce of interaction from me because they believed—really believed—that what they were learning in my classes could make a difference in their life.”
The astonishing thing about this quote is that only one professor in a hundred could truly claim this sort of impact.
Davidson doesn’t use term papers in her class—instead, she has created a series of blog assignments as well as a rotating cast of student leaders who interact with each and every post. Her students write more, write more often, and write better than the ones down the hall in the traditional “churn it out” writing class.
She is teaching her students how to learn, not how to be perfect.
Tags: stopstealingdreams
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