An Interactive Community Awaits You

• By David G. Brown
• 12/30/02

It's free, easy, reversible, and the proven way to learn!

Beginning the day this publication hits mailboxes, the Syllabus Forum on Faculty Best Practices is an opportunity for us to "talk (asynchronously) with each other," to "practice what we preach" and to "learn by the methods we are redesigning into our teaching." The Forum is a way to be interactive—and therefore personally learn more—about faculty practice.

To join this virtual-community-in-the-making, log on at the Community page at www.syllabus.com. As long as you remain active, you'll be a member of the Syllabus Forum on Faculty Best Practices.

Membership involves responding to a question about pedagogy. A question will be posted online about six times a year. You will be expected to respond, preferably with two or three sentences, at least once a year.

The Forum Issue for January is: "Please share one practical idea about teaching with technology that will likely be useful to teaching faculty."

No later than Jan. 30, please post two or three sentences about the topic in the forum. Include your name and, if appropriate, your institution and title. We can then all react to each others' ideas.

Other topics for future discussions might be, "the learning theory that informs my approach to teaching is …," or "my personal list of teaching tips includes …," or "how to take advantage of a wireless classroom," or "my most effective use of our course management system entails …," or "things I have tried but failed and why." If you would like to select a topic for a future Faculty Best Practices forum, you can do that as well.

Please do try out the Forum. Join today by posting an answer to the January topic. Remember that your answer should focus upon information that you believe will be most useful to others.

Among other benefits, participation in the forum will teach each member what it means to be a learning member in a virtual community. This is wise and appropriate experience for those of us who are the lead or teaching members of communities we create. It's good for us to get a student-eye view of interactive learning in a virtual environment. And, if the prevailing wisdom about the power of learning that's interactive is correct, we'll all learn more.

Please share one practical idea—an experience, an insight, the URL of a helpful Web site, a valuable conference, whatever! Do it now! Thanks!

Register for Syllabus Forums! To register for David Brown's Faculty Best Practices Forum, go to www.syllabus.com, click on Community, and then select the Forums link. The Forums page will list the Faculty Practice discussion, as well as other Syllabus Forums on eCommerce and Entrepreneurship on Campus, Faculty Development, and eLearning Systems. At the top of the listed Forums is a Register button (located next to the Login, Active Topics, Search, and Members buttons). Clicking on the Register button will take you to the Forum rules and policies. If you agree to these, click on the Accept button at the bottom of the page. Next, you will be asked to fill out a short form. The only required information is a username and password; the other information is about your personal preferences for how you would like to participate. Once you've completed this step, you will be a registered Syllabus Forums user, where you can interact with your peers and moderators in the Forums of your choice!