Ever look at your workload and think, where to start? Then, as you pull out materials related to the task at hand, you discover stuff that you forgot you had, or you forgot to do, or… and the list goes on, and the project still isn’t done to your satisfaction. Two current tasks span some of my work from the last five years, and I’ve been struggling with ways to approach them. As I’ve written about in the past, I often design to music of eclectic origins. When the music stops, I know I am really struggling to solve a problem.
Last week, somewhere between working on a presentation on the future of learning and one on competency-based learning, the music stopped. Silence. I tried old favorites and reggae classics. I tried hip hop, French African rhythms, bluegrass, electric violin, the sound track from Pitch Perfect. Nothing resonated, and the piles on my desk kept looking like exactly that: piles. Not at all what you want to see if you are focused on getting some big projects done (and done well!) on a tight time frame. Eeks.
Today, with multiple frameworks about learning, course design, course revision, and ed tech use, I racked my brain for something to save me and my creativity, and pulled out an old favorite–Give me the beat boys and free my soul (Dobie Gray, Doobie Brothers, Uncle Kracker just to name a few artists singing lyrics written by Mentor Williams).
I was searching for a song to free my soul…but once I heard it I realized that what I was really looking for was the beat. What ‘beat’ can make sense of the varied frameworks and resources available on course design to higher ed instructors as varied as musicians? Listening to the lyrics, it seems part of my search for the beat is also what our students need from us related to the five essential questions of teaching and learning.
Day after day I’m more confused
but I look for the light through the pouring rain
you know that’s a game that I hate to lose
i’m feeling the strain
ain’t it a shame
Give me the beat boys
and free my soul
I wanna get lost in the rock and roll
and drift away (repeat chorus)
Beginning to think I’m wasting time
don’t understand the things I do
the world outside looks so unkind
so I’m counting on you
to carry me through
(chorus)
*I found the song title especially interesting as “Course Drift” is a major driver for change in one of my projects addressed in these piles. Blog entry on that coming soon. Last night at the dinner table I was also fascinated by my two teens, lovers of much Macklemore-style music, breaking into a jam with Drift Away when I shared my day. “Of course we know all the words, Uncle Kracker wrote it!”