Today I am starting the Courseara course “Social Psychology” by Dr. Scott Plous. Last spring I took a leadership course which I found very interesting but disconnected from as it was so large and the professor was unaware of the difference between conducting a lecture and facilitating an online forum. As I was going through the first few videos lectures for this course I could feel my toes begin to twitch with anticipation as I feel that Dr. Plous may have a little more experience in running an online group. His use of humor (too many emails will lead to an ocean of letters each day- so if you don’t want him to drown please use the discussion forum) made me chuckle. As well, he shared the following quote on the power collaboration to encourage us all to try to interact with each other.
“Together action is like washing potatoes in Korea. When people wash potatoes in Korea, instead of washing them one at a time, they put them all together in a tub full of water. Then someone puts a stick in the tub and pushes it up and down, up and down. This makes the potatoes rub into each other; as they bump into each other the hard crusty dirt falls off. If you wash potatoes one at a time it takes a long time to clean each one, and only one gets cleaned at a time. If you do it all together they all get cleaned”
-Seung Shan
Dr. Ploushas created a number of assignments which will be peer reviewed, however the final assignment will be a day of compassion with a reflection. We will then get to vote and the student with the highest grade combined with vote will be invited to Stanford University in 2014 to meet the Dahli Lama. I think this is a fantastic assignment as it will inspire positive change around the world….
For more info check out
