Please stay home when feeling fluey! Please!

Remember: Letter, Last Name, #

In Jerry's ES 3950 PBL class,

You must take charge of your own learning.

August 14:

   Welcome to Pillsbury's ES 3950 class! Starting a new class is always exciting. and particularly so in a brand-new beautiful building such as this! I am looking forward to meeting all of you on Sept. 4.

I want to give you your first assignment which I would like you to do before the first class. This first activity is one that I hope you find at least somewhat pleasant and that is to explore my website and all of its links. The website is located at: http://homepages.wmich.edu/~pillsbur/. (Which if you are reading this message on the Announcements page, you have obviously already found!) At the bottom of the main page you will find a link to Problem #1 which is where we will start. My method of teaching is probably far different from what you have had in the past. I do not lecture, nor will I routinely assign a common set of readings for us to discuss. Instead what I present to you are real world messy problems that demand thoughtful, humane responses. We call this learning Problem-based Learning or PBL <http://homepages.wmich.edu/%7Epillsbur/ES%203950/Syllabus/es3950instructionalmethod.html> for short. I call these problems real-world because they are the kinds of problems thoughtful, caring teachers face everyday as teachers in public schools. I call these problems messy because I don't give you all of the materials and information you need to craft thoughtful, humane responses. You will need to use your own resources to find this information and these judgments, resources which include, of course, the Internet, the library, and experts in the field. * Read carefully because I give you three points extra credit for every mistake, even itsy-bitsy tiny ones, you find on my website (even in this note!) or in the coursepack (as long as you are the first one to find it!). Please report any broken or outdated links. Please read the instructional method page <http://homepages.wmich.edu/%7Epillsbur/ES%203950/Syllabus/es3950instructionalmethod.html>, the course syllabus page <http://homepages.wmich.edu/%7Epillsbur/ES%203950/Syllabus/es3950syllabus.html>, and Problem #1 page <http://homepages.wmich.edu/%7Epillsbur/ES%203950/Problems/prob1pbl/es3950problem1usingPBL.html>*

*You have only the coursepack to buy this semester: . Please pick this up right away because we will be using it during the first few days of class.*

Here are the class names and keys to get into NiceNet where we will keep reading records and class notes:

Pillsbury's ES 3950 Group A

Pillsbury's ES 3950 Group B