A Jeanne Site
California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Latest update: December 12, 1999
Faculty on the Site.
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6839These short statements of my perception of your learning are what grew from my review of all the records and our experiences in class. In a cooperative learning world, in which our objective is to help each other gain critical insights, what should matter, instead of "grades" is such a report. Learning that I can tell you I have seen, either directly or through some of your work, and that you can confirm. That is learning accountability.
As we gain skill at this, a paragraph of recommendation should be your goal for the end of each course, each semester. If you were to realize that this is how I will end the course, and you were to want the best possible recommendation of your learning, we could interactively check our respective records all semester, and the recommendations could be detailed and helpful to all who want to know about your learning.
Visit Letters of Recommendation for clues on how to do this.
Neither of us ever has much discretionary time, and yet we somehow manage to find each other, either in the soup kitchen, or on the fifth floor, or putting together panels for national meetings. I am always amazed at how instinctively you seem to know what I need to cover, what we need to do, even when we haven't seen each other for weeks, as we follow our separate agendas.
I have come to respect profoundly your kindness to others, your sensitivity to the context, your willingness to maintain standards of all kinds, and yet your willingness to listen to others. I have come over time to rely on you a great deal for the affective support to challenge the status quo as well as for the cognitive exchange. I will miss you enormously when you go off to pursue a doctorate.
In addition to that I saw a real growth in the pattern of our e-mails this semester. You began to ask me questions and respond very comfortably in your own words, without the stress of trying to recite something with which you were barely familiar from a book. I think if we had had fewer distractions this semester, we would both have liked to pursue this more. I am still looking forward to your promised debriefing. I would like very much to share that with you.