What if Mothers Taught the World? - Talk at TEDxCapeTownED
Another Feel Good Friday
During my 6-minute talk at TEDxCapeTownED I described how our students often get frustrated at having their dedicated Course Coordinator follow up with them on their progress and only later realise the value of this sort of "nagging" in assisting them complete their work. Included in our internal "Feel Good Friday" mailer, I was stoked so see that a student on our Creative Writing course had this to say about Che, one of our rock star Course Coordinators:
Che is great. I bet he gets hundreds of emails every day and he answers EACH one diligently and patiently. I get frustrated with his constant reminders when I know i'm behind and then laugh at myself for getting angry with his pestering "I'm watching you" eyes, like the guy in the Amstel ad... Every time I get an SMS I hear him telling me: "I'm watching you." Well done on handling such a large group Che. Kudos to you.
Time-lapse video of GetSmarter Chalk Up
Our Academic Team recently commissioned a local artist, Warwick Goldswain, to chalk up their enormous chalk board. We put together a time-lapse video of the design process... and I think it looks awesome!
Feel Good Friday
The team that supports our students at GetSmarter is known as the Course Coordination Team. I often think that we could describe this team a little better by calling them the "Student Cheerleaders" or the "Students' Second-Mom Team" because they provide such incredible pro-active support to our students, but that's for another day. Anyway, the Course Coordination Team is exceptional. The team has real cohesion and they are led by an excellent Manager. One of their latest initiatives has been something called Feel Good Friday where the team shares two or three comments from students about how the company has impacted them positively. While the Course Coordination team sees this feedback every day, the remainder of the 60 team members don't and so the initiative is a wonderful way of communicating the impact we have on our customers.
I was really touched by one of our students in their feedback this past Friday and so I wanted to share it here:
I signed up for a correspondence course about a year ago. I have to be honest I did the first module barely understood anything and dropped the whole course. I lost all my money and felt like a failure. I came across your courses and your whole setup really appealed to me. I am so glad that I decided to enrol with GetSmarter. Your notes, the video's and discussion forums keep me interested - I'm enjoying the whole learning process. Your notes are clear, I understand them and I cant begin to tell you how much I've learned from you. Your whole delivery module is awesome. You have put me on the path of achieving my goals.
"You have put me on the path of achieving my goals". This sort of feedback gives me such a kick and I realise that it is one of the perks of working in education, because teachers and others involved in education have the opportunity to help their students believe in themselves. What a great reason to get out of bed tomorrow!