Friday Nov. 5th - 1st day of Virtual Support Residency Weekend

This weekend the Ph.D. in Leadership and Change Program is hosting a Virtual Support Residency (VSR) for students in cohort 5, 6, and 7 who have not advanced to candidacy. By "not advanced", I mean we still have work products or Learning Achievements that must be written, completed and evaluated before we can begin dissertation work. In any case, there are about a dozen of us attending. I will be documenting my journey for the next couple of days on our Sakai online platform, and posting it here since Sakai is private place for the professors and students to meet and discuss their work, and this is a public place where I can share my work.

Friday, Nov. 5, 2010
At 7 pm YS (4 pm PST) we all logged into the opening session and announced our goals for the virtual residency weekend. It was great to connect with Deb Baldwin, Elizabeth Holloway and Carolyn Kenny, our professors, and Wendy McGraw, our Sakai Technical Wizard/virtual conference support. Our professors had writing goals as well, which they shared with us as well. I was tickled to know they are in the writing and editing process right with us, except they are writing books that will be published. How cool is that?

For me, I enjoy hearing from our classmates about their experiences and seeing their faces through the online meeting room. Somehow, I don’t feel as isolated on this journey. I feel bad for some of my other colleagues who are struggling with completing their LAs (learning achievements) and unable to join us.

I have switched gears from writing my ILA essay and am choosing to work on the CAM (Critical Review of Methods) learning achievement; these are my accomplishments today:

1. Reviewed the CAM PowerPoint slide show that Elizabeth put together for us. Somehow it makes so much more sense the 3rd time around…
2. Reviewed my CAM discussion notes from a phone conversation I had with Elizabeth in September, regarding doing a literature review that combines the topics of Authentic Leadership and the Pedagogy of Aloha.
3. Touched base with Carolyn Kenny my advisor, regarding a new time line of finished learning products.
4. Read Shelly Chapman’s CAM exemplar entitled How We Know What We Know about Transformative Learning Theory