I’m pleased to announce I will be team-teaching my first Massive Open Online Course (or MOOC). This type of free online course provides an alternative means to deliver and experience educational offerings to anyone in the world with access to the Internet.
The course is titled General Semantics: An Approach to Effective Language Behavior, based on a Communication Studies course that Mary Lahman, Ph.D., has taught at Manchester University in Indiana for fifteen years. Greg Thompson, Ph.D. and visiting anthropology professor at BYU, rounds out our teaching team. So participants will benefit from three different perspectives about General Semantics.
Registration is now open for the six-week class that begins 13 January 2014. There is no fee for registration or materials – it’s completely free, offered through the
Canvas Network . Here’s the description:
This course provides an introduction to general semantics—the study of how we transform our life experiences into language and thought. Students will learn how their language habits and behaviors, as well as how they think about and share experiences, are what make them uniquely human. In other words, students will discover the critical, but sometimes subtle distinctions between what happens in their lives and how they talk about what happens.
The course will include readings from a wide array of disciplines, such as communication studies, neuroscience, and cultural anthropology. It will also include visual and auditory demonstrations through music and social media, and collaborative interactions with fellow learners. These types of learning experiences allow students to not only learn about more effective language behaviors, but also practice those new behaviors in order to communicate more effectively and appropriately in interpersonal and organizational contexts.
To enroll, simply
click the blue ENROLL button on this page.
The course content is organized into weekly modules. Participants can work at their own pace and sequence, with activities and exercises arranged to facilitate learning.
This is a great opportunity to try something new, both in terms of the subject matter and educational format. After five days of open registration it looks like we have participants signed up from four continents. Feel free to enroll and participate as much, or as little, as you wish. We’ll all learn something together, although those "somethings" may be quite different.
Attached is an information sheet about the course. Please consider sharing with your social media networks or with anyone who might be interested in learning something like General Semantics in an international virtual classroom.
Best regards,
Steve
