Forum Spring 2000: A Means to Explore

I teach Interdisciplinary Studies at Whatcom Community College in Washington. I've developed a program to integrate mathematics across the curriculum. My quest for that one room, two hours, three-days-a-week when we inspire the world of "Try it," "Let's see," and " Yes, you can" has often left me feeling drained and isolated. When colleagues and students want me to "spell-it-all-out" in my classroom, I get the same feeling I had as a child when the teacher "sat me down" and told me to "color in the lines." I longed to create my own dot-to-dot puzzles. On those days, I would read my favorite just-so-story (Rudyard Kipling's "Elephant's Child") and console myself that at least someone understood about "satiable curiousity." These days, I sit at my computer at 2:00 a.m. looking for inspirations and like minds. In one of those early morning quests, I recognized one.

The words "New Paradigms for Mathematics" (Field, 1993) drew me into your labyrinth. The date of the publication of that article coincided with what I knew were the first integrations of the ideas of Vygotsky into an interactive math program. There it was: "student-centered," "active team learning," "participatory knowledge," "concepts rather than skills" É This woman could draw a dot-to-dot puzzle! With one "double-click, I followed Betty Field to Labyrinth and Forum where I discovered a community of teachers who "color outside the lines." You like mazes and labyrinths; I'll bet you understand dot-to-dot puzzles, too.

I am excited, intrigued, and grateful to have found you. Thanks for including me in the exchange. J.M.

This personal narrative from Joanne Munroe essentially illustrates one of the most important aspects of the Labyrinth/Forum/Assidere's role in the continuing dialogue about effective teaching and learning at MCCCD. Aspiring to be more than a medium which reports our colleagues' ideas, our publication also strives to encourage its readers as they confront new ideas and create change.

Along with our spring issue's general theme of "Who's Doing What at Maricopa," the Maricopa Learning Exchange and the Maricopa Institute for Learning are two important incentives described in this issue. While the learning@maricopa.edu leadership team is in the process of laying the groundwork for the Maricopa Learning Exchange, the Maricopa Institute for Learning has already awarded fellowships for studying the scholarship of teaching and, according to Holly McKinzie Beene, it endeavors "Éto provide faculty time to investigate, research, and develop teaching and learning scholarship in ways that promote deeper understanding of student learningand to do so in a public manner."

So, this issue not only features these two Maricopa programs and various MIL fellows' projects, but it also highlights many others who have written about their innovations.

Joanne Munroe, an instructor from outside our community who has made a connection to Maricopa, and Holly McKinzie Beene, an instructor who teaches within our community, are two authors representative of our contributors. Their works capture the themes and concerns expressed in our collection of articles and informative pieces.

In addition to the opening comments for this article, Munroe has submitted "Metaphors, Mathematics, and Myers-Briggs OR How I Learned to Love Chaplin and Venn." Her article relates how the Labyrinth/Forum/Assidere has connected her to a community of teachers who have similar values of "flexibility, passion, and a playful tone in the classroom."

While Munroe's article relates her excitement of teaching with metaphors, Holly McKinzie Beene stresses the need to communicate in a formal medium. Beene, who wrote "The Maricopa Institute for Learning: Developing a Public Conversation About Teaching and Learning," notes that the informal interactions in which we often engage are powerful for their dynamic quality and multiple perspectives, but they are limited because they are "time constrained and more or less private." Because such "hallway learning" has its restrictions, Beene urges educators to participate formally in conversations that publicly display "thinking and insight."

In its unique niche, the Labyrinth/Forum/Assidere serves as a resource and a positive support for its readers. Our spring issue provides an opportunity to take part in the dialogue about effective teaching and learning. Read and engage in this dynamic process already begun by these authors.

fo·rum \'for-um, 'for-/ n, [L; akin to L foris outside, fores door more at DOOR] (15c) 1 a.: the marketplace or public place of an ancient Roman city forming the center of judicial and public business b.: a public meeting place for open discussion c.: a medium (as a newspaper) of open discussion or expression of ideas