Getting Notions from Students

by Bernie Goldbach on the quiet Clonmel campus.

At the end of every academic year, I comb through items in my Traveler's Notebook, looking at items that earned gold stars. At the end of the 2022-2023 teaching year, I had annotated more than 10 gold stars on handwritten items concerning Notion . Those gold stars validated both the software and the workflow I need in my personal knowledge management as I try to take my teaching practice to the next level.

Some of my best students nudged me to reboot my use of Notion, starting with Emilie Ruecker , an exchange student from Canada. I remember being mesmerised by the elegance of her Notion set-up during the first Zoom meeting I held with her before the spring semester. Then I got hints from Angelica Flores and Marie Cowan before Fortune Ndlovu opened his Notion Workspace for a deep dive. When the best students show how they're learning faster, I know it's time for me to complement their academic journey. So I've started revising six different academic modules I teach by porting the syllabi, lesson plans, resources, and calendars into Notion.

I'm a little concerned that I might be creating a rabbit hole no other lecturer would find useful. To allay my fears, I'm starting this intensive process with the help of Larry G. Maguire who is offering sanity checks to me. Before the end of July 2023, we should have co-published several pages in Notion that will appear on newsfeeds created by the Creative Leadership Academy on LinkedIn.

I already feel a sense of serenity as I reboot my use of Notion. It feels that my years of academic teaching and some of the best commentary from my students are coalescing to enhance my personal knowledge management. I'm cleaning up my virtual spaces and plotting my next academic year with a clearer focus. This is a transformative moment for me.