Hi, My name is Joe, and I want to be a better teacher.

I do not assign partners. I want you to find someone to work with whom you find compatible and whose opinion and work ethic you respect. At first, it will be pretty hit or miss, because you don't know each other yet. As a way for you to get a first idea of who you want to work with, I'm going to ask all of you to include a paragraph (or more) about yourself in comments section of this post. Please explain who you are and why you are taking the class. Tell your classmates what your goals for the class are. Explain what kind of worker you are and what kind of person you would like to work with. Read the posts of your peers and decide who you would like to with. Contact the people with whom you think you will do good work. This assignment will be very important for your participation grade. Not doing this assignment will be very bad for your participation grade. I know many people do not enjoy talking about themselves; I don't like it myself (although I just admitted something there didn't I?).

On the other hand -- and I say this every semester to every class: "I'm not asking you to make friends, only to develop professional, working relationships with a handful of your peers." I don't care what type of work you do, or will do in the future, the ability to work professionally with your peers will always be a valuable skill that leads to success. When you write about yourself, there is no need to reveal anything that you feel is personal (although it is not prohibited), you are only explaining what kind of work you want to do in this class and describing who you want to work with.

You do not have create a blogger account to post in the comments section, it will still let you post anonymously. If you do that, make sure you include your name so people know who to contact. This blog is not public, which means bots and spiders can't steal your address if you put it here. Of course, all you need to leave is your name, everyone who is supposed to know it, already knows your email address.

.