Learn in Public, Teach in Public

I teach real estate. I love teaching real estate. My favorite way to teach it is to dive really deep on one specific topic and use that to teach real estate.

In my Real Estate Appraisal class at Longwood University, we spent a semester studying, gathering information, and analyzing the student apartment market in Farmville, Virginia. Not a theoretical example. Not a textbook problem. The actual student apartment market in a small town. Students had to gather rents from real apartment complexes and go down to the courthouse to look up deed records. I deliberately choose something that I don’t already know the answers to so the students get to watch me learn and process new information right in front of them. I think that this can be such an effective way to learn because the specific details help make the general topics feel real and relevant.

The one drawback of the classroom is that your impact is limited to a few enrolled students who can fit in that room during that one semester. How do you leverage your time and let more people in? I’ve decided to create an open classroom right here in this space. This is a place where I am committed to both learning and teaching in public. You can follow along with me as I dive deep on one specific topic in one specific place.

Affordable housing in the small American city of Lynchburg, Virginia.

Welcome to class. There’s no tuition. No grades to hand out or worry about. Just come in and learn.