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Planning or Re-Designing a Course: Where to Begin
[social-bio] You have a new course to plan or are planning to re-design a current course. Where do you begin? The place where you should begin is technically called a front-end analysis, but could be thought of as the pre-planning you do before you actually start lesson planning. The first step involves exploring what it is that the instruction or course is intended to do. For example, ask yourself the question, “What do we want students to be able to do after taking this course that they can’t do now?” You should take a moment to confirm that this is an instructional problem, which is, “a problem that can be…
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Students Prefer Good Lectures Over the Latest Technology in Class?
[social-bio] An article appearing in January’s University Affairs indicated that students prefer a good lecture over technology in the classroom. The article states ‘university students prefer the “old school” approach of an engaging lecture over the use of the latest technological bells and whistles in the classroom’. I have not read the full report of the survey but would like to comment on the article. The survey of 15, 000 students and 2, 500 instructors across Quebec (with 10% and 20% responding respectively) indicated a preference for lecture over technology in the classroom but does not mention learning outcomes. Statements like this alarm me. Most instructors know that student preference…
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Getting Started With Educational Technology
[social-bio] For a number of years I’ve given workshops to faculty (both at the U of S and my previous institution) and I teach an undergraduate course in educational technology. Regardless of the group that I’m speaking with, I always give the same few points of advice and thought it appropriate to share them here. Start small. Pick one or two tools to try out instead of trying to do everything at once. Don’t start a blog, join Twitter, introduce clickers into your class, take a crack at blended learning, and try to redo all of your presentations in Prezi. You’ll only get frustrated and likely won’t stick to using…
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A Topic We Avoid: Teaching for the Success of Students with Psychiatric Disabilities
[social-bio] By Tereigh Ewert I was teaching a class of graduate student teachers this fall, and we were discussing a perennial concern: classroom management and student misbehavior. I wanted them to consider what motivated classroom disruption and misbehavior. We covered unintentional disruption, attention seeking, power challenges, and maliciousness. Then I suggested a cause that had not occurred to many of them—what if the disruptive student had a mental illness? Commonly discussed around mid-term and final exam time on campus is the amount of pressure experienced by students, and the need to be vigilant for signs of students in distress. But student mental health, beyond temporary periods of extreme stress,…
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The Power and Confusion of Metaphors and Analogies
[social-bio] By Carolyn Hoessler Personally I enjoy a good metaphor and a good analogy. Just link statistical correlations to dancing partners or history to a play and my interest is peaked. Metaphors, similes, and analogies are about relationships (see 1:45 minute into this definition video for more details). Analogies and metaphors allow the unfamiliar to become familiar by linking the unknown to a known (e.g., cooled earth as a Lindt chocolate, or depression is a dark foggy forest). By drawing on the known we can more quickly describe the unknown, the abstract, and the profound, and make sense of it. I will never be a moon and feel planet’s gravity,…
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Course Learning Outcomes or Course Learning Objectives?
[social-bio] What exactly are course learning outcomes and why are higher educational institutions moving in this direction? First, the distinction between course learning outcomes and course learning objectives needs to be established. Course learning outcomes are student-centred and are statements of what a learner is expected to know, understand, and/or be able to demonstrate after completion of a process of learning (Kennedy et al). On the other hand, course learning objectives are instructor centred and explain what the instructor is responsible for in the course. They should be linked to one’s teaching philosophy and teaching style (Kennedy et al). There is a shift in the international trends in education from…
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Bridges, Obstacle Courses, and Snowdrifts: What are we building for our students?
[social-bio] By Carolyn Hoessler In my day… (or so the story starts), we had it tough. Whether that difficulty involved walking uphill in knee-deep snow, punch cards or hours in dusty stacks, there was something that challenged us as students. Now as educators we get to decide where we build obstacle courses so students understand what it means to face adversity, or where we build bridges that simplify and celebrate efficiencies just as The Bridge Builder did in Will Allen Dromgoole’s poem. This choice of repeating or removing obstacles reveals the beliefs we have about those experiences and the value we place on that difficulty. Do we see merit…
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wāskamisiwin: ‘Growing in awareness’
By Tereigh Ewert and Jeff Baker In 2011, the wāskamisiwin staff and faculty development series was created through collaboration among the Gwenna Moss Centre and the Colleges of Education, Nursing and Medicine. The goals of this series contribute directly to the University’s commitment to Aboriginal Engagement, and include generating increased awareness of the historical roots of contemporary social relations, considering the implications this history has for pedagogies being utilized within academic institutions, and fostering more positive and respectful relationships among Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Last year’s series consisted of six presentations on topics such as Circle teachings, Indigenous health and well-being, the Plains Cree way of life, the Indian Act…
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Call Opens for TLt 2013
[social-bio] The 2013 Teaching and Learning with the power of Technology (TLt) Conference will be held this coming May 1 and 2 at the University of Saskatchewan. This year’s theme is “Making IT Mainstream: Everybody’s doing IT”. With ubiquitous use of smart-phones, tablets and laptops by students and faculty the days of speaking of educational technology in future or fringe terms are long past. It is now mainstream so conversations at this year’s TLt will focus on the mainstream integration of learning technologies at both the level of the institution and individual instructor, what is what working and what is not, and how all of this is and will continue to…