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GMCTE Resources – Our Staff Picks
[social_share/] [social-bio] Over the years, we at the GMCTE have been collecting resources about all aspects of teaching and learning. The collection includes a library, copies of Bridges newsletter, a blog, social media and a large section of our website. That is a fairly long list of resources and, unless you have a specific idea of what you want, it can be a bit overwhelming. So, I thought it would be useful to ask our staff about the most interesting or useful resource they would recommend: GMCTE Library Colleen Charles: I would recommend Magaret Kovach’s Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2009, if someone is doing research…
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What? A Menu of Assessment Options?
[social_share/] [social-bio] I have recently come upon a few interesting ideas about the conditions we create for assessment in higher education, especially with respect to deterring academic dishonesty. Standing out to me right now is a 2013 book I’ve been reading by James Lang titled “Cheating Lessons.” This book provides inspiration, encouragement, and practical advice to teachers in higher education. Lang’s premise is that cheating is an inappropriate response by students to environments that convey an emphasis on performance within the context of extremely high stakes and where extrinsic motivators overpower the “intrinsic joy or utility of the task itself” (p. 30). Lang points his readers to an innovative assessment…
- Assessment and Evaluation, Curriculum Development, General, Instructional / Course Design, Instructional Strategies
Four Student Misconceptions About Learning
[social_share/] [social-bio] The main section of this blog post is a reprint of an article from Faculty Focus by Maryellen Welmer. It follows a brief introduction by Nancy Turner. I thought readers of this blog would be interested in the article reprinted below on common student misconceptions about learning. These points are usefully discussed openly with students at the start of a course or year of study but are also points for faculty to be aware of when planning curriculum and learning experiences. Both explicit discussion of the misconceptions alongside curriculum, assessment and session design to implicitly counter their effects (specific examples for each are included in the text of…
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Where Are You From?
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Colleen Charles Academically speaking, when you first meet a professional on campus, you state your name, job title and credentials accordingly. However, for First Nations people, and I speak for myself as a Woodland Cree, Treaty Six Territory, from the Lac La Ronge Indian Band, La Ronge, Saskatchewan, I have been raised to ask the question, “Where are you from?” when being introduced to new people. This is to find out if you have relations to the individual and their family. Also, I used this technique in a presentation that I did for the GSR 989 Philosophy and Practice of University Teaching. According to Kim West, Educational…
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Visual Note Taking As A New Way of Listening
[social_share/] [social-bio] Text notes are not the best method of note taking for many students. Some do better simply listening and taking it in, while others thrive on visual representations of what is being said. I just watched Giulia Forsythe at Brock University describe her visual note taking. The video is about 4 minutes long and brings together the why and the how of this technique. It makes great sense from a “how the brain learns” perspective, and can be viewed below. After watching the video I did a little digging and came upon this resource that is indeed comprehensive if you want to learn more—a LOT more about visual note-taking using…
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Pedagogy First When Selecting Learning Technologies
[social_share/] [social-bio] I teach the Introduction to Learning Technologies course from the GMCTE. In the past, I’ve also taught a similar course for undergraduate students in the College of Education and over the past several years I’ve given a number of workshops on to the topic. I always give the same one bit of advice and the same caveat related to learning technologies. The advice is to never put post anything online, including in an email that you wouldn’t want your mother, your boss or your grandchildren to see. You don’t want to embarrass Mom or get fired from your job, and your content will be out there long enough…