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Lee Schulman Tells us to ‘Break Bad’ and Engage in SoTL
[social_share/] [social-bio] “Walter White is dead. Heisenberg is no longer someone of uncertain fate.” These were the opening words of Lee Schulman’s talk, Situated Studies of Teaching and Learning: The New Mainstream. Intriguing. What on earth could the main character of the television series Breaking Bad have anything to do with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)? Schulman continued: “And I must say that I have this fleeting image of my colleagues in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, sneaking away from their Chemistry classrooms or Biology or English or History to their SOTL labs and mixing a brew intended to undermine the clarity of thought, the certainty, the…
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Are You a Digital Immigrant? Probably Not
[social_share/] [social-bio] About a decade ago I started hearing about this idea of “digital natives” and “digital immigrants”, terms coined by Marc Prensky (and frequently repeated by such speakers and authors as Don Tapscott) to describe generational differences between technology users. In his 2001 book Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Prensky argued that “Our students today are all ‘native speakers’ of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.” (Presnkey, 2001). He went on to argue that the rest of us (I wasn’t quite 30 when the book came out) will never be quite as good at technology as those young “natives”. Even then I was skeptical of what he…
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‘Driving’ the Lesson: The Pre-Assessment (Part I)
[social_share/] [social-bio] In my last post, I wrote about objectives and the value of pausing in the “everyday” experiences of learning. In a lesson, one place to really pause and pay attention is during the pre-assessment. This is the part of the lesson when instructors can assess what students already know and where students contribute their own experiences or ideas to the lesson. Daniel Pink, the author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About what Motivates Us, suggests that all human beings have a need “to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.” He claims three principles are central…
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Participatory Learning: Transfer so the ideas stick longer than popcorn on shoes
[social_share/] [social-bio] As Eric Mazur comments “You don’t learn to play piano by watching someone else play” in his presentation about using peer instruction in physics courses. If we want the knowledge and skills we teach to be used later rather than wasting 30+ hours, learning needs to occur. Instructors can be effective role models and offer students the opportunity to observe a master at work. A useful approach to teaching a process when accompanied by explicit description of the choices, rationale, solution steps and other metacognitive knowledge, particularly when involving dangerous procedures requiring expert skill for safety reasons. Such metacognitive pieces are key for students to see why a…
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Objectives: Pausing in the “Ordinary” Experiences of Learning
[social_share/] [social-bio] When planning to teach, I like to create an overall road map that helps me discern not only where I’m headed but reminds me of where I’ve been and the places I stopped or struggled along the way. Let’s face it, almost all teachers have some degree of “content-itis.” We love information, and lots of it. Yet we often fail to realize when information is too much, when thinking foregoes feeling, analysis foregoes creativity, or when teaching foregoes learning. In her book, On Looking: Eleven Walks With Expert Eyes, Alexandra Horowitz discusses how our inattentiveness to the world around us stops us from seeing the “joy of the…
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Risk Taking in Teaching
[social_share/] [social-bio] I had the extreme pleasure of attending a panel conversation as part of the 4th Annual SoTL symposium last week. Panel members were Dr. Murray Drew from Agriculture and Bioresources, Dr. Jay Wilson and Dr. Michelle Prytula from Education, Dr. Daniel Regnier from St. Thomas More, Philosophy, Dr. Tracie Risling from Nursing and Dr. Mike Bradley from Physics/Engineering Physics. The panel discussion was incredibly thought provoking as would be expected from this line up of faculty from diverse disciplines and different points in their academic careers. The risks they undertook varied from teaching a course with an undergraduate to flipping a class, using social media to develop relationships…
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Objectives: Drum Roll Please…and setting a high bar together
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Carolyn Hoessler Once students and I know what the class knows pre-assessment, I share the draft objectives listed on a screen and together revise them. The objectives are not just my talking points, they represent the skills, knowledge and value I will be expecting of them in future assessments, what they want to walk away with, and what we both are willing to engage in. There is also a second sneaky motivation I have based on my background in psychology: I want to use the social pressure for good (not evil). Through pubic agreement with the objectives, I want students to feel a sense of commitment…