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GMCTE to Offer Intro to Learning Technologies Course Through Canvas
[social_share/] [social-bio] In the fall of 2013 I was preparing to offer a new course through the GMCTE on learning technologies for instructors at the U of S. The cap on the course registration, given that it was a blended online and face-to-face course, was set at 15. Since we are advocates of open education at the GMCTE we decided to open up all of the resources on a WordPress site. We further decided that we would allow people to “register” for the open course to receive weekly emails and they could list their blogs to make sure that I or someone else in the GMCTE would read their weekly…
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Creativity and Innovation: An example with Soil and Art
[social_share/] [social-bio] For the past ten years, Dr. Ken Van Rees has been incorporating visual art as ateaching tool in his soil science field courses SLSC 898 and 480. Van Rees, of the Department of Soil Science, was recognized earlier this year by the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education and Desire2Learn’s Innovation Award in Teaching and Learning. In the following address, delivered at this year’s Celebration of Teaching, Van Rees speaks about his innovative art and soil science classes and inspiring creativity in his students.
- Academic Integrity, Educational Technology, General, Instructional / Course Design, Instructional Strategies
It’s Course Design Not Entertainment: A visit from John Boyer
[social_share/] [social-bio] On October 7, we had the pleasure at the University of Saskatchewan of welcoming John Boyer from the Geography Department at Virginia Tech to speak with us about his innovative and increasingly acclaimed approaches to teaching large classes and his approaches for motivating learning and designing assessment. Recordings of his talks are available at these links, and are embedded at the end of this post. 1. Assessment Innovations that Reduce Cheating and Enhance Learning 2. Teaching (Really) Large Classes (Very) Well There is some repetition between them since there were slightly different audiences in attendance at both sessions and John therefore needed to describe the format of his…
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USask Professor Adopting Open Textbook
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Eric Micheels, Assistant Professor, Department of Bioresource Policy, Business and Economics The following post was written by Eric Micheels of the University of Saskatchewan and was originally published on his blog on October 6, 2014, under the title, The Economic of Economics Textbooks. It is reprinted here with his permission. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of having a meeting with Heather Ross, an instructional design specialist at the University of Saskatchewan, where we discussed open-access textbooks. The meeting came about after a conversation on twitter where I mentioned that I was considering adopting an open-access text for AGRC 113, a course that has a…
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Open Access Week is October 20-26, 2014!
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Diane (Dede) Dawson, Science Liaison Librarian This year marks the eighth annual Open Access Week – an international advocacy event that seeks to promote and raise awareness about open access (OA) and several closely related areas such as open education and open data. So… what is open access? “Open Access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder” (from Peter Suber’s A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access). The OA movement developed as a response to the unsustainable, higher-than-inflation, journal subscription increases experienced by…
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Defining Shared Thresholds for Dealing with Academic Dishonesty
[social_share/] [social-bio] The Academic Misconduct Policy at the University of Saskatchewan recognizes that as instructors, we often are in a great position to judge the severity of an act of dishonesty and to situate that act in the context of our course. The informal procedures available through the U of S academic misconduct policy set clear parameters—to apply a grade penalty on the assignment or test that is of concern, it must be dealt with using the “informal procedures”. Whereas, the formal procedures may be invoked when the grade penalty you see as deserved extends beyond the assignment or test to the overall grade for the course. However, each of…
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John Boyer touches Down on Tuesday at the U of S
[social_share/] [social-bio] Sometimes, the time is right to reach into the past for a “re-post”. Now is such a time to look again at the February 24, 2014 post by Susan Bens since we are in the wonderful position to be hosting John Boyer at the U of S on Tuesday, October 7. He’ll be speaking from 2:30 – 3:30 in the GSA Commons on the very structure of assessment he uses in his huge, blended course on World Regions. Check out this event, and other events appearing under the Academic Integrity Awareness Week Banner. What? A Menu of Assessment Options? By Susan Bens I have recently come upon…
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The Academic Dishonesty Redirect: Be Explicit, Know your Policies, Assess Authentically
[social_share/] [social-bio] At the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness, when faculty and instructors ask us about academic integrity, we will inevitably steer the conversation to three main values: the value of being very explicit with students about the rules you expect them to follow the value of understanding the rules of your home department or college as well as the university policy on academic misconduct, the value of designing assessment for authentic learning. Here’s a video that demonstrates this tendency quite nicely, if I do say so myself: And, for further evidence of our redirect, coming up on Monday, October 6 1:30 – 2:15 in the GMCTE Classroom, as…