General
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New Research Guides at the University Library: LibGuides2 Update
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Shannon Lucky, Information Technology Librarian As we enter a new Fall semester the University Library has launched a major update to our Research Guides. These guides, built on the new LibGuides2 platform, are carefully curated selections of discipline and course specific resources combined with information on how to conduct research, writing skills, and other valuable Library tools. To explore the new guides, go to the University Library homepage and choose “Research Guides” under the Tools and Services column on the left-hand menu, or go directly to http://libguides.usask.ca. There are 3 types of Research Guides you can find through the University Library: Subject Guides are maintained by your…
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How Do We Define Success in an Open Course
[social_share/] [social-bio] A version of this post was originally published on Heather Ross’s blog on June 24, 2014. In June I attended the Society for Teaching and Learning In Higher Education (STLHE) conference in Kingston, Ontario. As part of the conference I presented, along with Nancy Turner and Jaymie Koroluk (University of Ontario Institute of Technology), a poster about the Introduction to Learning Technologies (ILT) open course that the GMCTE offered earlier this year. During discussions around our poster as well as in other sessions related to open courses, I had a number of conversations with colleagues about just what is “success” in an open course. Completion rates are often used…
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Educatus Taking a Summer Hiatus
Throughout most of the year a new post is added to this blog at least twice per week. We understand that many of our readers, as well as much of the staff at the GMCTE take some time off in the summer. This summer, the Educatus blog will be taking off about six weeks before returning with our usual schedule of postings in mid-August, just as we and the rest of the University of Saskatchewan community are busily preparing for the new academic year. Have a great summer. See you August.
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Students’ expectations are formed early
[social_share/] [social-bio] I have been enjoying a series of blog posts written by the acclaimed UK based higher education researcher Professor Graham Gibbs (you can start with the first of the series here). The blogs have been drawn from a comprehensive publication called 53 Powerful Ideas All Teachers Should Know About, with one idea presented on the blog each week. I was particularly struck by the blog post from a few weeks ago as the ideas presented resonated with the approach of the University of Saskatchewan’s undergraduate research initiative. A key approach has been embedding such experiences in large first year courses which addresses Professor Gibbs’ key take away message;…
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Tamarind, Teaching and Undergraduate Research
[social_share/] [social-bio] For the first time today, I tasted tamarind. I felt like I had discovered something so surprisingly delicious and interesting that I wondered why I had gone this long without knowing about it. This fruit’s benefits are wide-ranging and well known apparently—they just hadn’t been to me. I wasn’t introduced to it through family or friends, but I found information about it as I was searching for ways to reduce fluoride accumulations in the body—I was trying to solve a problem and it was one of the possible solutions to the problem. New teaching strategies—or new-to-you teaching strategies—can be similar to discovering the tamarind fruit. Billions of people…
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Co-teaching, Co-writing, Co-learning: 5 amazing things that happened when I stopped talking
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Carolyn Hoessler In 2014, I have co-taught a course twice, co-facilitated one workshop and one conference session, collaboratively wrote several papers (including based on my dissertation results), and learned a few things along the way. What happened when I traded in my solo controls for a tandem system? 1. I saw old material in new ways when we integrated our distinct viewpoints. Each collaborator brought his or her own beliefs and knowledge. Our backgrounds then resonated to clarify ideas, contrasted to highlight details, or merged to create new ideas. 2. I could glimpse multiple parallel realities (or at least other possible directions or wordings). When preparing…
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Be Authentic In Your Teaching
[social_share/] [social-bio] Almost two decades ago, I spent four months interning as a teacher in a Grade 2 classroom. My supervisor was an interesting (some might say eccentric) middle-aged woman who believed that a good teacher needed to “compete with the effect of video games on children” by entertaining students in the classroom. She would literally sing and dance her lessons and she insisted that I do the same. She would tell me time and time again that I planned wonderful lessons and units, but I needed to be “more of a performer” in my delivery. More singing! More dancing! More joke-telling! So in my supervisor’s presence I awkwardly sang…
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Changing your life one “Tiny Habit” at a time…
[social_share/] [social-bio] About a month ago I ran across a great TED Talk given by BJ Fogg, PhD, director of the Persuasive Tech Lab at Stanford University. Fogg claims that, “When you learn my Tiny Habits method, you can change your life forever.” Well, it hasn’t been “forever” yet for me, but the changes I’ve made using this method have been incredible so far! My productivity and motivation have increased noticeably. I am more focused and “present” to the tasks at hand. The basic premise is to hook a tiny behavior with an existing, well-established behavior. You use the established behavior to trigger the new behavior. It is important that the new behavior—“Tiny Habit”—is simple…
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Modeling Courtesy: Thoughts about Campus Controversy and Maya Angelou
[social_share/] [social-bio] I’m reflecting on recent controversies over change of several kinds in my own campus community and finding myself slowly recovering perspective as time passes. (Although, I must say dear Educatus readers, that I remain astounded and saddened at the sudden loss of senior leaders at the University of Saskatchewan.) Time marches on and this week, I happened upon an excerpt from an interview Evan Solomon of CBC conducted with the late Maya Angelou in 2008. Her call for courtesy during that interview has me lamenting last week’s occasions of name calling, trashing of character, and even graffiti to a historical building. On the upside, Maya Angelou’s words have…
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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…