Instructional / Course Design
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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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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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Peer-to-Peer Writing Feedback: That’s what friends are for!
[social_share/] [social-bio] Peer-to-peer writing feedback is a process by which students judge other students’ written work and produce and provide feedback to them and then, in turn, also receive feedback on their own work. By feedback, I mean commentary of a formative kind: that is, students have the chance to consider and incorporate the feedback received from their peers. Peers are not assigning grades (that would be “peer assessment”), but they may be evaluating the work using a set of provided standards or a rubric. The process can be anonymous, but it does not need to be. This fall, I will be trying out peer-to-peer writing feedback in a course…
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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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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…
- General, Indigenization, Decolonization, Reconciliation, Instructional / Course Design, Instructional Strategies
Undergraduate Student Engagement Underpins Success of Indigenous Philosophy Class
[social_share/] [social-bio] How can a European educated, non-Aboriginal philosopher effectively and ethically teach a course on Indigenous philosophy? For Dr. Daniel Regnier, professor and department head of philosophy at St. Thomas More College, the answer to this question was to set aside a traditional approach to teaching in favour of collaboratively designing and teaching Phil 115: Indigenous Philosophy. “There is a big ethical problem in approaching teaching the normal way when there is such a history of injustice. Normally, a professor who has a minimal familiarity with logic or some philosophical tradition would still be qualified to teach, for instance, an introductory logic class,” Regnier said about the challenges he…
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Course Design Institute Being Offered as ‘Flipped’ Workshop
[social_share/] [social-bio] For several years, the GMCTE has offered the Course Design Institute (CDI), a four to five-day intensive workshop that walks instructors through the development or redevelopment of one of their courses. This May, the CDI we be delivered in an entirely different format than in the past by “flipping” it to provide participants with more hands-on work time. While in the past, participants attending all day for the four to five days during a single week, this offering will require participants to attend three Thursday mornings over three weeks in May. They will also watch videos and complete assignments outside of these meeting times. They will post their…
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Learning Not to Learn?
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Carolyn Hoessler We teach so that students engage in actions to continue to learn including completing assignments, readings and answering questions in class. But does our teaching increase such behaviours or decrease them? One lens, psychology of learning, suggests we likely do both. Unlike classical conditioning’s focus on reflexes such as drooling, B. F. Skinners’ operant conditioning examines the rewarding of active behaviours including participating in class discussion or completing homework. What is Operant conditioning? As Thorndike’s Law of Effect and B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning notes we are influenced by the consequences of our actions. Good consequences encourage more of this activity, while unpleasant (or unhelpful)…
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2014 Higher Ed Horizon Report Released
[social_share/] [social-bio] Every year the New Media Consortium (NMC) and EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative release a series of reports on what they see as the coming trends in learning technologies. One such report looks specifically at higher education and the 2014 edition was recently released. While the report has always included what these groups see as the “important developments” that will be adopted in this area in three time frames (within one year, in two to three years, and in four to five years), this year’s report also includes “Key Trends Accelerating EdTech Adoption in Higher Education” and “Significant Challenges Impeding EdTech Adoption in Higher Education”. The “key trends” are broken…
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High Impact Teaching Practices
[social_share/] [social-bio] NOTE: There are ten high impact educational practices that reportedly increase student success. You can access that list and brief description at https://www.aacu.org/leap/hip.cfm, http://www.uwgb.edu/outreach/highimpact/assets/pdfs/kinzieHO2012.pdf, or watch this short 6-minute video: For the back-story—the elements that make these high impact practices check out http://us.tamu.edu/Faculty-Administrators/High-Impact-Learning. A summary is provided here: High impact practices have these elements in common: 1. EFFORTFUL is not a bad thing. In fact, “effortful” stimulates learning and increases retention of that which is learned. “Effortful” is also engaging and focuses attention for an extended period. One of the greatest disservices we can do for students is to reduce the required effort and make things easy. 2.…