Instructional Strategies
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Why ‘Student Learning Objectives’?
[social-bio] So why is a curriculum development person commenting about learning objectives—the unit of planning that occurs at the individual lesson level? Usually you’d hear me going on about program goals and outcomes, and graduate attributes—the big picture! I wanted to highlight the importance of having clear, explicit learning objectives because it is all of these learning objectives that collectively create and contribute to an aligned and unified program of study. Paying attention to what happens in each lesson makes for a more successful learning journey in the long run. There are good official, technical, and pedagogical reasons for having student learning objectives for each lesson and lab, but the…
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Assessment For Learning
[social-bio] “Students can, with difficulty, escape from the effects of poor teaching, they cannot (by definition if they want to graduate) escape the effects of poor assessment.” (Boud, 1998) Think back to your experience as an undergraduate. How did you decide what to focus on in the hours outside the classroom? What drove your priorities in selecting what work to dedicate time to? If you were anything like me your decisions were driven by what you thought would get you a good grade. Don’t get me wrong, I was there to learn and was passionate about the subject I was studying. But I was also practical. I had limited time…
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What Do Automobile Engines and Educational Innovation Have in Common?
[social-bio] Recently, someone recommended that I read “Design Research for Sustained Innovation” by Carl Bereiter. Although, the article was published in 2002, I found it to be very relevant today. The premise of the article is that, “innovative practices seldom win out against those with a long evolutionary history” (p. 321). This is not only true in education, but in all aspects of human life. He makes a thought-provoking comparison between innovation in education and innovation in the automobile engine. The automobile engine has drawbacks related to the reciprocating piston that were recognized early. Bereiter explains that the a “better engine” called the Wankel engine was invented in the 1920s,…
- Academic Integrity, Assessment and Evaluation, Curriculum Development, General, Instructional / Course Design, Instructional Strategies, Program Evaluation
The Academic Honesty Bonus: Another Advantage of an Aligned Curriculum
[social-bio] In my role as a Curriculum Development Specialist, I get to talk with faculty about their programs and the many reasons to examine and renew curricula in higher education. In recent months, another advantage to an aligned curriculum has come to mind for me: academic honesty. I posit that the three following relationships hold generally true, and promote academic honesty among students. When faculty alert students to the progressive nature of the curriculum and convey to students how what they are learning now prepares them for, not only life after graduation but for future courses, students can better recognize the benefit of deep learning. For example, students can come…
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Learning Through Osmosis
[social-bio] By Carolyn Hoessler The phrase “learning by osmosis” conjures ideas of sleeping with a textbook or sitting near the smart students. What about in the classroom? Lecturing while students passively listen is like letting the difference in osmotic pressure between the students’ brain and the instructor’s brain (or the classroom air) be the driving force to promote transport or diffusion of knowledge. This statement is paraphrased from a recent conversation with a faculty member about how faculty are expected to learn about the culture of their departments (another post, perhaps) and students are expected to learn when sitting listening in a classroom. As I learned in the conversation,…
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Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI) and Reflective Teaching
[social-bio] One of the activities we do in GMCTE’s Introductory Instructional Skills course is the Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI) to help participants define what “good teaching” looks like to them. Five different perspectives related to teaching are reflected in the TPI. Most people hold one (maybe two) dominant teaching perspectives; many also have a “back-up” perspective. The five perspectives are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but represent very different and sometimes opposing beliefs about teaching. The five perspectives in the TPI are: Transmission – Content is king (or queen) in this perspective. Teachers are responsible for presenting the subject matter correctly, systematically, memorably and efficiently. Apprenticeship – This perspective reflects a…
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Formative Feedback For Improving the Teaching and Learning Experience
[social-bio] In January of 2012 I taught my first university level course in the College of Education. It went “OK”, but not great. I had a good rapport with many of the 24 students, but no overall sense of connections with the class as a whole. Some of the comments on the SEEQ at the end of the term really surprised me and made me question myself as an educator. Teaching students is not a required part of my job, but rather an opportunity, and I was left wondering whether I wanted to let the opportunity slip away. Instead, I looked over the SEEQ results for recurring themes and looked back on…
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So You’re Thinking of Flipping your Class: We Can Help
[social-bio] Perhaps you’ve been hearing rumblings about flipped teaching. Maybe you even read my post about it in December (What is Flipped Teaching?). If you haven’t heard of it, flipped teaching is, “the process of moving lecture content from face-to-face class time to before class by assigning it as homework. This allows for more interactive and student-centred types of learning to take place during the scheduled class time. Flipped teaching often involves, but is not limited to, students viewing lecture videos as homework.” So, now that we’re all on the same page, I am pleased to announce a new support from the Gwenna Moss Centre that we’re referring to as…
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Reflecting On Your SEEQ Course Evaluations
[social-bio] Most of us dread, or at the least, have mixed feelings about receiving feedback on our teaching, especially from standardized course evaluation tools such as the Student Evaluation of Educational Quality instrument (SEEQ). However, many new insights may be gained by continuously reflecting on our actions as teachers and by opening ourselves up to a process of continual learning about pedagogy. In a pdf booklet entitled Students Rating Teaching, teachers are challenged and encouraged to reflect upon the quality, usefulness, and potential difficulties of SEEQ data in relation to their teaching practice as opposed to simply reading their SEEQ results (Lawall n.d.). This year when you receive your SEEQ…
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The Use of WordPress for a Course Website
[social-bio] One of my favourite parts of my job is having the opportunity to teach pre-service teachers in an undergraduate course in the College of Education. I teach ETAD 470 – Design and Use of Online Resources. This course covers the pedagogical and technological aspects of using things like blogs, wikis, podcasts and other types of tools in teaching and learning. I taught this class for the first time in Term 2 of the 2011-2012 academic year. As part of the course I created a course blog using Google’s Blogger service where I shared weekly resources with the students and a Google Site where I listed all of the required…