Instructional Strategies
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What Are Open Educational Practices in Our Context?
We have seen significant growth in the use of open educational resources at the U of S in the past six years. As of this fall, more than a dozen open textbooks have been created or adapted at by instructors and students have saved well over $2 million dollars. “Open”, however, is about more than just textbooks and money saved, it’s about a way of thinking about teaching and learning. This is the first in a serious of posts looking at the integration of open educational practices (OEP) already occurring at the U of S, as well as about the potential for integrating OEP into courses and programs across the…
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What Can You Do About Academic Misconduct?
The causes of academic misconduct have been well-studied and the following points explain most of this concerning behavior. Research shows that very few students plan on doing things like buying papers or crowd-sourcing exam questions when they enroll in courses. Students widely report that their decision to “cheat” was almost always instead taken at the last minute, under pressure, based on one or more of these 3 concerns: Students placed a low value on what was to be learned Students had low expectations of success for themselves, whatever success meant to them Students believed cheating was widespread: “Everybody’s doing it—I’d be dumb not to” Low value on learning required…
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Office Hours, Remotely
When we move to remote teaching, we need to consider how we will continue to provide students with student-instructor interaction. One way of offering this is through office hours. While we used to offer office hours outside of lecture or class time, now we might be able to leverage our scheduled class time to engage with students to discuss problems, specific questions, or examples. Transmission of content (powerpoints, videos, readings, etc.) can then be reallocated to asynchronous hours. Determine if it best suits your course to offer: group discussions, individual consultations drop-in sessions Be consistent with whichever options you choose. Remind students often via email and course notifications. Use the…
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Studio-based Remote Teaching
Studio-based courses are about the process of observing, creating, critiquing, and refining over time. Students learn techniques and process, attempt them, compare what they have created to criteria, intent, or other works, and then refine or iterate. The 4 key elements for a studio-course include: Observing a demonstration of a process or the creation of a product Performing a process or create a product using appropriate materials or space Comparing, critiquing, or observing drafts and final products Refining, iterating, and revising to improve skills and observation Observing and Performing a Process Would you typically be present to observe students’ create some artifact of their learning and is this process an…
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Online Sharing Circle
Technology is excellent at allowing us to work remotely, but it can be more challenging for building community or keeping a community strong. Technology’s strength is for communication and is not as robust for building connection, especially with larger groups. Purpose The goal is to create the ‘lunchroom’ experience where people share and ground themselves within their respective working group/community. We believe that this type of opportunity will contribute to the art of kiyokiwin, coping with the social isolation, allowing people to raise topics outside of work priorities, better understanding of each other, and so much more. Online sharing circles could be used by instructors to facilitate “courageous curiosity” with…
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Offering Seminar Courses Remotely
A good seminar is all about students thinking critically and deeply about ideas, and then building on the ideas of others. Face to face (F2F), that looks like a small group of students in discussion, lead by an instructor, TA, or even by another student or groups of students. In an online environment, seminars will work best if they occur asynchronously in the discussion boards in an LMS (Canvas). If the group is small enough (think about a dozen students), some type of synchronous tool, like Zoom, can allow students to talk to each other at the same time. The 4 key elements for a seminar that need to be…
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Making the Most of Synchronous Lectures
Synchronous lectures are likely to seem awkward for the first while, but by following the suggestions below you’ll be making the most of your time together and building a community of learners. Synchronous lectures mean that you and students are “together” using an online platform or tool in real time. When you choose to teach in real time, you are deciding that a schedule will be set, you will teach at that time, and students will attend at that time. Students will need to ensure that their schedules are free and they have the necessary hardware (e.g., computer, mic, webcam) and a fast enough internet connection. The supported tool for…
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Simple Strategies to Elevate your Asynchronous Delivery
By now you are probably familiar with the concept of asynchronous remote learning. If not, asynchronous learning means you and students are not limited by timing. You are deciding that students can engage with the material on their schedule, at times, and places when they may have better bandwidth and other kinds of capacity. As you can imagine, asynchronous learning can be of varying quality; therefore, here are some tips and ideas to keep in mind to help make the most of your asynchronous design. One important way to make the most of your asynchronous learning is to finalize the learning materials (e.g., creation of lecture videos, suggested readings, discussion…
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Identifying Placements that work for Remote Learning
Your “placement” may be a practicum course or may be work-place or community-based learning experiences built into a course. In either the longer or shorter duration, these opportunities are valued by students as a means to improve skills and refine understanding by practicing and receiving feedback in a professional setting. Also, students appreciate the chance to build their networks and resumes for their future careers. Availability of placement partners? In the remote context, we know that our usual partners may find themselves less able to take students on. Even if they want a student, they may also need to reduce the number of people in their physical settings. You may…
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Preparing and Supporting Students in Remote-context Placements
You already know how much your students value the learning opportunities that happen sometimes and are called the “real-world.” Our approaches to this need to be different in the remote context, but there are opportunities for expanded student learning too. After all, skills for remote working and use of online tools for collaboration and communication are transferrable as 21st century skills regardless. How may individual student situations vary? Reach out to your students involved in your practicum or community-based learning course. Individual situations may vary and affect options in ways you don’t expect. Many students may not move to Saskatoon this fall and it will be useful to know what…