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Using Reflective Practice to Become the Teacher You Want to Be
[social_share/] [social-bio] With Wenona Partridge, GMCTE Richard Feynman was a great physicist and exceptional teacher, and generally cool person. He had a vision for how he wanted to teach and kept moving towards that vision. For a glimpse of Feynman, see the video at the end of this post (or read more and see the video), and think about the kind of teacher Feynman chose to be. So what is your vision for your teaching? What are your goals? What do you want your feedback from students to say? What stories would you like students to share about your class? One of the ways to move toward your vision is…
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Open Education Week Coming to USask
[social_share/] [social-bio] During the week of March 7 the University of Saskatchewan will be offering several sessions related to open textbooks and other open educational resources (OER), along with a session on the Tri-Agency open access publishing requirements as part of International Open Education Week. “Open Education Week is a global event that seeks to raise awareness of free and open sharing in education and the benefits they bring to teachers and learners. Coordinated by the Open Education Consortium, the event showcases projects, resources, and ideas from around the world that demonstrate open education in practice. The open education movement seeks to reduce barriers, increase access and drive improvements in education through open sharing…
- Curriculum Development, General, Inclusivity, Indigenization, Decolonization, Reconciliation, Instructional / Course Design
Historical Biases in Understanding Culture – A Barrier to Indigenization?
[social_share/] [social-bio] Western society has made significant advances in empirically derived truth and scientific inquiry (e.g., anthropology, psychology, linguistics, etc.) since the Age of Enlightenment (e.g., Descartes, Diderot, Montesquieu, Turgot, Vico, Voltaire, etc.). The impact and importance of this epistemological approach to the world and its mass adoption by Western societies can be perceived in many elements of European civilization and culture (Boon, 1972; Goodenough, 1961; Keesing, 1974; Triandis, 1994). The rise of Europe’s epistemological renaissance occurred during the era of colonial expansion. At the time that Europe was pressing itself onto numerous societies around the world, dominating the global stage, many Western thinkers were using this colonial perspective as…
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Reading Students Work With Them Present – A Different Take on Marking
[social_share/] [social-bio] Many years ago, while I was a student at a community college in California, I took two courses that fell under the very general subject banner “Humanities”. One was The Individual and Society and the other The Individual and The Arts. These classes met for three hours twice a week and were team taught by three instructors that almost always were on the stage together at the front of the lecture hall that held about 100 students. I took these courses early in my post-secondary education, but the teaching style has stayed with me as much as the content. One aspect, in particular, comes up frequently when instructors…
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Graduate Student Teacher Journey
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Noura Sheikhalzoor, Graduate Student, College of Pharmacy and Nutrition Teaching has been a rich and rewarding part of my graduate school experience. It added a new flavour to what I have been already doing in my program of courses and research. My teaching experience has taught me a lot on the technical and personal levels. I started my M.Sc. program with teaching responsibilities as part of a scholarship I earned and I was given the opportunity to be a teaching assistant (TA) to be a lab instructor and mark assignments. Through this post, I would like to take you in a journey with me to one of…
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Me and Program Evaluation
[social_share/] [social-bio] I genuinely enjoy working as a Program Evaluator because the idea of efficiency and effectiveness genuinely appeal to me. In addition, being an applied and use-oriented person, the ability to use all my theoretical knowledge to help others is extremely fulfilling and appealing. Program evaluation allows for effective resource allocation, documentation of need, improvement of effectiveness and efficiency, test novel small-scale interventions, address political issues and accountability. The different types of program evaluation are mainly about determining whether or not a program is needed, or being implemented as intended or achieving intended outcomes. Needs in the context of program evaluation refers to the needs of the clients or…
- Curriculum Development, Inclusivity, Indigenization, Decolonization, Reconciliation, Instructional Strategies
Indigenizing Education Series: Getting started …
[social_share/] [social-bio] As an Indigenous educator, researcher, and scholar, academics have asked me more often about ‘how’ we, the collective we, can improve the situation for the First Nation, Metis, and Inuit peoples than ‘why’ we should do this? While I appreciate the recognition that something needs to be done, I am often taken back when I realize that the reasons for this change, the ‘why’, are not well understood. How do you Indigenize an institution, like the University of Saskatchewan, if you don’t now what the issues are that need to be addressed? Therefore, my response is always preceded by a pause as I contemplate where do I start?…
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‘Softwhere’ in the Curriculum
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Donna Beneteau, Departmental Assistant, Mining – Civil and Geological Engineering In the era of rapidly developing technology, an efficient use of words in the title seemed appropriate. “Software, where in the curriculum?” didn’t provide the same effect. This question is now something that I ask myself after developing an assignment for the Gwenna Moss Centre’s course “Introduction to Learning Technologies”. I prepared and gave a survey asking 2nd and 4th year Civil, Environmental and Geological Engineering students questions about software that they use in school, on summer jobs and on internships. In total, I received 214 responses, 110 from CE295 and 104 from CE495. As expected, the…
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Open Textbooks Provide Financial Savings and Pedagogical Benefits for Students
[social_share/] [social-bio] By Noreen Mahoney, Associate Dean, Students & Degree Programs, Edwards School of Business and Brooke Klassen, Director, Undergraduate & Certificate Programs, Edwards School of Business We have been instructors of Comm 119 Business Competencies for a number of years and the course has evolved significantly during that time. We are constantly adapting and experimenting to add value for our students. Initially the intention and objectives of the course were to ensure that students had the foundational skills necessary to succeed in their other courses within Edwards and to ensure that students felt a sense of identification with the Edwards School of Business as well as some fundamental computer…
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Truth and Reconciliation – Call to Action for Educators
[social_share/] [social-bio] Indigenous people and their communities have had a long and contentious experience with Western education. For far too long, schools and education were used as instruments to systematically dismantle Indigenous culture, their way of living and knowing. Generation after generation of children were taken from their homes, sometime forcefully, in the name of providing them with a civilized education. Instead, what many of these children experienced was at its best a destructive education, and at its worse an inhumane brainwashing, aimed at having these children renounce their ‘savage’ Indigenous perspectives for a more ‘sophisticated’ Canadian approach to life. Many Canadian universities are just beginning to acknowledge their role…