From Stuck to Supercharged: The What and Why of Brain Plasticity

Your Brain on Teaching and Learning: Series One  What is Brain Plasticity? Brain plasticity is the brain’s ability to reorganize and restructure itself throughout a person’s lifetime. It is a result of the brain’s ability to form new neural connections and strengthen existing ones based on the activities we engage in and the information we…

Your Brain on Experiential Learning

“Is disengaged.” “Is easily distracted.” “Shows no interest.” “Never shows up.” No professor wants to use these phrases to describe their students, but disengagement is a persistent problem — making descriptions such as these all too common today. Experiential Learning can help. Experiential learning is a powerful educational approach that helps students remain focused as…

Experiential Learning Resources – 5 Top Picks

By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba During the launch of our new USask Experiential Learning framework, we’ve had requests for more information about reflection frameworks, providing efficient feedback, and grading reflection. While we have built some resources around reflection and feedback, other higher education institutions have some gems to support Experiential Learning.  Brock University – Reflection in Your…

GMCTL to Launch New Open Course on Open in Early February

The University of Saskatchewan is a leader in Canada around open educational resources (e.g. textbooks) and is moving toward wider integration of open pedagogy (students as contributors, not just consumers of knowledge). As part of this, and in the spirit of open educational practices (OEP), on February 1, 2022 we are launching a new open…

USask spaces that flex with the type of learning

Many USask classrooms have been designed with one thing in mind – successful transmission of information from the faculty member to the students.  Even as technologies changed over time, that model did not – we just added screens, data projectors for our slideshows, and cameras and microphones to capture a lecture. Current theories of learning…

Building Broad Minds: Active learning strategies for large classrooms

Building broad minds is not about back filling.  Broad minds are the byproduct of encountering diverse ideas, thinking deeply about them, and integrating those ideas into our own worldviews and cognitive frameworks.  In higher education, the opportunity to be exposed to the thinking of a wide variety of disciplines usually happens at the first year…