- Curriculum Development, Educational Theory, Experiential Learning, Instructional / Course Design, Instructional Strategies, Uncategorized, Wellness
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 process. Factors such as learning, exercise, diet, and environmental stimuli can all influence brain plasticity. Recent research has shown that educators who understand the basics of brain plasticity can design courses that promote and accelerate learning and retention. Why is Brain Plasticity Important? Brain plasticity offers several benefits in the field of education, including: Improving…
- Curriculum Development, Educational Theory, Experiential Learning, General, Instructional / Course Design, Instructional Strategies, Wellness
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 it promotes active learning, fosters creativity and innovation, and prepares students for the real world. Let me explain: Experiential learning engages multiple parts of the brain simultaneously When learners participate and apply their learning in authentic contexts, it activates different areas of the brain responsible for sensory processing, motor skills, and cognitive functions, such as…
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Experiential Learning Resources – 5 Top Picks
Summary: If you’re wondering how to enhance your experiential learning practices and make meaningful connections with learners’ knowledge and experiences, here are five valuable resources to support experiential learning. Discover rubrics, learning modules, reflection models, and prompting questions. Date of publishing: October 11, 2022 When exploring the USask Experiential Learning framework, you might want 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 Course and a Critical Reflection Rubric Lays out why and when students should reflect, what reflection could look like, and…
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Serious (about) Academic Misconduct? A lesson plan
Students encounter mixed messages when it comes to the seriousness of different forms of academic misconduct. As instructors, we may be assuming that our colleagues teach about and respond to academic misconduct issues in a similar way to ourselves, when very often, they do not. This post provides a lesson plan (using the “BOPPPS” model) for helping students see what the most serious mistakes would be in your course and why. Lesson Plan for Clarifying Expecations B is for “Bridge-in” What the instructor does What the students do Notes, Materials, Tips Introduce topic (2 – 5 min) Listen, reflect Ideas: tell a story of confusion over expectations you…
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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 course to assist instructors in learning about all aspects of OEP. Open educational practices are a range of practices based on the idea that collaborating on the creation of and freely sharing knowledge, research, and learning materials benefits all of us. Key aspects of OEP include: Materials are accessible Anyone can create, collaborate on, and…
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How students interact with your online course predicts their success
We all know that students are more successful when they have a deep interest in course materials or strong thinking skills. Similarly, we know we can help students do better when assessment is transparent. However, we are less aware of the impact that our course design has on likely student persistence and success. In online and remote environments, here are some key predictors of success controlled by how you design your course: Key factors: Student engagement with learning activities like posting on discussion boards or taking optional online quizzes to check their understanding (Zacharis, 2015) is a likely predictor of student success. Interestingly, time logged in and reading or viewing…
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Create Groups for Collaborative Learning Spaces in Canvas
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba Perhaps you’d like to set up groups in your Canvas course for discussions, assignments, projects or presentations. The process creates smaller groups, as well as a space within the course for group members to collaborate, called a Group Homepage. Group creation can help our courses to be more active and social, and enable connection with the people, ideas and concepts students need to support their learning; using groups is aligned with USask’s Learning Technology Ecosystem Principles, characteristics of effective digital learning spaces, and can support skill development and learner achievement for our students. By bringing students together in smaller groups and inviting them to communicate and work…
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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 level. However, those are also often large courses where the primary method of instruction is listening to your professor speak. To actually get broad minds, our learning activities have to be active, even in the large classrooms where active learning strategies are limited by the room, and even when students are first encountering the subject…
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Getting More Active (and getting more learning)
Summary: Boost engagement and deepen learning with active learning strategies. Discover tips to make your classroom more interactive and effective. Date of publishing: December 20, 2018 This post focuses on easy changes to make your course more active. Step 1- Clarify the purpose of active learning in your class Active learning is time in your classroom when students are actively thinking, talking, and making sense of ideas. It is contrasted with passive learning, when students are being receptive (listening, note taking, etc.) An individual class is typically considered active when 60% or more of the time is students thinking and talking, rather than the instructor explaining. To get started with…