Tag Archives: leadership

making decisions

First reflections on the new ACADPRAC 703

Off to a ‘not so great’ start as there are many enrollments issues to be sorted. However, considering the class sizes I have had before, 2 being the minimum, I think having 5-8 people this time is a real bonus. Panic has set in over student pages as I have realised there are glitches in the system that allow student editors to see the hidden pages. Though they cannot edit or see the content-which is displayed as work in progress- I feel it is not a professional look. Also, linking to unpublished sites in image map makes it go to edit view where access is compromised for hidden content. Answered the first student query as I did not have access to the right CECIL instance of the course, I couldn’t see the students enrolled. Then there was the palaver over enrollment caps, ACADPRAC 703 somehow had a capacity for 5 students on SSO which isn’t correct at all. If anything there could be 50 students which I rightly pointed out to admin and they realised it was a typo!

This confusion between ACADPRAC 703F City 2014 and ACADPRAC 703FX 2014 certainly exists and needs to remedied through CECIL admin. I finally got access to the correct course.
Design aspirations:
>> interactive course with focus on peer-peer communication and collaboration.
>> input from students to negotiate the assessment 2 format and timing.
>> clear guidelines on what is required and what is desirable but not essential e.g. links to Fellowship and CLeaR Lights programme.
>> information to lead into further exploration and personalisation of the learning experience.
>> journal for student reflections, collaborative glossary and student pages to create an online presence

Continue reading

Writing about my teaching

A Teaching Profile focuses on the core values, signature pedagogies, personal style and beliefs in our teaching. Various ways to formulate a readable profile include the use of metaphorsillustration or drawing, lists of guiding values, attitudes or  ethicssignature pedagogies, past influential experiences and details of student expectations and achievements.

What is my Teaching Philosophy and Approach?
As an early career academic, I aspire to be an inspirational and research-informed, responsive teacher. I always think of teaching and learning design as a smart balancing act. Very much like a trapeze artist, you need to be brave and bold to take risks, and accept that one fall will potentially inflict long-term damage but recovery is possible. The whole experience is important to perfect the act, if perfection is at all possible. My teaching philosophy and aspirations are best represented by a famous Richard Bach (n.d.) quote: You teach best what you most need to learn. With the rapidly changing technologies and transforming classrooms, teaching in the area of elearning is always a personal learning experience. There is a considerable amount of balancing required based on the context, skills and experiences of target audiences, access and availability of media and technologies and above all the learning approach. I prefer to take an eclectic approach to “use what works” (Mergel, 1998) and do frequently draw on a combination of learning theories as and when appropriate.

Continue reading

Good teaching in large classes

In this seminar, experienced teachers of large classes shared their strategies for keeping their classes active and engaging. It’s not about the tools, but how you use them to meet the needs of your learners, staying true to your teaching approach.

References:

McKeachie, W. (1980). Improving lectures by understanding students’ information processing. In McKeachie, W.J. (Ed.), Learning, Cognition, and College Teaching. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, No. 2. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Learning spaces e-book by EDUCAUSE
Good, M. (2001). On the Way to Online Pedagogy (Chapter 13) in John Stephenson (ed.). Teaching and Learning Online: Pedagogies for New Technologies. [Online]
Lyman, F. (1981). The Responsive Class Discussion. In A. S. Anderson (ed.), Mainstreaming Digest. College Park: College of Education, University of Maryland, 1981. (Think-pair-share technique)
Thiagi, S. (2005). Thiagi’s Interactive lectures: Power up your training with interative games and exercises. USA: ASTD Press.
George Brown (1978). Lecturing and Explaining. London: Methuen. (Peer squares-peer assessment technique)
Shenk, D. (1997) Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut, San Francisco: HarperCollins.  

Continue reading