Resources
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank colleagues who have contributed materials in the spirit of sharing successful practice. Some contributions are anonymous. If you have sent us any of these and either wish to claim authorship, or would prefer them to be removed from this website, please contact c.bryan@cssd.ac.uk
About the Resources
These resources are intended for tutors and for students. They aim to raise awareness and/or develop and assess group processes. The student guides and activities have been trialed in diverse group situations. The Resources section includes:
'How to' Guides and Activities
Commentaries
Assessment Criteria & Procedures
Forms and Documents
Reading and useful links
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The Knowledge Media Laboratory works to create a future in which communities of teachers, faculty, programs, and institutions collectively advance teaching and learning by exchanging their educational knowledge, experiences, ideas, and reflections by taking advantage of various technologies and resources.
The KML is currently working with its partners, including Carnegie Foundation programs, to achieve the following goals:
* To develop digital (or electronic) tools and resources that help to make knowledge of effective teaching practices and educational transformation efforts visible, shareable and reusable.
* To explore synergy among various technologies to better support the scholarship of teaching and learning.
* To build the capacity for faculty and teachers independently to take advantage of information and communications technologies that enable them to re-examine, rethink and represent teaching and student learning, and to share the outcomes in an effective and efficient way.
* To sustain communities of practice engaged in collaboratively improving teaching and student learning by building common areas to exchange knowledge and by building repositories for the representation of effective practice.
Enhancing Learning through Technology (ELT)
We are increasingly aware of how technology can enhance the student learning experience. Our work with institutions indicates a shift towards an overarching approach which uses technology to enhance core activities, e.g. using technology in assessment to improve feedback to students. This shift has been taking place within institutions over the past few years since the release of the original 2005 HEFCE e-learning Strategy, as reflected in the Welsh HEFCW (Higher Education Funding Council for Wales) Enhancement of Learning Strategy. More recently, on 26th March 2009 HEFCE released their Enhancing Learning and Teaching through Technology (ELTT) Policy Statement. This Policy Statement includes an Implementation Framework to support our stakeholder institutions for the development of their own L&T strategies - this Framework was developed through evidence collected from a range of Academy and JISC programmes. To reflect this emphasis, and in line with our remit to support the student learning experience, the Academy has developed an Enhancement of Learning through Technology (ELT) programme. We are in the process of developing this website to reflect this shift and to map our menu structure onto the HEFCE Implementation Framework, i.e. to support institutions on the interpretation of the Framework - to be completed by mid June 09 (JISC are undertaking a similar exercise). We are also developing an additional resource through EvidenceNet. Currently, to support institutions and in collaboration with the JISC we have developed a joint search tool, as below - Academy resources can also be accessed using the menu on the left.
Digital Research Tools (DiRT)\n\n \n\nThis wiki collects information about tools and resources that can help scholars (particularly in the humanities and social sciences) conduct research more efficiently or creatively. Whether you need software to help you manage citations, author a multimedia work, or analyze texts, Digital Research Tools will help you find what you're looking for. We provide a directory of tools organized by research activity, as well as reviews of select tools in which we not only describe the tool's features, but also explore how it might be employed most effectively by researchers.\n\n
This Directory contains over 2,700 tools for learning in two main sections:\n\n 1. for creating, delivering and managing learning and performance support solutions\n 2. for personal learning and productivity, for sharing resources, as well as group collaboration (also includes some enterprise tools)\n\nThe tools in this Directory are both freeware/open source and commercial.
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) - What is it?\n\nIntroduction\n\nIn this section, we offer both a brief definition of SoTL (SoTL in brief), as well as a much more detailed and scholarly discussion of the history and different conceptions of SoTL (starting with Conceptions of Scholarship and SoTL, and progressing through the subsequent sections).\n\nThe aims of this section are:\n\n * to inform the reader of the different conceptions of scholarship in general and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) in particular, and to highlight any interesting points and controversies;\n * to encourage the readers' own consideration of what scholarship, and in particular SoTL, might be; and,\n * to provide a working definition for the purposes of this web resource. \n\nThus, this section includes a brief review of the work of leading academics regarding scholarship and SoTL, as well as links to relevant articles etc., to allow readers to become familiar with several different currently-merited conceptions, and so provoke thought on the matter. The sections titled In Depth are optional extras for those who are interested in more of the intricacies in the debate about SoTL.\n\nNote - although SoTL is our preferred term here, some authors have referred to is simply as the scholarship of teaching (hence, SoT), thus when considering a particular author's work, we shall refer to the concept with the same terminology as used by each author.
Welcome to the DARwiki, a resource and a meeting place for distributed action researchers. If you are new to Wikis you may like to visit introduction to wiki or experiment in the sandbox. You can also ask for help by adding a question here.
Alverno's Eight Abilities
Communication
Make connections that create meaning between yourself and your audience. Learn to speak, read, write and listen effectively, using graphics, electronic media, computers and quantified data.
Analysis
Think clearly and critically. Fuse experience, reason and training into considered judgment.
Problem Solving
Define problems and their causes, and use a range of abilities and resources to reach decisions, make recommendations, or carry out plans.
Valuing
Recognize different value systems while holding strongly to your own ethic. Recognize the moral dimensions of your decisions and accept responsibility for the consequences of your actions.
Social Interaction
Know how to get things done in committees, task forces, team projects and other group efforts. Elicit the views of others and help reach conclusions.
Developing a Global Perspective
Act with an understanding of and respect for the economic, social and biological interdependence of global life.
Effective Citizenship
Be involved and responsible in the community. Act with an informed awareness of contemporary issues and their historical contexts. Develop leadership abilities.
Aesthetic Engagement
Engage with various forms of art and in artistic processes. Take and defend positions regarding the meaning and value of artistic expressions in the contexts from which they emerge.
Constructive alignment
Constructive alignment of learning outcomes to assessment methods
The following resources are available:
Overview paper
Professor Mike Osborne, University of Stirling and Workshop Director
Report on the event and areas for future development and enhancement
Professor Mike Osborne
Keynote address: Aligning assessment with long-term learning needs
Professor David Boud, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Powerpoint slides | PDF version
Case study 1: Assessment on the TQFE program- a case study of constructive alignment
Dr Iddo Oberski, University of Stirling
Powerpoint slides | PDF version
Draft paper - Word version | PDF version
Keynote address: Developing aligned courses
Sue Drew, Sheffield Hallam University
Powerpoint slides | PDF version
Draft paper - Word version | PDF version
'Constructive alignment' starts with the notion that the learner constructs his or her own learning through relevant learning activities. The teacher's job is to create a learning environment that supports the learning activities appropriate to achieving the desired learning outcomes. The key is that all components in the teaching system - the curriculum and its intended outcomes, the teaching methods used, the assessment tasks - are aligned to each other. All are tuned to learning activities addressed in the desired learning outcomes. The learner finds it difficult to escape without learning appropriately.
What is this website?
This website was set up to share resources for funding postgraduate study in the UK. It was initially set up by staff and prospective students of the MA Social Media at Birmingham School of Media, a part of Birmingham City University but we have opened it up for other people to add to.
Where should I start?
There're four key ways to fund your study. Choose the one which might be right for you, and find out more. If you're unsure, read them all:
* Self funded
* Grant funded
* Loan funded
* Sponsorship
* Other financial advice
For a quick introduction, Prospects have a useful video that outlines your options.
T&L blogger Ryan Bretag recently sat down with his students and asked them about 21st-Century Learning strategies. Their suggestions are amazing.
Read the whole piece here: http://www.techlearning.com/blogs.aspx?id=15776
Some snippets:
Each discussion point started and ended with the focus on learning. For example, the students talked about creating a learning environment that was about learning not just memorization. To do this, they wanted to seek out partnerships both locally and globally in order to build connections that would foster a "learning to learn" movement where students are learning for learning, open to learning, and innovative.
Clearly, textbooks were not fast enough nor diverse enough in their eyes. They longed for ways to interact with materials that were updated frequently and offered a wealth of perspectives. In fact, a good portion felt there was a need to move beyond the textbook because "information changes to rapidly" for textbooks to be the main source in the classroom. Along with this, information and resources needed to come in a variety of formats if the curriculum was going to remain progressive and current: narrative, fiction, digital, multimedia, and non-fiction.