Group items tagged

"Discussions are an important component of many forms of online student interaction. For students to benefit from an online discussion, it is important for teachers to generate relevant topics, effectively moderate student activity and participate regularly. This episode will highlight several strategies to help you manage online discussions more effectively, and make them more beneficial for your students."

Nice short video introducing ways to make use of the discussion forums in an LMS like BBLearn. There appears to be other useful videos in this series. Thanks to Mark Morton at Waterloo for pointing this out.

An interesting article discussing the benefits of higher education to society (and how to measure them). This flips the current trend in the discussion of higher education and its benefits from an individual to a more global focus.

"The traditional model of the lecture and learning cycle has long been to deliver the lecture during class and to send students home to do homework and perhaps engage in a discussion or two afterwards. The flipped classroom flips this model on its head: through lecture capture software, lectures can be captured on video for students to watch home, freeing up class time for hands-on learning activities and discussion."

"More than a decade after Prensky's influential articulation of digital natives and immigrants, great disagreement exists around these characterizations of students and the impact of such notions within higher education. Perceptions of today's undergraduate learners as tech-savvy "digital natives" (Prensky, 2001a), who both want and need the latest emerging technologies in all learning situations, continue to dominate the discourse in education technology research and practice. Popular yet largely unsubstantiated conceptions of digital natives are often embedded within the assumptions of contemporary research on student perceptions of emerging technologies, seemingly without regard for a growing body of evidence questioning such notions. In order to promote critical discussion in the higher education community considering potential directions for further research of these issues, especially within the Canadian context, the purpose of this review of recent literature is to analyze key themes emerging from contemporary research on the Net generation as digital natives. "

"A growing literature suggests that there is a disjuncture between the instructional practices of the education system and the student body it is expected to serve, particularly with respect to the roles of digital technologies. Based on surveys and focus group interviews of first-year students at a primarily undergraduate Canadian university and focus group interviews of professors at the same institution, this study explores the gaps and intersections between students' uses and expectations for digital technologies while learning inside the classroom and socializing outside the classroom, and the instructional uses, expectations and concerns of their professors. It concludes with recommendations for uses of digital technologies that go beyond information transmission, the need for extended pedagogical discussions to harness the learning potentials of digital technologies, and for pedagogies that embrace the social construction of knowledge as well as individual acquisition."

This website, maintained by Mick Flanagan at University College London, is the most comprehensive online site gathering information, references, videos, and articles about threshold concepts. It includes overviews about threshold concepts, as well as an alphabetical listing of threshold concepts discussed in the literature across the disciplines.

"Dr. Rankin, professor of History at UT Dallas, wanted to know how to reach more students and involve more people in class discussions both in and out of the classroom. She had heard of Twitter... She collaborated with a graduate student, Kim Smith, from the Emerging Media and Communications (EMAC) and reached out to EMAC faculty for advice.  As a Graduate student in EMAC I assisted her in The Twitter Experiment and documented the project to share with others. "

This is a good and realistic look at the experience of an instructor who has flipped their class. Not all negative, but here is some realism: "The problem, I soon discovered, was that nobody told the students they were supposed to hate lectures. They were genuinely disoriented when I didn't spend class time lecturing. Only about 25 percent of them watched the prerecorded lectures before class. As a result, class discussion of content became an exercise in futility. Their comments at the end of the semester made it clear that about two-thirds of them preferred a typical lecture class."

"The most effective teachers vary their styles depending on the nature of the subject matter, the phase of the course, and other factors. By so doing, they encourage and inspire students to do their best at all times throughout the semester. It is helpful to think of teaching styles according to the three Ds: Directing, Discussing, and Delegating."

"Provide flexibility in how information is delivered and discussed such as giving instructions verbally and visually. Use a variety of teaching strategies, activities, and assignments that will accommodate the needs of students with diverse learning needs, abilities, backgrounds and experiences."

Examples, 6 steps outlined, definitions, types and more from the POD Network