Group items tagged

"A blended course often reduces face-to-face "seat time" so that students can pursue additional teaching and learning activities online. These ten questions (adapted from the University of Wisconsin's Hybrid Course website ) are a good starting point when thinking about blended course redesign."

An excellent resource by Joan Middendorf and Elizabeth Osborn on a variety of fun ways to learn student names.

Ever thought about using Google Earth as a learning tool in your teaching? SERC has a variety of Google-Earth inspired examples on their website to get you inspired this term!

From the American Psychological Association, this online resource and guide covers how to assess student learning outcomes for program review based on stated learning goals. "We have organized this Cyberguide into four parts that will assist departments in developing assessment plans: A. Understanding Assessment: Departmental, Institutional, Educational, and Societal Perspectives B. Designing Viable Assessment Plans C. Sustaining an Assessment Culture D. Applying Assessment Strategies in Psychology"

The home of free learning from The Open University Creative Commons licensed materials that can be used freely.

""Usually with an exam, feedback will come as a mark and then many students will throw the exam away," says Brett Gilley, a former Science Teaching and Learning Fellow in the Carl Weiman Science Education Initiative, and an instructor with UBC's Vantage College and the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences. "Here, we're making them review the exam while they still care about the answers to the questions.""

List of the most popular tech tools for education in 2012. It is interesting to see how some tools have dropped in the past year and how others have climbed. There are also some tools that I have never used before - worth checking out!

"A free and easy way for teachers to open up their classroom. Meet new people, talk to experts, share ideas and create amazing learning experiences with teachers from around the world."

"Universal Design is a framework which removes barriers on campus in order to broaden access to university services for ALL students.  Universal Design for Learning (UDL) specifically provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone--not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs."

"...an extensive set of materials for transformed courses in the sciences here at the University of Colorado at Boulder. All materials are available to the public on a creative commons license." Includes: 1. Course Materials Archive 2. "Framing" Materials for the First Day (and Beyond) 3. Clicker and Learning Goal Workshop Materials for Facilitator

"Social media may have started out as a fun way to connect with friends, but it has evolved to become a powerful tool for education and business. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter and tools such as Skype are connecting students to learning opportunities in new and exciting ways. Whether you teach an elementary class, a traditional college class, or at an online university, you will find inspirational ways to incorporate social media in your classroom with this list."

"The Padagogy Wheel takes an expanded approach Bloom's Digital Taxonomy and offers 62 iPad apps that fit into the organized chaos that is Bloom's. On Allan's blog (check it out, it's great!) he explains that not every app is perfect and that there's always room to improve. So I'd recommend you check out his blog and offer up your comments, questions, etc. as he ha spent a pantload of time on this thing and I just know you'd enjoy learning about this if you haven't already."

"The benefits to a Wikipedia assignment are extensive. Asking students to interact with the largest reference work in the world creates a unique educational experience: namely, a Wikipedia assignment provides a real-life application of the skills and knowledge students develop in the classroom. Asking students to participate in a Wikipedia project challenges them to examine and refine the ways in which they interact with digital resources. Students must develop their media literacy as they assess the reliability of online sources, their online etiquette as they interact with editors around the globe, and their critical thinking skills as they identify articles that need improvement. When students edit articles, they must produce material that is relavant to Wikipedia and consumed by actual readers beyond their classroom. They are confronted with immediate feedback to their work and must learn how to collaborate with writers around the globe. "

"Students are not only intellectual but also social and emotional beings, and all these dimensions interact to impact learning and performance. To plan an effective course, it is important to consider who our students are, taking into account their: Prior knowledge Intellectual development Cultural background Generational experiences and expectations "

"Moving from a disposable research essay to a Wikipedia essay carries several benefits: Students gain a sense of confidence in their knowledge by contributing to a source that they know and use. Students trade the audience of one instructor for a broad readership (one of the students this semester revised an article on Japan's military Unit 731 that got more than 70,000 views in just December) Students improve their digital literacy through a better understanding of Wikis a medium. Students learn about source authority, especially the increasingly common semi-anonymous and anonymous web sources which so often fill their bibliographies. Instructors trade a stack of homogenous research papers for a variety of formatted essays. Essays are subject to open-review on the web."

"Whether you're a faculty member interested in using digital tools, a graduate student looking for innovative ways to communicate your research, or an undergraduate student who just wants to learn more, you're welcome to stop in to the DRC anytime. The DRC offers industry standard hardware and software, rooms for you, your class, or your research assistants, support for your project or grant application, and information about new media classes available at the U of S. One of the core principles of the digital humanities is collaboration, so come find out how we can work together to meet your goals. "

"In any discipline or field, a key goal as well as challenge is supporting the learning of all students despite their many differences. Through programs, consultations, and resources, CRLT supports teachers in creating learning environments where students of all identities and backgrounds can flourish." This website provides an endless supply of fresh resources regarding inclusivity, with one page of invaluable articles or links, leading on to more and more. Spending a little or a lot of time on this site will vastly increase your understanding of inclusive teaching, provide you with tools and ideas to implement, and provide you with some of the research that substantiates all that has been included on the site.

"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."

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.

This website is from the Institute for Teaching and Learning at the University of Sydney. It features the work of Simon Barrie on graduate attributes, which is particularly interesting and important for units working on curriculum development.