Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness

"The expectation for researchers to have a presence beyond academia coincides with another shift that is making social impact now possible, for many researchers, and this is the rise of social media. These new, virtual environments are not just characterized by popular, personalized platforms like Facebook and Twitter, although I will come to these. Rather, social media encompasses the entire architecture of the scholarly Web today, best known as Web 2.0, which is a new way of organizing digital media content. While computing transformed scholarship in many ways before the rise of social media platforms, the average end-user experience, even for a novice, has altered considerably within just the last five years."

Interesting article that describes the student data being collected at some universities. The data is be used to "eAdvise" students into the proper programming and courses, which leads to higher retention rates. The data may be used to go as far as even monitoring card swipes and analyze student social interactions.

An article in EDUCAUSE by Randy Bass. The article is about how the formal curriculum is being disrupted as "high-impact educational practices" and "the experiential co-curriculum" move from the margins of higher education into common practice. He also addresses how the current "participatory culture " and the trend toward "informal learning" are affecting the curriculum. The article concludes with recommendations for instructors on how they can change their teaching practices to "keep pace with our expanded understanding of learning." - the description provided by Christopher Price, Director, Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT), The College at Brockport, State University of New York.

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

Article that explains how an instructor is "Crowd-sourcing" the evaluation of his course. Students determine what grade level they are aiming for based on criteria and then having the other students in the course determining if the work is satisfactory or not. If all work completed is satisfactory, the student will receive the grade in the grade level they chose.

Research poster on using a rubric to grade exams in a Calculus-based physics for science and engineering course that shows the level of specificity in the output possible with a rubric.

Good interview with a Sask teacher explaining how he used a class wiki in his high school courses - easily applicable to higher ed.

Interesting use of Diigo for social bookmarking with students in specific courses in higher education.

Not shocking, but still interesting. Still, as pointed in this post, there is a place for technology in the classroom "If you're worried that your students or children are eroding their vocabulary due to texting, you may want to sit down. Thanks to a new study in New Media & Society, it appears that students who text on a frequent basis perform worse on grammar tests."

"The Wikipedia Education Program's vision is to mobilize and empower the next generation of human-knowledge generators to contribute to Wikimedia projects. Based on the learnings from the Public Policy Initiative, a pilot program to use Wikipedia in university classrooms in the 2010-11 academic year, the Wikipedia Education Program strives to expand Wikipedia's use as a teaching tool worldwide. Professors who participate in our program assign their students to edit Wikipedia articles as part of their coursework. Students are assisted by trained Wikipedia Ambassadors, who help both in the class and on wiki. You can get a quick introduction to how the program is structured at Wikipedia Education Program/A-Z. Additional resources are available at the Education portal."

"Change will happen, though it is likely to be slower than government or some media observers might prefer. Apart from internal consultations, we all need to listen carefully to the most important constituency here: students. It is not clear, for example, that there exists a big appetite for three-year degrees among Canadian students. If anything, the pattern of recent graduates seeking second credentials (master's degrees or college diplomas in an applied field) demonstrates that current employers are requiring more, not less, education."

Introduction on how to design surveys and survey questions to collect customer feedback. Includes: A quick handy table of Likert rating scale labels for measuring satisfaction, agreement, extent, helpfulness, interest, relative quantity, importance and quality rating. *best list I have seen so far* Initial design considerations Common survey question types and examples Common question design pitfalls Tips for technology-based surveys Initial design considerations Before you design your survey Clearly articulate the goals of your survey. Regarding copyright, "As a U.S. Government federal website, HowTo.gov is in the public domain. Materials are free to use, unless otherwise noted"

"Below is just a small fraction of the amazing presentations put on by the folks over at TED. Each one of the presentations embedded below is perfect for sharing with students and showing in class*. Heck, assigning the viewing of these TED talks as homework isn't a bad idea."

"The SOLO taxonomy stands for: Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes It was developed by Biggs and Collis (1982), and is well described in Biggs and Tang (2007) It describes level of increasing complexity in a student's understanding of a subject, through five stages, and it is claimed to be applicable to any subject area. Not all students get through all five stages, of course, and indeed not all teaching (and even less "training" is designed to take them all the way)."

"Instructional Strategies Decision making regarding instructional strategies requires teachers to focus on curriculum, the prior experiences and knowledge of students, learner interests, student learning styles, and the developmental levels of the learner. Such decision making relies on ongoing student assessment that is linked to learning objectives and processes. Although instructional strategies can be categorized, the distinctions are not always clear cut. For example, a teacher may provide information through the lecture method (from the direct instruction strategy) while using an interpretive method to ask students to determine the significance of information that was presented (from the indirect instruction strategy). The five categories of instructional strategies are Direct Instruction, Indirect Instruction, Interactive Instruction, Experiential Learning, and Independent Study."

Follow this link to learn more about Buffy Saint Marie's Cradleboard project and the Nihewan Foundation for Native American Education.

A useful overview of a variety of curriculum maps

"The goal of the DEEP project is to revise the Mechanical Engineering (ME) undergraduate curriculum to make the discipline more able to attract and retain a diverse community of students. The project seeks to reduce and reorder the prerequisite structure linking courses to offer greater flexibility for students. This paper describes the methods used to study the prerequisites and the resulting proposed curriculum revision. " Ilene Busch-Vishniac is the lead author on this paper.

"At Carnegie Mellon, we believe that for assessment to be meaningful (not bean-counting or teaching to the test!) it must be done thoughtfully and systematically. We also believe it should be driven by faculty so that the information gathered: * Reflects the goals and values of particular disciplines * Helps instructors refine their teaching practices and grow as educators * Helps departments and programs refine their curriculum to prepare students for an evolving workplace" Check out this website as a resource for assessment at the program level and the course level.

Instructor Guidance from the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative at the University of British Columbia