Group items tagged

"In part, grading practices in higher education have been driven by educational goals such as providing feedback to students, motivating students, comparing students, and measuring learning. However, much of the research literature on grading reviewed above suggests that these goals are often not being achieved with our current grading practices. Additionally, the expectations, time, and stress associated with grading may be distracting instructors from integrating other pedagogical practices that could create a more positive and effective classroom environment for learning."

Interesting guy to talk to etc. at some point. "In the 17th century, scholar-publishers created the first scientific journals, revolutionising the communication and practice of scholarship. Today, we're at the beginning of a second revolution, as academia slowly awakens to the tranformative potential of the Web.   I'm interested in both pushing this revolution forward, and in studying it as it happens. I'm investigating altmetrics: measuring scholarly impact over the social web instead of through traditional citation. I'm also interested in new publishing practices like scholarly tweeting, overlay journals, alternative peer review forms, and open access. These slides give a good idea of what I've been up to lately; my CV links to other recent publications and talks. "

" In this course we will examine the tools and practices associated with networked, open, and digital scholarship. In particular we will investigate the emergent practice of scholars' use of social media and online social networks for sharing, critiquing, improving, furthering, and reflecting upon their scholarship."

I/we need to consider this with our team and education more broadly. "Theory 1: Nothing we "know" about software development should be assumed to be true. Most of our tools, our mental models, and our practices are remnants of an era (possibly fictional) where software was written by solo practitioners, but modern software is a team sport. Theory 2: Technology is the product of the culture that builds it. Great technology is the product of a great culture. Culture gives us the ability to act in a loosely coupled way; it allows us to pursue a diversity of tactics. Uncertainty is the mind-killer and culture creates certainty in the face of the yawning shapeless void of possible solutions that is software engineering. Culture is what you do, not what you say. It starts at the top. It affects everything. You have a choice about the culture you promote, not about the culture you have. Theory 3: Software development should be thought of as a cycle of continual learning and improvement rather a progression from start to finish, or a search for correctness. If you aren't shipping, you aren't learning. If it slows down shipping, it probably isn't worth it. Maturity is knowing when to make the trade off and when not to. I had some experience with this at Flickr, and I wanted to see how far you could scale it. My private bet was that we'd make it to 50 engineers before things broke down. Theory 4: You build a culture of learning by optimizing globally not locally. Your improvement, over time, as a team, with shared tools, practices and beliefs is more important than individual pockets of brilliance. And more satisfying. Theory 5: If you want to build for the long term, the only guarantee is change. Invest in your people and your ability to ask questions, not your current answers. Your current answers are wrong, or they will be soon. "

"Studies suggest there's real value in learning and maintaining this ancient skill, even as we increasingly communicate electronically via keyboards big and small. Indeed, technology often gets blamed for handwriting's demise. But in an interesting twist, new software for touch-screen devices, such as the iPad, is starting to reinvigorate the practice." Tie in with ECAR findings writeup

"Deliberate rote memorization is an attempt to take a shortcut in the learning process… Instead of having people learn important facts by themselves through practice, we decide once and for all what the important facts are, we delay practice, and start with the memorization of the "important facts". "

"Be deeply curious about the world around you. Become aware of your thoughts and learn to think about thinking. Practicing metacognition will help develop a sense for the tricks your mind plays, and how to overcome them. With this awareness, learn to overcome automatic processing. When confronted with something new or unfamiliar, withhold judgment; if you see something you don't understand in the negative space, go with it and see where it leads. Remember that impossible geometry exists, and your mind is constantly trying to force you to see things that you already know how to see. It's learning to see the unseen that makes this practice valuable! Be aware of the limitations of the labels that have been applied to the world. Keep in mind how small the grid of words is compared to the wordless plane. Opportunity exists where words don't exist, yet. Learn to sit with Keats in uncertainties, mysteries, and doubts without grasping for conventional explanations. Allow time to visit the fantastic and the unconventional, and become aware of the moments when you're avoiding staying in these contexts. Meditation can be essential here."

"Traditional courses have long focused on tools and techniques for the presentation of content. Traditional concerns from faculty focused on covering the material, getting through the book and meeting expectations so that faculty in other courses won't muse and wonder,  "Didn't you learn these concepts from faculty X?"   And "Didn't you study the work and contributions of  ____ (Fill in your favorite who)"  A major drawback with designing for content as a priority is that it focuses attention on what the faculty member is doing, thinking and talking about and not on the interaction and engagement of students with the core concepts and skills of a course. The new focus on learners encourages a focus on learners as a priority. The new focus on the learner is to develop a habit of asking, what is going on inside the learner's head? How much of the content is being integrated into their knowledge base? How much of the content and the tools can he/she actually use? What are students thinking and how did they arrive at their respective positions? Additionally, we are seeing a shift to looking at the student no only as an individual, but as an individual within the learning community. Other questions that we are now considering include: How is the learner supporting the community of learners and contributing to the overall growth of the group? "

"Field Notes for 21st Century Literacies: A Guide to New Theories, Methods, and Practices for Open Peer Teaching and Learning is intended to assist anyone embarking on open teaching. It offers foundational methods, examples, and explanatory theories for how to set up the practices of a class, how to determine guiding principles, how to theorize what you are doing in the classroom, how to design the class, how to include multimedia elements and approaches such as games, and how to ensure that you have designed a class for inclusion, not exclusion. Finally, the openness of the learning should continue even after the book is published/goes public, and the chapters in the "Invitations" section offer advice on how to extend your open practices to the world beyond the classroom. This is by no means the only way to set up peer-to-peer teaching, but it is an account of the way we have done it, with as much detail as possible to encourage others to try, in whatever way suits their community and purposes."

"The word 'curation' comes from the Latin root curare, meaning 'to cure' or 'to take care of' and historically relates to any processes of organisation, collation, judicious selection (usually for presentation), and even curing and preserving"

From another institution-- scorecard breaking down popular instructional design metrics (e.g. Quality Matters) with SACSCOC online/blended best practices for compliance.

"Eating your own dogfood is time well spent, a simple way to take your practice one step closer to perfection."

"Our organizational cultures need to embrace online learning as unique. We need to be supporting faculty by immersing them in engaging, meaningful online classes as part of their preparation to becoming great online instructors. When our organizational practices convey a hierarchy between face-to-face and online classes, that hierarchy will translate into the attitudes of the instructors who teach those classes."

It's a bit insane to me this was a conversation but it's one that ought to happen much more. Are we practicing what we preach? "One of my undergrads came up to me and said, 'You know, Professor, your ideas about games as models for learning environments are really interesting, but I'm curious, why don't you teach your class following those ideas?'" Mr. Fishman says. "And I thought, Well, that's a really excellent question."

"The emerging digital media ecology is opening/will open indeterminate capacities for thought and action that will shift (again, in a non-determining way) practices of rhetoric/communication, social institutions, the production of knowledge, and our sense of what it means to be human." PONDER THAT FOR A MOMENT...