Skip to main content

Home/ Writing Across the Curriculum/ Group items tagged faculty

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Keith Hamon

Writing Across the Curriculum Teaching Circle > Tips for Faculty - 0 views

  •  
    Hints, tips, suggestions, pointers and prompts from faculty for faculty...
Keith Hamon

Learning or Management Systems? « Connectivism - 1 views

  • Two broad approaches exist for learning technology implementation: The adoption of a centralized learning management approach. This may include development of a central learning support lab where new courses are developed in a team-based approach—consisting of subject matter expert, graphic designers, instructional designer, and programmers. This model can be effective for creation of new courses and programs receiving large sources of funding. Most likely, however, enterprise-wide adoption (standardizing on a single LMS) requires individual departments and faculty members to move courses online by themselves. Support may be provided for learning how to use the LMS, but moving content online is largely the responsibility of faculty. This model works well for environments where faculty have a high degree of autonomy, though it does cause varying levels of quality in online courses. Personal learning environments (PLEs) are a recent trend addressing the limitations of an LMS. Instead of a centralized model of design and deployment, individual departments select from a collage of tools—each intending to serve a particular function in the learning process. Instead of limited functionality, with highly centralized control and sequential delivery of learning, a PLE provides a more contextually appropriate toolset. The greater adaptability to differing learning approaches and environments afforded by PLEs is offset by the challenge of reduced structure in management and implementation of learning. This can present a significant challenge when organizations value traditional lecture learning models.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      QEP as I envision it leans heavily toward the second of these two approaches.
    • Thomas Clancy
       
      Indeed, these two stood out for me, too! We are all about developing PLEs / PLNs for our QEP students.
  • Self-organised learning networks provide a base for the establishment of a form of education that goes beyond course and curriculum centric models, and envisions a learner-centred and learner controlled model of lifelong learning. In such learning contexts learners have the same possibilities to act that teachers and other staff members have in regular, less learner-centred educational approaches. In addition these networks are designed to operate without increasing the workload for learners or staff members.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      This is the QEP approach to online learning-in a nutshell, and explains why we prefer the suite of open Web 2.0 tools over central learning management systems such as Blackboard Vista.
  • Instead of learning housed in content management systems, learning is embedded in rich networks and conversational spaces. The onus, again, falls on the university to define its views of learning.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      One of the issues for QEP is to redefine the way ASU defines teaching/learning.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Two key areas are gaining substantial attention: (a) social software, and (b) personal learning environments (PLEs). Social software and PLEs have recently gained attention as alternatives to the structured model of an LMS. PLEs are defined as: “systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning” (van Harmelen, 2006, ¶ 1). PLEs “are about articulating a conceptual shift that acknowledges the reality of distributed learning practices and the range of learner preference” (Fraser, 2006, ¶ 9). A variety of informal, socially-based tools comprise this space: (a) blogs, (b) wikis, (c) social bookmarking sites, (d) social networking sites (may be pure networking, or directed around an activity, 43 Things or flickr are examples), (e) content aggregation through RSS or Atom, (f) integrated tools, like elgg.net, (g) podcast and video cast tools, (h) search engines, (i) email, and (j) Voice over IP.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      This is the QEP approach, but QEP must still accommodate the demands of the institution, or work to change those demands.
  • For an individual used to Skyping, blogging, tagging, creating podcasts, or collaboratively writing an online document, the transition to a learning management system is a step back in time (by several years).
    • Keith Hamon
       
      Though too many ASU students are not sophisticated Net users, they increasingly will be and we want to enable them to become more sophisticated.
  • LMS may well continue to play an important role in education—but not as a critical centre. Diverse tools, serving different functionality, adhering to open guidelines, inline with tools learners currently use, may be the best option forward.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      This strikes me as the proper orientation toward technology for QEP to assume.
  • As these learners enter higher education, they may not be content to sit and click through a series of online content pages with periodic contributions to a discussion forum.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      Increasingly, these will be our students.
  • Involve all stakeholders (beyond simple surveys). Define the university’s view of learning. Critically evaluate the role of an LMS in relation to university views of learning and needs of all stakeholders. Promote an understanding that different learning needs and context require different approaches. Perform small-scale research projects utilizing alternative methods of learning. Foster communities where faculty can dialogue about personal experiences teaching with technology. Actively promote different learning technologies to faculty, so their unique needs—not technology—drives tools selected.
    • Keith Hamon
       
      These are good goals for QEP to stay mindful of.
  •  
    The initial intent of an LMS was to enable administrators and educators to manage the learning process. This mindset is reflected in the features typically promoted by vendors: ability to track student progress, manage content, roster students, and such. The learning experience takes a back seat to the management functions.
  •  
    The initial intent of an LMS was to enable administrators and educators to manage the learning process. This mindset is reflected in the features typically promoted by vendors: ability to track student progress, manage content, roster students, and such. The learning experience takes a back seat to the management functions.
Stephanie Cooper

JOLT - Journal of Online Learning and Teaching - 1 views

  • The use of web logs (“blogs”) has become a popular addition to many college courses as faculty try to find new ways to integrate this popular technology into the classroom. (Beeson, 2005; Quible, 2005; Ducate, 2005, Glogoff, 2005).   By the end of 2004, 32 million Americans said they had read a blog, eight million Americans had created blogs, and almost half were created by people under age 30 (Reine, 2005).   In fact, Huffaker (2005) cites several studies that reveal that a significant number of blog authors are younger than 20.  Lenhart (2006) notes that by 2006, these numbers had increased to 12 million American adults who keep a blog, and 57 million American adults who say they read them. Thus, students come to the classroom with a facility for maintaining and communicating through blogs.  Beeson (2005) argues that it is an approach that is more in keeping with their way of thinking (29).  With the increased popularity of blogs, faculty members have been integrating them into their courses to enhance class discussion.  Past research has summarized findings from case studies involving the use of blogs in a single course (Glogoff, 2003; Quible, 2005; Ducate, 2005).  The authors of this study, conducted at a business university, assigned a similar blogging exercise in three different courses—expository writing, e-commerce, and government--in order to introduce students to the use of blogs in their respective disciplines and to help students prepare for meaningful classroom discussion. This study finds that by completing the required readings and then posting discussion questions and reflections on topics of interest to which their classmates can respond--essentially beginning the conversation prior to the class session--students become more engaged in the course material. This exercise requires students not only to read the required course materials but to engage with them critically in order to move beyond a superficial understanding of the materials.  By using the same assignment and assessment tool, the authors found that blogs can be effective in enhancing class discussion in a range of disciplines and in integrating liberal learning into professional programs.            Blogging in the Classroom
  • Like online threaded discussion groups, blogs are an easy way to engage in dialogue on the web outside the classroom. The availability of several blog providers such as Google’s blogger.com, LiveJournal.com, and WordPress.com make it free and easy to set up, manage, and update blogs frequently and without additional support.   By using blogs “students become familiar with blogging, a tool now used by an ever-increasing number of employers to support routine operating functions” (Quible, 2005, p. 76).
  • Since blogs are a fairly recent pedagogical tool, new scholarship has emerged that points to its benefits in the classroom.  The ability of students and faculty to easily update an online journal promotes blogging as a new form of communication to enhance class discussion and to create a community outside the classroom.  Flatley (2005) argues that the technological medium provides a space where students can interact with one another, and it can open up the classroom space "where discussions are continued and where every student gets an equal voice" (p. 77).  In addition, blogs can promote collaboration (Flatley, 2005; Williams & Jacobs, 2004; Oravec, 2002).
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • In contrast to more traditional forums for online discussion, blogs are open to the world to see. This provides visibility for students to share their ideas with the larger world. Quible (2005) says that blogs are “a natural in business communications courses” (p. 73) because they enable students to share their writing with a larger audience.  Glogoff (2003) notes that students “used the [class] blog for a purpose other than from what it was initially intended,” (p. 2162) causing them to create a new blog for a more general audience.  Huffaker (2005) argues that bloggers can get feedback on their writing from a wide range of other bloggers, and "they can link to fellow bloggers, creating an interwoven, dynamic organization" (p. 94).  In addition, "students can have a personal space to lty member not want student writing made public, blogs can be maintained so that only the students in the are allowed to access it and post to it.
Keith Hamon

The Writing Revolution - Peg Tyre - The Atlantic - 0 views

  •  
    Deirdre DeAngelis began a detailed investigation into why, ultimately, New Dorp's students were failing. By 2008, she and her faculty had come to a singular answer: bad writing. Students' inability to translate thoughts into coherent, well-argued sentences, paragraphs, and essays was severely impeding intellectual growth in many subjects. Consistently, one of the largest differences between failing and successful students was that only the latter could express their thoughts on the page.
Thomas Clancy

Metawriting by Deanna Mascle - 2 views

  •  
    A very interesting and useful blog writer whom I found through Dave Cormier (Connectivism advocate). I would like to explore "contract grading" as a concept to share with our QEP faculty at Albany State.
Stephanie Cooper

Career Column: Why Social Media Isn't Just For Interns | Toronto Standard - 1 views

  • For a while, it’s been okay to be less than an expert in social media. It’s time to get on board. Regardless of your age, your survival in the workplace depends on your intimate knowledge of social media.
  • The reasons for this are myriads. Social media has profoundly changed a company’s public face. And with game-changing implications for sales, human resources, public relations, marketing and customer service, virtually nobody is left out of the matrix that touches social media.
  •  
    Social media continues to redefine business in every way.  This is further evidence that we need to teach our students and faculty how to create a "professional" online presence. 
Thomas Clancy

New study on advantages for black graduates of black colleges | Inside Higher Ed - 1 views

  •  
    This article does not touch on writing "per se," but we here at Albany State in Georgia are an HBCU school, so I wanted to share this mildly optimistic news with our faculty.
Stephanie Cooper

Some Ideas for Motivating Students - 3 views

  • (In a study conducted on one college campus, a faculty member gave a student assignment to a group of colleagues for analysis. Few of them could understand what the faculty member wanted. If experienced profs are confused, how can we expect students to understand?)
    • Stephanie Cooper
       
      Supports our QEP theory that a well developed assignment will result in better student grades and participation...
  • Some recent research shows that many students do poorly on assignments or in participation because they do not understand what to do or why they should do it.
  • Attending to the need for power could be as simple as allowing students to choose from among two or three things to do--two or three paper topics, two or three activities, choosing between writing an extra paper and taking the final exam, etc. Many students have a need to have fun in active ways--in other words, they need to be noisy and excited. Rather than always avoiding or suppressing these needs, design an educational activity that fulfills them.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Students will be much more committed to a learning activity that has value for them, that they can see as meeting their needs, either long term or short term. They will, in fact, put up with substantial immediate unpleasantness and do an amazing amount of hard work if they are convinced that what they are learning ultimately meets their needs.
Thomas Clancy

On private "classblogs" vs. the wild, wide open ~ Stephen's Web - 1 views

  •  
    Please note this post and its comments (Downes' is a good blog to follow, too, btw). This is a "line" with which we are familiar--private vs. public student writing. Are we prepared to argue in support of "the wild, wide open"? Should we be appeasers and give our faculty the choice? *Let's discuss as a workshop topic.*
Keith Hamon

Materials for Faculty: Teaching Forum: Teaching Ideas: Thesis - 1 views

  •  
    Most writing instructors have a repertoire of methods to help students find a thesis that will focus and guide an interesting and persuasive academic paper. We offer some of those methods here, with the observation that these instructors in fact teach the thesis in multiple ways in their classrooms.
Stephanie Cooper

The Electric Educator: Using Google Calendar for Lesson Planning - 1 views

  • A new feature currently in calendar labs adds the ability to attach a Google Doc to a calendar event. This makes using Google Calendar for lesson planning a powerful tool. After create a lesson or unit, you can share your calendar and relevant documents with other teachers in your building or district, fostering collaboration.
  •  
    This site has a "how-to" video for using Google calendar to create and share lesson plans. This might be something useful for our QEP faculty to learn.
Keith Hamon

"Fresh Thinking" in General Education | Reacting to the Past - 0 views

  •  
    This project seeks to explore how "Reacting" might be employed as an alternative approach to fulfill the broader objectives of a liberal arts education.  The success of the "Reacting" pedagogy in engaging undergraduate students has been confirmed by faculty reports, student evaluations and formal double-blind assessment studies (Stroessner, 2009).  The latter studies show that "Reacting" students, when compared with those enrolled in other general education courses, improved in certain salient categories associated with learning, including the development of an appreciation of multiple points of view on controversial topics and a belief in the malleability of human characteristics over time and across contexts.  Speaking skills also improved substantially.
Keith Hamon

Reader Experts Help Students Bring the Write Stuff - Advice - The Chronicle of Higher E... - 0 views

  •  
    Through collaboration between the Thompson Writing Program and the university's office of alumni affairs, the Duke Reader Project offers our faculty members a way to supplement their own responses to their students' writing. When professors include their courses in the project, their students can get comments on drafts of papers from an alumnus or employee who has relevant experience in the field, like the Coast Guard commander or the wildlife expert.
Mary Ann Scott

Materials for Faculty: Methods: Syllabus and Assignment Design - 0 views

  • Are your goals for the course significantly content-directed?
  • Is one of the goals of your course to introduce students to the important research and writing conventions of your particular discipline?
  • Is the primary purpose of your course to improve your students' critical thinking skills?
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • Professors who don't use writing prompts argue that an important part of scholarship is learning to raise questions that will yield a good academic argument
  • Whatever you decide, do note that a prompt-less writing assignment needs a good infrastructure in order to succeed
    • Mary Ann Scott
       
      a "good infrastructure" is essential in any assignment, not just English/Composition assignments.
  • Consider what you want the assignment to do, in terms of the larger thematic goals of your course.
  • Consider what kinds of thinking you want students to do
  • your prompt should address the importance of context and suggest things that you want students to consider as they write
  • Provide context
  • Break the assignment down into specific tasks
  • Break the assignment down into specific questions
  • Craft each sentence carefully
  • Be clear about what you don't want
  • Be clear about the paper requirements
  • Try to write (or at least to outline) the assignment yourself
    • Mary Ann Scott
       
      While this can't be done for all assignments, choosing a few pivotal moments to model for your students will have a significant impact on how they learn overall.
  • Discuss the assignment with the class
  •  
    Some excellent questions for building an assignment. Look beyond the writing assignment pedagogy to the general aspects of any assignment.
Keith Hamon

The power of blog tagging | Technology Teacher - 0 views

  •  
    Tagging allows you to find content in other blogs that matches yours and possibly can provide you with additional insights and information about a subject area you are passionate about. But tagging can also serve a very valuable service for faculty using blogs as a class assignment. If your students are writing individual blogs for a class assignment/project, you can ask them to identify their blog posts with a specific tag, such as your name course name and section number.
Stephanie Cooper

What Will Higher Education Look Like in 25 Years? - 1 views

  • Futurists surveyed for The Future of Higher Education report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project pontificated on what higher education would look like in 2020. Thirty-nine percent said higher education wouldn’t look much different than it does today. But 60 percent said higher education would be different, complete with mass adoption of teleconferencing and distance learning. In their written responses, however, many of them painted scenarios that incorporated elements of both.
  • Futurists view the coming decades as an opportunity for teacher/student relationships to occur almost purely through technology — an approach known as technology-mediated education. But faculty members look to maintain the university model that’s been in place for centuries, with a sprinkle of technology integration.
Stephanie Cooper

Designing Writing Assignments « WID Studio:FACULTY - Enhancing the GW teachin... - 1 views

  •  
    Designing Writing Assignments
Thomas Clancy

Ideas for Writing Assignments - 2 views

  • n this course, you will write a substantial research essay (6+ pages in MLA Style) on a topic of your own choice that relates to some aspect of the course material. In order to combat the procrastination (I-work-better-under-pressure) syndrome, this assignment has several steps all of which you must complete to achieve the best possible result.
    • Stephanie Cooper
       
      I like how this assignment was broken down into several steps. The part where they have to share their paper with their classmates is great. This means that they will actually have to do some thinking to be able to answer questions about the topic. This would definitely help with critical thinking skills, thus preventing most opportunites for plagiarism.
    • Thomas Clancy
       
      I agree, Steph. That's what I'm trying to help our faculty see--their assignments in steps or phases that students can easily accomplish within a short lab visit.
  • It seems natural to assume that students in upper level courses will know the difference between a good term paper and a poor one. I've learned the hard way that this is an unwarranted assumption! My first attempts to use term paper assignments in my psychology courses were disappointing. The failure was partly my fault because I was not very specific in stating my expectations and the characteristics of good writing. Term paper assignments should be used as an opportunity to clearly demonstrate the differences between good and poor writing by communicating practices to avoid in the course assignment.
  • The following is a term paper assignment that I use in my Biopsychology course. The trend that you will notice in this assignment is that the expectations are very clear. For example, acceptable topics and information that should be covered within a topic are stated. In addition, classic space wasters such as huge direct quotes, long bulleted lists, large margins, and oversized fonts are illustrated as practices to avoid. As for the sources, the assignment clearly states that academic or peer reviewed sources are preferred whereas information from encyclopedias is considered unacceptable. These specific expectations help to clearly delineate the differences between good and poor writing practices.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Dan Askren
Stephanie Cooper

ACU Connected Blog » Class Blogs as a Mobile Hub - 2 views

  • Ideas to Get You Started Here are a few basic strategies for integrating student voices into your class blog this semester. Comments – Obviously the most familiar way to add student voices to a class blog is adding comments to a post. At the beginning of the week, the instructor or TA would create a post that includes a discussion question or prompt. Then during or between classes students would stop by to add comments to the main question or reply to the comments of others. Question Queue: create a standing post where students can raise questions they would like to discuss in class. Rapid Response: ask students, individually or in pairs, to contribute a 3-4 sentence position statement they will then defend or debate. Student Posts – One way students can master new concepts is by having to teach them to others. Most blog software provides user roles for secondary contributors, so with a little preparation, students can have their own dashboard and post content as a full author to the blog. If you imagine student work more like a short essay than a single observation, then allowing students to make full posts may communicate higher expectations and value of their work. Reading Journal: ask students to post a summary of preliminary research or more formal abstract to the blog for peer comments and critique. Media Mashup: have students analyze appearances of course concepts in popular media by embedding a YouTube clip and then evaluating its relevance. Post by Email – A final feature we found in many mobile blogging tools was post by email. For students and faculty with mobile devices, this provided us a simple way to share content quickly back to the class hub. Since most native apps on the iPhone offered email sharing of photos, links, and media, post by email become the common avenue connecting mobiles to the blog. (At ACU, this feature is built on a Gmail account associated with each blog and the Postie WordPress plug-in described below.) Webliography: early in a survey course, ask students to construct a bibliography of useful study materials and web sites by emailing links with annotations to the blog. Photo Shoot: send students into the community (or out onto the web) to capture images that reflect social attitudes toward a common topic then email them to the blog for discussion. (New iPhone or iPod touch users may not know they can tap and hold on a web image to copy it before pasting it into an email. Remind them to cite the original source of the image, or better yet copy and paste the URL as well.)
    • Stephanie Cooper
       
      This is great info to make class blogging successful.
  • WPtouch – An essential plugin for mobile blogging via WordPress is WPtouch (now standard on all WordPress.com blogs). Once installed, the plugin makes reading and commenting on mobile posts and pages easy. Simple to install and MU compatible.
  • CONS: essential links from sidebar widgets in a desktop theme must be added to the WPtouch menu manually.
Keith Hamon

The EDUCAUSE Top Teaching and Learning Challenges | EDUCAUSE - 0 views

  • Creating learning environments that promote active learning, critical thinking, collaborative learning, and knowledge creation. Developing 21st century literacies (information, digital, and visual) among students and faculty. Reaching and engaging today's learner.
  •  
    Through surveys, interactive brainstorming sessions, and a final community vote, the EDUCAUSE community identified their top five challenges in teaching and learning with technology.
1 - 20 of 26 Next ›
Showing 20 items per page