Category: Education

TED Talk: Rita Pierson – Every kid needs a champion

May 13, 2013

in Education, Learning

relationships, rita pierson, ted talks

TED Talk: Rita Pierson – Every kid needs a champion “One of the things that we never discuss is the value and importance of human connection…No significant learning can occur without a significant relationship…Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.” This is easier said than done, especially in the context of higher education. How…
Using Google Translate for international projects

Mar 4, 2013

in Education, Research, Technology, Workshop

gmail, Google, Google Docs, Google Drive, google groups, google sheets, google translate, research, thunderbird

In preparation for the FAIMER residential session in Brazil, the coordinators spent months sharing documentation and ideas, and discussing every detail that goes into planning something like this…and they’ve been doing it in Portuguese. Initially I thought that this would mean I’d have no idea what was going on until I got there, but then…
Can curiosity survive formal education?

Feb 22, 2013

in Education

Aaron Swartz, creativity, ken robinson

I came across this interview with Aaron Swartz on the Fast Company site, where the following question was presented to Aaron: “You did a lot of important things at a very young age, could you describe a few of them? And how do you see and would explain that? Talent, inspiration, curiosity, hard work? Is there something…
The qualitative outcomes of education

Dec 21, 2012

in Education

higher education, learning environment, learning space, purpose of education, qualitative outcomes

I came across this description while preparing a short form case study for a project I’ve been involved in, and thought I’d better make a note of what was described as the qualitative outcomes of education. As teachers, we should strive to create environments: In which learners are empowered, are safe to express themselves, to…
Ranking students, or developing understanding?

Dec 7, 2012

in Education, Learning, Physiotherapy, Teaching

grades, learning, marks, ranking, tutorials, understanding

We have a collection of courses at my institution that have become known as “killer courses”. These are the courses with a history of poor student performance in terms of throughput and retention, and which we’re trying to provide extra support for. Two of these killer courses are outside courses (i.e. outside of our department)…
Objectifying students in the same way we objectify patients

Dec 3, 2012

in Curriculum, Education, Ethics, Physiotherapy

compliance, emotion, objectivity

What is it about the way we teach that sets up behaviours in our students for the way that they practice? I noticed that many of our students don’t consciously think of their patients as fully human beings. I don’t think it’s intentional, or that they’re disrespecting the patients…they just don’t think of them as…
UWC “Scholarship of teaching and learning” colloquium

Jun 14, 2012

in Assessment, Conference, Curriculum, Education, Learning, Research, Teaching, Technology

colloquium, innovations in teaching and learning, research, teaching and learning, teaching and learning practices, university of the western cape, uwc

I presented at the UWC scholarship of teaching and learning colloquium last week. Here is the presentation I gave, which is essentially a progress report of my PhD research project. I posted my own presentation a few days ago and here are the notes I took during the colloquium. Can universities be caring? A meditation…
Blended learning in clinical education

Jun 4, 2012

in Education, PhD, Physiotherapy, Research

blended learning, clinical education, phd, research, teaching and learning

Later today I’m presenting a progress report on my PhD, at the UWC “Innovations in Teaching and Learning” colloquium. Here is the presentation: Blended learning in clinical education View more presentations from Michael Rowe.
Developing mobile apps for clinical educators

Apr 24, 2012

in Education, Health, Learning, Social media, Technology

android, apps, clinical education, clinical reasoning, clinical teacher, healthcare education, ipad, medical education, the clinical teacher

I’m happy and proud to announce that my first app has been released into the App store. I’ve been working on this project for a few months now, in collaboration with the excellent team at Snapplify, in order to get this release out the door. The name of the app is The Clinical Teacher, and it’s…
Challenging students’ conceptual relationships in clinical education

Jan 13, 2012

in Assessment, Education, PhD, Physiotherapy, Teaching

academic learning, applied physiotherapy, clinical education, clinical learning, concept mapping, conceptual relationships, conversational framework, laurillard, phd, pht203, research, rethinking university teaching

I just wanted to share a thought while preparing our case notes for the Applied Physiotherapy module we’re developing. One of the designers made a note of the “guideline answers” for facilitators to some of the questions that we might use to trigger students’ thinking. I wrote the following as a comment and didn’t want…
Using a rubric for a blogging assignment

Jan 3, 2012

in Assessment, Education, Ethics, Physiotherapy, Social media, Technology

assignment, blogging, grading, reflection, rubric

Earlier this year I gave my 3rd year students an assignment in which they needed to write a reflective blog post based on a clinical experience they’d experienced. I just thought I’d share the rubric I used to grade the assignments, as I’ve come across a few people have have had difficulty trying to assign…
HELTASA conference, 2011 – day 3

Dec 2, 2011

in Conference, Education, Research, Technology

academic literacy, action research, courage, critical friendship, difficult dialogues, digital stories, digital storytelling, generosity, heltasa, heltasa11, heltasa2011, higher education learning and teaching association of south africa, jack whitehead, learner-centred, lec-torials, lived experiences, nelson mandela metropolitan university, port elizabeth, reflection, self-study, trust

Today was the last day of the HELTASA 2011 conference. It was a challenging and stimulating exchange of ideas that I really enjoyed. Thank you to everyone who was there and who I learned from. Crossing (some) traditional borders Prof Delia Marshall There needs to be wider social, historical, ethical and environmental dimensions of…
HELTASA conference, 2011 – day 2

Dec 1, 2011

in Conference, Education, Learning, Research, Technology

Cape Peninsula University of Technology, case-based learning, cbl, collaborative groupwork, community of inquiry, conceptual threshold crossing, conflict management, control, conversational framework, cput, discourse, disruption, disruptive technology, emotional resilience, epistemology, garrison, gilly salmon, groupwork, hard technology, heltasa, heltasa11, heltasa2011, higher education learning and teaching association of south africa, interpretive boundaries, laurillard, learning events, learning management system, liberalism, lms, nelson mandela metropolitan university, online learning, online presence, Ontology, pbl, piet naude, port elizabeth, postgraduate supervision, power, problem based learning, public good, scientism, small group learning, social presence, soft technology, student wellbeing, teaching presence, transformative change, troublesome encounters, utilitarianism

Explaining, naming and crossing border in Southern African higher education Prof Piet Naude This was one of the most challenging presentations I’ve ever listened to. I didn’t agree with a lot of what Prof Naude said, but he made me question my own beliefs and biases. Ontology: language is the house of reality (language…
Developing case studies for holistic clinical education

Nov 23, 2011

in Assessment, Curriculum, Education, PhD, Physiotherapy, Research, Teaching, Technology, Workshop

case-based learning, cbl, curricular alignment, curriculum, curriculum development, delphi study, document analysis, phd, research, survey, systematic review

This is quite a long post. Basically I’ve been trying to situate my current research into a larger curriculum development project and this post is just a reflection of my progress so far. It’s probably going to have big gaps and be unclear in sections. I’m OK with that. Earlier this week our department had…
TEDxStellenbosch: designing spaces

Nov 3, 2011

in Curriculum, Education, Learning, PhD, Physiotherapy, Research, Teaching, Technology

blended learning, city spaces, cityafrica, learning, learning spaces, phd, research, stafford massie, steve vosloo, teaching, tedxstellenbosch

A few months ago I attended TEDxStellenbosch at Spier wine farm near Stellenbosch. It was one of the better TEDx events I’ve been to during past few years and I enjoyed it immensely. During the day I re-tweeted comments from other participants, mainly as a record of speakers and the comments that resonated with me.…
Complexity theory: learning in unfamiliar contexts

Sep 27, 2011

in Education, Learning, PhD, Research, Teaching, Technology

complex cases, Complexity, complexity theory, context, practice knowledge, professional practice, unfamiliar scenarios

The following are notes I took while reading Fraser, SW & Greenhalgh, T. (2001). Coping with complexity: educating for capability. During the past 6 months or so I’ve found myself thinking more and more that the way we teach health professionals (at least, in my experience) has had too much of a focus on technical…
Blended learning in clinical education (AMEE presentation)

Aug 30, 2011

in Conference, Education, PhD, Physiotherapy, Research

AMEE, AMEE11, blended learning, clinical education, phd, presentation, prezi, research, systematic review

This is the presentation that I gave at the AMEE conference earlier today. It’s the results of a systematic literature review I did as part of my PhD, where I looked at the use of blended learning in clinical education. The abstract doesn’t give much information owing to the fact that I had to be…
CHEC course: teaching and learning (day 3)

Aug 18, 2011

in Education, Ethics, Learning, Students, Workshop

advantage, cape higher education consortium, chec, disadvantage, diversity, gender, jeff jawitz, learning, race, racism, south africa, teaching, teaching and learning, uct, university of cape town

Yesterday’s CHEC session was presented by Jeff Jawitz from UCT, who looked at tools for addressing diversity in the South African university classroom. I’ve seen Jeff present before at conferences and he’s got a really relaxed way of introducing and working with often highly controversial topics, like race and gender. I was especially excited to…
Sharing? Collaboration? No thanks

Aug 5, 2011

in Education, Learning, Students, Technology

collaboration, demonstration, Google Docs, groupwork, sharing, spinal cord injury, wiki

Last week I took our third year students to see a demonstration of the management of a patient with spinal cord injury as part of the Movement Science module that I teach. I noticed that during the demonstration many of them were taking pretty comprehensive notes, and thought that this would be a great opportunity…
Peer review of teaching activities

Jul 13, 2011

in Curriculum, Education, Teaching

learning, peer review, teaching, teaching activities, teaching portfolio

Last year at our planning meeting we decided to integrate peer review of teaching activities during 2011 as part of our departmental plan to engage with a scholarship of teaching and learning. A few of us developed a peer review form based on a few examples we found online and then submitted the form to…