Category: Learning
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My new project: Thinking in public
What would a serious approach to knowledge work and academic productivity look like? How do knowledge workers manage information as part of a framework for turning it into something valuable? These are the kinds of questions I’m trying to explore with this new project.
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You are not what you’re thinking
If you asked me what I’ve learned in the past year or so that’s had the most significant impact on my well-being, it’s that I need not identify with my thoughts. In other words, recognising that I am not what I’m thinking. We all have that voice in our head telling us that we’re not…
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Universal principles of learning task design. Crisis edition.
It seems that everyone has decided to move teaching, learning and assessment online with a massive focus on synchronous, video-based lectures as the primary means of “delivering” the curriculum remotely. It’s as if we don’t have about 100 years of experience with distance learning to draw from and that there are no lessons to be…
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Recalibrating expectations?
Last week we had a discussion about teaching practical physiotherapy techniques remotely and one of our participants asked (in the text chat) if anyone had any plans to teach fewer techniques. Unfortunately we didn’t get to the question because the conversation moved on quickly to explore other lines of inquiry, which is a pity because…
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For students: The Learning to Learn project
Earlier this year I launched a small project in my department, called Learning to Learn. The aim of the project is to share and discuss with students a range of evidence-based techniques that improve their ability to learn. I realised that, for many of my students, learning was something that they were simply expected to…
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Resource: Online learning in a hurry
Dave Cormier has provided an excellent series of short (5 minute) videos called Online learning in a hurry, for teachers who are now expected to move their teaching and assessment online. What I really like about this collection is that it’s not a list of [insert service here] for remote teaching and learning. For example,…
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Seven principles of learning
This is a short summary of a post by Scott Young that itself summarises the learning principles presented in Why don’t students like school, by Daniel Willingham. I’ve added the book to my reading list based on Scott’s recommendation. Here are the principles from Scott’s post (with some of my own comments in italics): Factual…
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PSA: Learning is not fun
in LearningAt the risk of upsetting people again I thought it’d be useful to reiterate (i.e. double down) on the idea that learning is not fun. Last year I made what I thought was a relatively uncontroversial statement that learning is not fun (it’s somewhere on Twitter, if you have the time to try and find…
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When a metric becomes a target it fails to be a good metric.
Lately I’ve been thinking about metrics and all the ways that they can be misleading. Don’t get me wrong; I think that measuring is important. Measuring is the reason that our buildings and bridges don’t collapse. Measurements help tell us when a drug is working. GPS would be impossible without precise measurements of time. My…
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Blended and online learning in physiotherapy education
A short video that was presented at a physiotherapy education conference in Brazil in 2018. I spend a few minutes discussing the benefits and challenges on online learning environments in a clinical learning context.
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Knowledge is more important than money
Those who work really hard throughout their career but don’t take time out of their schedule to constantly learn will be the new “at-risk” group. They risk remaining stuck on the bottom rung of global competition, and they risk losing their jobs to automation, just as blue-collar workers did between 2000 and 2010 when robots…
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How people learn
Source: Downes, S. (2018). How people learn. A nice collection of quotes in a slideshow, taken from a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, that highlights the dynamic process of learning throughout the lifespan.
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SAAHE podcast 05 – A critical pedagogy for online learning, with Michael Rowe
Earlier this year the Critical Physiotherapy Network published Manipulating practices: A critical physiotherapy reader. The book is a collection of critical writing from a variety of authors dealing with a range of topics related to physiotherapy practice and education. One of the interesting features of this collection is that it is completely open access, which…
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SAAHE podcast 04 – Case based learning, with Corne Postma
In this conversation, Corne Postma and I talk about his experiences implementing case-based learning in his dentistry cprogramme. Corné is an Associate Professor in the Department of Dental Management Sciences, School of Dentistry, at the University of Pretoria. He is a specialist in Community Dentistry by training and his primary teaching responsibility lies in the…
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Teaching, learning and risk
I’ve had these ideas bouncing around in my head for a week or so and finally have a few minutes to try and get them out. I’ve been wondering why changing practice – in higher education and the clinical context – is so hard, and one way that I think I can make some sense…
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Why Kindergarten in Finland Is All About Playtime – The Atlantic
in LearningForget the Common Core, Finland’s youngsters are in charge of determining what happens in the classroom. Source: Why Kindergarten in Finland Is All About Playtime (and Why That Could Be More Stimulating Than the Common Core) – The Atlantic
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Personal learning environments
Dominant design is the idea that, once a design has risen to prominence, all innovation will aim at improving it, rather than competing alternatives, regardless of whether the dominant design is better than the alternatives. The most commonly used example seems to be the QWERTY keyboard layout, which was implemented when typists would type fast enough…
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Our students succeed despite their education, not because of it
Note: Thank you to Dave Nicholls from the Critical Physiotherapy Network for his insight and comments that helped inform this post. Foucault said that the most dangerous ideas were the ones that we’re not even aware of; the ones we accept as being fundamentally true. He emphasised the need to examine our everyday practices and to critically analyse the…
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Moving between consuming and creating: Thinking about workflow
I use Pocket a lot. It’s not unusual for me to have more than 500 articles saved to read later, which to be honest, causes me a bit of anxiety. It’s a list of “things to do” that I know I’ll never finish. But I keep adding stuff to the list because I know that…