Category: Learning

Encouraging students to flourish

May 20, 2013

in Education, Learning

flourish, ken robinson, school systems, ted talks

TED Talk – Ken Robinson: How to escape education’s death valley Another great presentation from Ken Robinson where he talks about how the current design of school systems ignore the principles that encourage children to flourish. If you sit kids down hour after hour doing low-grade clerical work, don’t be surprised if they start to…
Yet another T&L blog?

May 15, 2013

in Learning, Teaching

higher education, south africa, Unteaching

Yet another T&L blog (Unteaching) We thought there was room for something a bit more…playful. Something less formal. Maybe even irreverent. We think that there’s space for a group of like-minded South African educators to get together and shoot the breeze without needing to worry about who is watching and who you represent. A place…
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…
Online learning and the underlying software

Apr 17, 2013

in Learning, Social media, Technology

buddypress, learning management system, lms, online learning, wordpress

I came across this post by Michael Sean Gallagher, Creating elearning: Using plugins in WordPress, which touches on the idea that we should be paying more attention to the tools we use in online spaces. When Michael posted the link above on his blog, and then shared it to Google+, I commented on it. I realised…
Cultivating curiosity

Apr 8, 2013

in Learning

Carl Sagan, curiosity, quotes, science

Carl Sagan is one of my favourite people in the world. Not only did he have his own sense of delight in discovery, but he could express it in ways that cultivated that sense in others.
Are we preparing students for life?

Feb 18, 2013

in Learning, Teaching

Carl Sagan, change, content, learning, life, science as a candle in the dark, teaching, tom whitby, transition

The following is an excerpt from Tom Whitby’s post, Are we preparing students for life? Content in past decades was slow to change. Even as advances were made in science, history, geography, and literature, the world itself moved at a slower pace, so time and change were less critical. We had a print media that…
How Can Teachers Prepare Kids for a Connected World?

Feb 11, 2013

in Assessment, Learning, Social media

collaborating, connected learning, experimenting, participatory learning

“PLAY describes a mode of experimentation, of testing materials, trying out new solutions, exploring new horizons,” Jenkins said. It’s how kids interact with games – throwing themselves in without reading the rules, testing the limits and feeling free to try and fail. But this learning style is hard to achieve in a system ruled by…
Face-to-face as a subset of virtual learning spaces?

Feb 4, 2013

in Learning, Social media, Technology

blended learning, digital spaces, learning spaces, learning tools, virtual spaces

…educational technology is no longer a single innovation or a group of innovations but a sea change based on the awareness that face-to-face (F2F) pedagogy is a subset of the virtual learning environment — and not the other way around. I like this quote from an old post by 21st century fluency, although I’m not…
Skills we want our students to have

Jan 8, 2013

in Learning, Physiotherapy, Research, Technology

physiotherapy, reasoning, skills, technology, thinking

This post was inspired in part by this article on the 10 skills that every student should learn. These are some of the skills that we’re intentionally trying to help our students develop, as a way of integrating them into the culture of professional clinical practice. Reading carefully. If you can read you can learn…
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)…
Making mistakes can be a Good Thing

Nov 23, 2012

in Learning, Students

coming to know, knowing, learning, mistakes, safety

One of the changes we made in our curriculum this year has been to work on creating spaces where students are willing to “have a go” at figuring out a clinical problem that we give them. We realised that students were reluctant to try because they were worried about failing the challenge. They didn’t want…
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…
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…
Bring your own device

Mar 9, 2012

in Learning, Physiotherapy, Research, Social media, Students, Teaching, Technology

bring your own device, byod, empower, information management, power, self-directed learning

For the past 2 months we’ve been operating under a bring–your–own–device (BYOD) policy in one of the modules I’m co-ordinating. Actually, it’s the module that I’m evaluating for my PhD, and the BYOD policy is just one component of a completely restructured approach to the curriculum. Some background: Physiotherapy students work to solve clinical problems…
Jan Herrington’s model of Authentic learning

Jan 24, 2012

in Assessment, Learning, PhD, Research, Teaching

articulation, assessment, authentic activities, authentic assessment, authentic learning, authentic tasks, collaboration, Complexity, Jan Herrington, reflection, scaffolding

A few days ago I met with my supervisor to discuss my research plan for the year. She suggested I look into Jan Herrington’s work on authentic learning so I thought I’d make some notes here as I familiarize myself with it. To begin with, there are 9 elements of authentic learning (I believe that in…
Workshop on facilitation techniques using the Conversational Framework

Jan 20, 2012

in Learning, PhD, Physiotherapy, Research, Teaching

adaptive, clinical education, conversational framework, discursive, facilitation, interactive, laurillard, phd, reflection, reflective, research, rethinking university teaching

How do we get students to think more deeply about learning in an academic context? I’m giving a workshop later today. The idea is that we’ll get all of the facilitators who’ll be working on the module we’re designing (and which I’m evaluating for my PhD) and help them get a grip on the approach…
Using the Community of Inquiry in online learning environments

Jan 12, 2012

in Learning, PhD, Physiotherapy, Research, Social media, Teaching

cognitive presence, collaboration, communication, community of inquiry, discourse, experiential learning, groupwork, knowledge construction, kolb, online learning, peer evaluation, reflection, self-assessment, social networks, social presence, teaching presence, zone of proximal development

I’m in the process of putting together a workshop for the facilitators of one of our modules that we’re restructuring in order to use a blended learning approach. Here are the notes that I’ve been putting together on the Community of Inquiry (CoI) for the workshop. Bear in mind that these notes are my attempt…
From “designing teaching” to “evaluating learning”

Jan 10, 2012

in Learning, PhD, Physiotherapy, Research, Teaching

case-based learning, cbl, clinical practice, conversational framework, knowledge, laurillard, learning, phd, physiotherapy, research, rethinking university teaching, teaching, understanding

Later this month we’ll be implementing a blended approach to teaching and learning in one module in our physiotherapy department. This was to form the main part of my research project, looking at the use of technology enhanced teaching and learning in clinical education. The idea was that I’d look at the process of developing…
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…
Teaching and learning workshop at Mont Fleur

Nov 28, 2011

in Assessment, Learning, Physiotherapy, Students, Teaching, Workshop

applied physiotherapy, assessment, clinical education, concept mapping, conceptual relationships, content, curriculum development, evaluation, feedback, graduate attibutes, healthcare education, intended learning outcomes, learning, learning outcomes, module development, mont fleur, organising knowledge, peer evaluation, phd, physiotherapy, research, rubrics, scientific method, self-assessment, solo taxonomy, stellenbosch, structured observation of learning outcomes, teaching, teaching activity, teaching and learning, workshop

A few weeks ago I spent 3 days at Mont Fleur near Stellenbosch, on a teaching and learning retreat. Next year we’re going to be restructuring 2 of our modules as part of a curriculum review, and I’ll be studying the process as part of my PhD. That part of the project will also form…