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3 Recent Questions about Assessment
I don’t have to walk far from home to see “education centres” flourishing at almost every turn and corner in my neighborhood. The tuition industry in Singapore is a billion-dollar industry. I’ve been told that a certain tutor has become a millionaire without having to step out from his home, his tuition center. Why don’t I reap some of this rich harvest too, friends and family ask? No, not a snob, I’m just still thinking about how to reconcile this with my professional goals and educational philosophy. Are Singaporeans obsessed with standardized…
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A Critical Conversation about Instructional Design
Dear Maha, Thanks for the interesting conversation around the use of the terms Instructional (versus Learning) Design. I will do my best to respond to your question about resources and add some quick thoughts along the way. “Instructional” Theories Several scholars in the field have written about the history of ID. It’s been a while since I completed doctoral studies in ID and I don’t have all my books with me. Robert Reiser and Michael Molenda have written about the history and philosophical origins of ID. As to ID theories,…
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Why I Teach a CL Course, or, Any Course
@yinbk @GoogleGuacamole @merryspaniel @Autumm absolutely. so much to unlearn before ppl can even start. why i made #ed1to1 slow/low-stakes. — Bonnie Stewart (@bonstewart) July 16, 2015 #Students are the #heart of my work & always will be. They are our #hope. #WisconsinIdea #OurUW — Sara Goldrick-Rab (@saragoldrickrab) July 17, 2015 To reflect is to think, ponder, or meditate. Some people write blog reflections in double-quick time. I can’t. Thinking takes time; and in my world, blog reflections consume time, which I don’t have a lot of now, particularly when an online…
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Designing a Course Worth Learning 3: Course Video Make
Transcript of Video (Google Document) Thinking and talking about the course has turned into action. Yes, UNIV 291 has begun. I did not create a navigation or orientation video because I had provided a lot of instructions on the website. The students didn’t seem to be lost. They knew where to start. I had a Get Started button, to be sure. Most of their questions centered around Learning Activity terms we use in Connected Learning. Were they doing things “right” and questions about social media. Why aren’t my tweets showing…
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Institute on Inclusive Teaching: Quick Notes
[Related blogposts: 2014 Reflections on the Institute on Inclusive Teaching; There’s a Place for Us; EdContexts full version] [Image description: Words: Restorative Justice, Dignity of Risk, Structural Poverty, Traumatizing Awareness, Food Shock] Last year, it took me a couple of weeks to distill my thoughts into a blogpost. The above image captures some of the ideas I’m mulling over. Structural Poverty. We meet again Through veiled window glass frosted by body heat Rain pelted outside and within Wetting my white linen and polka-dotted leggings My guilt and helplessness remained What…
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Group Learning
At work, there was substantial discussion around the terms collaborative work, cooperative work, team work and group work — all focused on making the OLE (Online Learning Experience) a perfect experience for our participants. After a while, a colleague said he doesn’t really care what words we use for these “more than one person” type of learning. Signs of burnout? In the end, I offered to use other words like group learning and team learning in place of collaborative learning. The most important thing is not which word we choose to…
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What Could’ve Been: #et4Online68425 2015 Presentation Notes
Hello to all who are / may / might be thinking of attending session #et4online68425, I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to present in person due to personal reasons.Title of Presentation: When Graduate Students Become Online Instructors: A First-Time Online Instructor’s Teaching Toolbox The proposal can be retrieved at http://olc.onlinelearningconsortium.org/conference/2015/et4online/when-graduate-students-become-online-instructors-first-time-online-instruc The website for our presentation is at: http://rampages.us/gradtoonlineteach/ This presentation started when my colleague and I met a group of students from PSYC 795 Practicum in the Teaching of College Psychology (Fall 2014). The provocation to create a resource arose when…
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Designing a Course Worth Learning Part 2
I learned about assistive technology when I was on a graduate teaching assistantship and tasked with shadowing a senior graduate assistant before she graduated. I was to then take over her Assistive Technology course for pre-service teachers.Over the years, I’ve gained a greater awareness and understanding of disability and accessibility. But I still have a lot to learn. I believe every instructional designer (and instructor) must be equipped with the knowledge and skills to design accessible courses. As I plan to teach a summer online course, I want to make…
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3 More Myths about Instructional Designers
[Draft 1: April 6, 12:38am; Updated: April 6, 9:45am] In the past, I’ve written about the myths and mischaracterization of instructional designers (ID). I realize that such perceptions (or misperceptions) exist across many fields and disciplines, but I think I found more to add to my growing list of misperceptions about IDs as I work in the field. This post seeks to increase understanding about IDs and filter more silt from the muddy waters. [FYI, I’m not going to tread on contentious turf about learning designer vs. instructional designer. Joshua Kim…
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Thinking about Student Blogs and Community Building
“So you mean we are sharing cyberspace?” Seven words that offered a glimpse into our client’s thinking. I will refer to her as Ms. Z. [Stan and I met with her.] Some background information before I continue. She had come to ALT Lab, bogged down by barriers to blogpost-editing and seeking some assistance on how to integrate Timeline into a blogpost. From her instructor’s [Dr. Halo, pseudonym] course site [BEY 500, fake course name], Ms. Z was able to “jump to” and “see” her own blog site. Happily, she has also been blogging on…
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Designing a Course Worth Learning 1
Over the next few weeks or months, my goal is to reflect on what and how I think as I design (big and small, d/Design) UNIV 291 in the roles of an instructional designer and instructor. There are many design decisions to consider. But there are a few BIG questions I must address. Uppermost in my mind is a question I borrow from David Perkins, a scholar I greatly admire for his ideas on thinking, teaching/learning, and clarity of thought. With only 8 weeks for a summer online elective course,…
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The Making of a Course Trailer
The course trailer is up on YouTube. Although it runs for less than 2 minutes, it entails a tremendous amount of work. Many people chipped in to help out given the tight time-frame we had to churn it out. To them I owe a debt of gratitude. Their names were not mentioned in the credits and I would like to use this space to express my appreciation to them.Thank you, in no particular order, Alice Westerberg, Suzie Fairman, Molly Ransone, Emma Gauthier, Aditi Jain and Arianna DeCastro (both the actresses), Marcus…
