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Teaching

Encouraging learning: A graph with perspective

At uni my teaching students follow along with the topics of open music class #MUS654 as a stimulus for learning about designing a curriculum. One of my aims is that students connect outwardly and begin to form wider networks of inquiry with teachers and musicians. Although this year I haven’t succeeded in convincing people to make blogs and post outwardly, the students occasionally allow me to share their ideas. This post is about a task I gave students to create a representation of their 1-year curriculum to present in our class session, with strict instructions not to use powerpoint. I wanted some creative representation, and that is exactly what I got.

Brady made a graph and a graphical representation, and gave me permission to share his ideas with you. It is also fitting that he made a graph, as in another course (where I’m the student), #el30, the task this week was to make a graph. Lovely when strands of life cross paths, isn’t it?Read More »Encouraging learning: A graph with perspective

Building with learning #el30: Week 2

While watching the discussion between Tony Hirst and Stephen Downes as part of the cmooc #el30 (my other posts are here) there were moments of clarity on my part but also I found myself really not understanding. Things that I thought were the important points were not. My lack of understanding only came clear when I talked to a professional who designs and uses containers (although in a non-academic world). You could say I used the ‘phone a friend’ option for help. My friend said things like:

By maintaining a common interface and abstracting the internals you can make changes to the contents of the container by patching it or updating it without changing the interface, as in DevOps.

He went on to talk about CICD and although he said it was an elegant model, and suggested shifting in the direction of Kubernetes (which comes from the Greek word for helmsman) instead of Docker. He did suggest chapter 1 from the book Docker Deep Dive by Nigel Poulton. Thank you to the author who provided a sample of the book via his website! (yes, that’s what I linked to)

– at this point I looked like a tree (that is to say, standing there, and not communicating in an understandable way). With articulate patience he explained containers in terms I, your ordinary academic practitioner, could understand. 🙂 yay! Here’s the non-technical, common person, explanation:Read More »Building with learning #el30: Week 2

Linking Skills, Feedback, and Assessment to develop Student Agency and Deep Learning

After giving a workshop it was suggested I write an article based on the principles. I have submitted it to present at the 2018 Learning and Teaching Conference at my university. There is not proceedings or publication from it, so I am sharing here. Slides are embedded below the text.

Abstract

This article examines the concept of constructive alignment in learning (Biggs, 2005) and how integrating reflective practice throughout teaching and learning, encourages deeper learning experiences. Teachers are encouraged to aligning learning outcomes, activities, feedback, and assessment to benefit students as they progress from learning and preparing for assessment to achievement. Recognising and understanding the student perspective is essential to understanding the balance of how taught material, experience, and avenues for application of learned skills can impact student engagement. The principles of student self-efficacy beliefs (Bandura, 1986) and the influence these have on student’s self-regulation of their learning behaviors (Zimmerman, 1998; Schunk & Usher, 2013) is explored. The importance of integrating feedback in accessible ways and providing opportunities for students to develop their agency throughout learning is highlighted and presented alongside practical suggestions for teaching.

Keywords: feedback, assessment, learning design, student agency, reflection

 

Across higher education there is great variety and diversity in the spaces used for learning, from the indoor traditional lecture hall with one teacher speaking to hundreds of students, to small-group seminar or lab type environments, to one-to-one teaching or tutorial sessions, to the on-site placement learning that takes students into the professional workplace. Each affords different dynamics and possibilities for skills development, interaction, and feedback. The size, shape, and context of teaching and learning spaces impacts how teachers structure content and how students approach learning.Read More »Linking Skills, Feedback, and Assessment to develop Student Agency and Deep Learning

Toward Personal Learning: Summer Book Club Post 6

I’m still at it! Reading Stephen Downes’ book Toward Personal Learning. This series of posts began as a ‘summer book club‘ and at this rate I might just finish before next summer! This segment covers pp. 428-487 because there was a lot in this section that I had comments on. Below you will find the nuggets that went ‘ping!’ in my mind and a few thoughts on each of them. Quotes from the book are in a different colour so you can easily distinguish my thoughts.

The first bit that really stood out to me was a line in the section summarising Howard Rheingold’s talk in Berlin in 2014. Howard spoke about how learning has changed over the years:

“It’s also more collaborative – this used to be called cheating. It’s also cooperative – I talk about co-learning, being responsible for each other’s learning.”

I like that collaboration used to be called ‘cheating’ – and he’s right! I remember being told do you own work! Of course you do need to understand the basics of whatever concept for yourself, but the application, the generation of going beyond- that feeds on ideas and we need each other for stimulus, perspective, and simply for the multiplied brainpower and experience that coming together brings. It’s obvious really. Two candles together makes a bigger fire.

Howard puts it well:

“It’s about the group being more than the sum of its parts.” p435

Then there is one sentence that merits just copying and pasting here:

“Learning content required a more flexible model, which was provided first by David Wiley, with the Open Content License, and then by Lawrence Lessig, with Creative Commons. Both of these licenses allowed for the free reuse and redistribution of the resource, but with conditions.” p.422

Read More »Toward Personal Learning: Summer Book Club Post 6

Ukes from the UK: Musiquality in California 2018

A week ago I was in Los Angeles with a small group of my students and one of my colleagues. We lived together, travelled together, worked together, performed, taught, improvised, and laughed. It is a final-year credit bearing class at the University of Chichester that started as a student initiative four years ago. The first group’s story became a book (you can download it for free via the link) and they named the initiative Musiquality, bringing quality and connection through music and education. Each year since the students have created an educational outreach project that touches the lives of children and adults, and inevitably changes their own lives as well.

This year the students involved in the trip raised over £1000 performing at gigs and busking and I raised money too, giving a benefit concert and through leading my community orchestra. Together we raised just under $2000 and bought 60 ukuleles to use in workshops and then donate to the establishments we visited.Read More »Ukes from the UK: Musiquality in California 2018