For a Canadian student at a Canadian university, it’s probably one of the most normal procedures: receiving a detailed syllabus at the beginning of a term in each course he or she decided to take. For international students, however, such a practice may not be common at all. Continue reading Constructing a Syllabus: Challenges and Insights – Mareike Mueller
Month: November 2009
Twittering and Continuous Partial Attention – Trevor Holmes
For a week, I’ve been Twittering. Normally, Mark Morton (intrepid voyager in neotechnology-land) would be the jolly fellow bringing you glad tidings of great techno-teaching joy. Having experimented for something like fifteen years in the classroom, though, I thought it would be fun to continue my Early Adopter mentality and change up my own course this coming Winter term over at That Other University down the street, adding a bunch of social networking tools that had previously existed in partial form or by accident in Cultural Studies 101. Continue reading Twittering and Continuous Partial Attention – Trevor Holmes
Notes v. Maps: Trading Quantity for Quality – Chris Ray
At the beginning of the fall semester, I showed up to my Thursday night Business Law class ready to soak up all the information that was going to allow me to do well in the course. I’m a ‘laptop student’, so usually once the teacher starts talking, I’m go go go, typing away until the lecture is over. The end result is ten pages of notes that I think will be useful once midterm and final exam times come. Continue reading Notes v. Maps: Trading Quantity for Quality – Chris Ray
Students vote! – Trevor Holmes
As a teaching developer, a good deal of my time is spent thinking about faculty members’ needs in the teaching/learning equation. I consult with them individually, help to run a workshop program, go into Department meetings on curriculum design… but I also think about students in the overall picture. My own teaching philosophy used to include an emphatic claim about students knowing best what they need; since my idealistic early days, I’ve tempered that a bit, while maintaining that some, in fact, really do have a solid sense of themselves and their learning. This frames the difficulty I have reconciling two views I hold about the recent voting by students in general and students on Senate. Continue reading Students vote! – Trevor Holmes
Reflecting on our Registration System (Grad Students) – Darlene Radicioni
Fall is upon us again with a new cohort of graduate students. Welcome!
With one term now behind us, using our now, not-so-new registration system, I thought I’d reflect on it. First, all new students should make sure that they are connected to the myHRinfo system. This can be done through your department secretary. Those of you who have been at UW for a while should already be connected to it. Once you visit this site, you can see a list of all workshops that are offered by our Centre. Continue reading Reflecting on our Registration System (Grad Students) – Darlene Radicioni
How *I* chose my undergraduate university — Trevor Holmes
Okay so here’s the thing. Saturday I found myself at work for a short while. My own fault — I was late on something so took an hour to come in and fix things up so I wouldn’t look like a complete loser on Monday morning. I saw thousands of parents with scared-looking, uncommunicative kids being almost dragged along behind them. It was the parents who looked around with the sense of wonder, curiosity, and eagerness that once upon a time would have been the preserve of the young people seeking the right school. Continue reading How *I* chose my undergraduate university — Trevor Holmes
e-learning: green learning?
A few weeks ago our Senior Instructional Developer, Emerging Technologies the illustrious Mark Morton sent off an email informing us of an interesting new device that he had come across called the PlayAway. This device is an audiobook that is integrated with its own hardware, including battery so you can just plug your earbuds in and “play away”. He suggested that they were virtually “disposable” and popular in elementary schools where it would not matter if they were lost since they were relatively inexpensive. Continue reading e-learning: green learning?