Month: May 2012

“We Listen Better In the Dark” (Margaret Atwood) — Emily Deng

As a science student, I rarely get the chance to familiarize myself with the Humanities. Truthfully, during a school term, I seldom step foot past the Dana Porter Library (where most of the Arts buildings are located). That said, I am a fervent lover of the Arts and was thrilled when I heard about Congress 2012.

The Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences is the largest gathering of scholars, students, delegates and the like for the purpose of sharing ideas and broadening exploration. This year it is being co-hosted by Laurier University and The University of Waterloo. The theme for the 2012 conference is Crossroads: Scholarship for An Uncertain World. Continue reading “We Listen Better In the Dark” (Margaret Atwood) — Emily Deng

Simulation Modelling Tool EJS — Paul Kates

Simulation Modelling Tool EJS

EJS (Easy Java Simulations) is an active, open-source software project designed for instructors and students to graphically model differential equations.

It allows selecting graphical display elements like graphs, input elements like sliders and parameter variable boxes and output animation elements
to build a simulation of a differential equation model with little to no programming. Equation solvers are built in, as are the basic user interface elements that can be so time-consuming to add into programs.  Should you wish to go beyond the basic features of the software, optional programming in Java can be added. Continue reading Simulation Modelling Tool EJS — Paul Kates

Reza Ramezan is 2012 CUT Award Winner – Svitlana Taraban-Gordon

Every spring, CTE has an opportunity to recognize one outstanding graduate student who demonstrates the highest achievement upon completion of the Certificate in University Teaching (CUT) program. It is a tough decision to make: only one student can be selected from a pool of more than 30 students who complete the program each year.

This year, the CUT award was given to Reza Ramezan, a doctoral candidate in Statistics and Actuarial Science. Similar to many other international teaching assistants (TAs) on our campus, Reza’s teaching career began outside of Canada.  As a third year undergraduate student in Iran with no formal teaching experience and keen interest in teaching, he practically begged his professor to hire him as a TA.  His persistence paid off: he got an opportunity to teach and confirmed his interest in university teaching. Continue reading Reza Ramezan is 2012 CUT Award Winner – Svitlana Taraban-Gordon

The Teaching Excellence Academy – Veronica Brown

I have been staring at the computer screen trying to decide what to tell you about the Teaching Excellence Academy (TEA). The TEA is a four-day course design workshop held each year in April. At first, I thought I would share some interesting facts with you.

  • The TEA has been completed by over 100 participants during the past eight years.
  • Members of all six Faculties and all four affiliated colleges have attended.
  • Each year, there are six facilitators including two TEA alumni (thus far, 10 faculty members have returned as facilitators).
  • Participants include new faculty, mid-career, and senior faculty members.

Then, I thought, perhaps I could talk about what we do at the TEA. The workshop covers key topics in course design focused on creating an “aligned” course. On the first day, we explore the content and concepts of your course as well as the context in which you are teaching (e.g., class size, level, core/elective/service, TA support, other resources, etc.). Based on the content, concepts, and context, you create learning outcomes for the course on Day 2. Finally, in an aligned course, the teaching methods, learning activities, and assessments are related to these outcomes. We explore these areas on Day 3 and finish the workshop with the creation of a new course outline on Day 4, which is shared at the celebration in the afternoon of Day 4. Continue reading The Teaching Excellence Academy – Veronica Brown

Privacy and Cloud-based Tools — Scott Anderson

There are many free tools and applications available on the web (in “the cloud,” so to speak) for instructors and students to use to support and enhance their teaching and learning. A few examples include:

Calendar Descriptions – Jane Holbrook

Students at the University of Denver

My pet peeve is a slightly different. When students go and look at descriptions of courses in the UW course calendar they will see the course number and an array of codes for the “type of instruction”, e.g.,  LEC, TUT or SEM or LEC, LAB as well as a very brief description of the course that usually does not include any information on how the learning will happen in the course, only about what will be learned in terms of content. A search in the Schedule of Classes gives a bit more information about the amount of time spent in the LEC and TUT each week. This information does not provide any insight into what students can expect to be doing in the 8-10 hours a week that they spend on a course in “class” and outside of “class”.  Courses where students are required to watch online lectures and engage in group work in their classes usually have the LEC designation, and the way the course is actually taught may be a bit of a surprise to students when they come to the first class.  Many courses on campus expect students to participate in online tutorials and discussions may or may not have a TUT or DISC designation.

A course is made up of learning  experiences that are integrated together and take place with the instructor and/or class mates and independently in a variety of environments: face-to-face, online and offline. We should be able to give students more information (other than word of mouth) about how they will be learning before they come to the first class.  It’s exciting that there are so many ways that students can learn inside and outside the class room and in the community, it would be great to have a way to communicate the richness of the experiences that will be offered in courses to students when they are deciding what to take each term. The current calendar and course schedule designations seem limited. What’s the solution? Maybe course descriptions that include how and where students will learn rather than content topics, or areas in the course schedule where instructors can outline what’s special about their course each term. Any ideas?  This is a blog, so comments and ideas are welcome.

New and Improved NETsavvy — Mark Morton

NETsavvy is a site that I maintain that’s devoted to identifying best practices for New Educational Technologies. Over the past couple of months, I’ve been working on updating and expanding that site. Nearly 50 new educational technologies are now included there, organized into 9 different categories. The latest category to be added is devoted to “Outliners” — that is, tools that you or your students can use to organize information. Check out the new and improved NETsavvy at netsavvy.uwaterloo.ca.