Remembering Versus Googling — Mark Morton

The story goes that a reporter asked Albert Einstein for his phone number (no, this didn’t take place in a bar), and Einstein had to look it up in a phone directory. When the reporter expressed surprise that the twentieth-century’s greatest physicist didn’t know his own phone number, Einstein replied, “Never memorize what you can look up in a book.”

If there was any validity to Einstein’s comment when he said it many decades ago, then it’s even more valid now: Google lets me look up information much more quickly and easily than even the most nimble-fingered research librarian can find it in a book.

But should we really follow Einstein’s advice about memorization? After all, the man couldn’t even comb his own hair, and he seems to have had trouble knowing what to do with his tongue. Continue reading Remembering Versus Googling — Mark Morton

Launching the new Instructor Resources Repository in the LOR of LEARN


The summer is a great time for catching up on projects that get lost in the flurry of the busy fall and winter terms. With the roll out of LEARN (replacing UW-ACE) and all the associated changes and transitions that we have been facing, one part of the old UW-ACE system that is in my prevue and that was getting short shrift is the Instructor Resources Repository (IRR). However, with LEARN more on course and the slower pace of the spring term, I’m glad to say that we have almost completed the migration of the IRR to the Learning Object Repository (LOR) in LEARN. Continue reading Launching the new Instructor Resources Repository in the LOR of LEARN

Why should we care about student feedback? A new perspective – Mihaela Vlasea, CTE Graduate Instructional Developer

Consider the following question:

“As educators, given that we know more than the students on the subject we are teaching, why should we care about feedback from students in terms of how we are lecturing? Are we giving students too much freedom over our teaching methodology?”

Three main reasons come to mind when thinking about why I became involved with the Centre for Teaching Excellence as an Instructional Developer:  I love working with people, I enjoy teaching and I am always pursuing opportunities for improving my teaching skills. I am a strong advocate for the idea of a dynamic educator, one that is able to adapt not only to the classroom environment but also to the demands of the job market in preparing students for their future careers. With this I mind, I was quite surprised when I was faced with the above mentioned question. Continue reading Why should we care about student feedback? A new perspective – Mihaela Vlasea, CTE Graduate Instructional Developer

Lessons learned by a first-time instructor – Alex Shum, CTE Graduate Instructional Developer

Using Online Videos (made by WACOM boards), along with iClickers and Presentation Slides as part of my first course as an instructor

 

I’m currently wrapping up my first course as an instructor. Some of the lessons I’ve personally learned will be covered in this post. I hope they might be useful for the reader, when they teach their first course. I’ll aim to make this post as general as possible so that they may be relevant to any first-time instructor. I should also mention that the CTE Website has a lot of useful teaching tips for first-time instructors and TAs. Continue reading Lessons learned by a first-time instructor – Alex Shum, CTE Graduate Instructional Developer

Trust in the classroom: is it something we really need? — Plinio Morita

On July 5th, we hosted a CTE graduate student workshop on the topic of Trust in the Classroom. My goal was to foster discussion around the topic of trust in a collegial and safe environment. Based on the feedback that I received from the participants, I decided to devote a blog posting to it as it was highlighted as an important, but unusual topic in teaching development workshops.

This observation is supported by the lack of literature about trust in the classroom in higher education. The literature on trust is extensive, ranging from engineering, to social sciences to business. When it comes to education, the focus has been on secondary and elementary education, as many authors discuss activities and techniques to develop trust and create a trust fostering environment. However, a post-secondary classroom is quite different. When looking for literature on trust in higher education, I was able to find only a handful of studies on this topic. Continue reading Trust in the classroom: is it something we really need? — Plinio Morita

iClick? iClick not. — Dan Gan, CTE Co-op Student

Over the years, teachers and professors alike are coming up with new, innovative ways for students to learn and retain information. One of the more recent additions to these gadgets is the iClicker, an electronic response device used in different schools across Ontario. Now, we must ask ourselves a simple question: Is the iClicker actually effective? Through my experience with this gadget, from pondering whether or not to take it out in class, punching in the classroom code, and trying my luck on the day’s set of problems, in no way did it appeal to me. Continue reading iClick? iClick not. — Dan Gan, CTE Co-op Student

Student Engagement Practice: An Engineering Experience — Samar Mohamed

What is Student engagement? Why is it important? And how is it achieved? These are questions that instructors think about all the time. Most instructors would like their students to be engaged with their course material because it will ultimately lead to students’ deeper learning of the course concepts.

A simple definition of student engagement states: “students make a psychological investment in learning” [1].

In a previous blog posting, Donna Ellis, our CTE director, described a model that is based on making connections between the instructor, the content, and the learner in which the learner and his learning experience are at the center of the learning process and how making these connections helps engage students in their learning. In another previous blog posting my colleague Katherine Lithgow talked about the pedagogical benefits of considering learning as a social activity and discussed how this can help students to engage with their course material. Continue reading Student Engagement Practice: An Engineering Experience — Samar Mohamed