Category: Uncategorized
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Why not both? Kigali Reflections on Problem-Based Learning versus Direct Instruction.
The context for this set of reflections is the ‘Trad Vs Prog’ debate, which rages amongst teachers of school-age children, but also has substantial importance for HE educators. While on Twitter the debate is often fierce and contains more heat than light, there are important, deeply political (what is education even for?), high-stakes (whether certain…
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Working Out in the Academy? Why the ‘University is like a gym’ metaphor is flawed.
Dr Nicola Rivers and Dr Dave Webster Since the introduction of fees to UK Higher Education there has been a notable anxiety about the notion of the ‘student as consumer.’ In a ‘market’ where student fees mean they are accumulating substantial debt as they study, there is extensive speculation about both the meaning and impact of this…
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New Year, New Uni… On the move…
Just a note to announce that from February I’ll be moving, after 18 years at the University of Gloucestershire, to take up a new role at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. The SOAS announcement is below. Director of the new Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) at SOAS announced…
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Putting Fun in its Place: Workshop at Social Media in Higher Education conference.
I will be at SocMedHE17, in Sheffield, next week, to deliver a workshop. I have previously, with Dr Nicola Rivers, written about our scepticism of ‘fun’ language in HE, but the session next week will be more specific. I will blog about the participants’ response – but you can get a sense, in the outline…
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The Denial of Death, Masculinity, and a well-lived life
This post might have ended up on my my Dispirited blog, but there is enough cross-over with recent preoccupations here about grit to persuade me to pop here initially… Teaching is a funny thing. Sessions on material you have done many times before, and where you are pretty sure what is going to unfold, can knock…
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How much a smile cost?
How much a dollar really cost? The question is detrimental, paralyzin’ my thoughts Kendrick Lamar: How Much a Dollar Cost? Walking into the campus this morning, I had a chance encounter with one of my favourite colleagues, and ended up talking about the busy, and quite challenging, day that I had in store. She observed…
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Higher Education is not The Apprentice, and neither is the ‘Real World’.
Dr Nicola Rivers and Dr Dave Webster. Enabled by technology, we were discussing assessment feedback in Higher Education, while watching an episode of The Apprentice*. Although neither us of us are entrepreneurs, or teach business, or retail, courses, what initially struck us when watching the Apprentice was that it offered a certain jouissance of judging others. The…
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Conclusions: Proposals for stimulating and challenging teaching
Following our model, we have outlined 5 themed proposals for developing stimulating and challenging teaching. This is where the origins of this post in developmental work with colleagues is further unmasked. The example activities are the basis for us to work with staff groups, to ask what might this look like for your students? This…
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Academic Challenge and intellectually Stimulating Teaching: 5. Becoming the subject specialist
Ros O’Leary & David Webster “Knowledge emerges only through invention and reinvention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.” Paulo Freire We propose that we take learners backstage. That they are actors in the drama of learning, and not the audience. As noted…
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Academic Challenge and intellectually Stimulating Teaching: 4. Developing community and active citizenship
Ros O’Leary & David Webster The implication for thinking about learning as reconstitution of self (or transformation), puts emphasis on developing cooperative learning and learning communities. Drawing on Vygotsky , action theory (Bredo, 1997; Lave, 1996) and the idea of ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ (Lave & Wenger, 1991) becomes important. Here a novice, or our student,…
Dave Webster 