Student learning communities

Google 'student engagement' and you will see 5,000,000+ results.

How do you encourage peer learning in your teaching? What strategies do you use that facilitate student engagement? How do you know your students are (more) engaged: with each other? with the course content? with you?

Study groups. Peer learning groups. Peer-to-peer networking systems. Student learning communities. Together, these comprise the action plan b, to achieve engagement: Goal 3 of the University's Destination 2012.

On January 20, a roundtable for faculty to exchange ideas about effective peer-to-peer learning will be held at MSVU, followed by a 'hands on' successful practices session in February.

In the interim, we invite you to begin sharing your ideas now by posting a reply to this blog.

Resolutions

Happy New Year.

It's that time of year again. New beginnings. Old endings. Out with the old. In with the new.

The more people I speak with at the beginning of this new year (2008), the more I hear he/she has made resolutions, which intrigues me...what is it/are they? Why are resolutions (made at the beginning of the year) given such importance? Do we make resolutions any other time of year? Are they more/less significant? If so, why or why not?

I recently read the article, Top-Ten Teaching and Learning Issues, 2007 in Educause Quarterly (Number 3), and, along with the new year's beginnings, after reading the article, I wondered what the top 10 list for 2008 might be?

And, similarly, what might my resolutions about teaching and learning in higher education be for 2008? What might be yours?

Mine might read something like:

1. blog more, but only blog when I have something earth-shattering to share with the world
2. don't blog just for the sake of blogging
3. enlighten others with the word allagegogy
4. learn something new everyday
5. teach something new to one faculty member at least 1/week

So, in about 363 days, let's see how well I was able to keep my resolutions. And you?

:)

There's something in the air...

The new academic year is about to begin and you can feel it in the air, almost like how you can feel the crispness in the air of the autumn equinox-or at least on campus. Our university is abuzz with new faculty arriving, 'old' faculty returning, and of course, our students-themselves, new and 'old'-those on campus and those studying at a distance. We held our new faculty orientation today, one of many, many events, known and unkown, that signal a new academic year is on the horizon.

After the lull of the summer, which I'm glad to say, will soon be behind us, you can feel the campus coming 'alive' again with the new academic year about to begin next week-September 5, to be precise. It's great to see everyone again and to meet new people. The 'fever' is contagious-I can see it too in some of my co-workers as we prepare to work with and support our faculty.

Welcome back everyone!

Proverbs

I luv proverbs-they are words to live by; this one's Arabic, I discovered while researching Laing's Knots online recently:

"He that knows not,
and knows not that he knows not is a fool.
Shun him.
He that knows not,
and knows that he knows not is a pupil.
Teach him.
He that knows,
and knows not that he knows is asleep.
Wake him.
He that knows,
and knows that he knows is a teacher.
Follow him."

Welcome to the dia(blog)ue

Creating a blog is a rather simple process.
However, deciding what to say knowing the whole world (potentially) could be reading and judging (possibly) what you say is another matter. However, it is the 21st century and our blog is long overdue. Yet, I wanted our blog to be more than just a reverse chronological order of diary entries and ramblings on about nothing...so...I created this blog for two reasons:
1. to critically examine blogs for teaching and learning in higher education
2. to 'reach' our faculty and engage them (hopefully) in scholarly discourse via this medium

So, to begin, some of my questions about blogs are: Do blogs have a role in higher education? If so, what is it? Who should use them? Why? and perhaps most importantly, How should they be constructed and used (pedagogy) to enrich the student learning experience in higher education?

On the flip side, are students missing anything from their learning experience, if profs choose not to blog?
You might have some other questions too. I hope you will post them. In the interim, you might find this a helpful article in context. Some of our faculty at MSVU began experimenting with this Web 2.0 technology for teaching undergraduate public relations classes in the Winter '07 term.


Ready to 'talk' about blogs for use in higher education? I thought so.

Over to you...