Learning theories timeline: key ideas from educational psychology

Let's lose the deficit language about online education Reading the national press at the moment you might think that universities had just performed the last rites over centuries of in-person and on-campus teaching. The argument being pedalled by journalists whose experience of lectures was clearly more inspirational than mine, is simplistic and misleading. It suggests that a curriculum without live lectures equates to the end of all in-person teaching, as if practicals, laboratories, seminars, and tutorials do not count. Headline catching it may be; true it is not.

Suggestions to help prepare for using online breakout rooms as learning activities Suggestions to help prepare for using online breakout rooms as learning activities Groupwork is a valuable part of a student’s experience as it gives them the opportunity to work with peers and develop more confident teamwork and communication skills (amongst many other skills). In the classroom this activity can take place by asking the students to sit together in groups or if in a lecture theatre type classroom form groups of pairs by row and then one pair turn around to form a four with the pair behind. You might ask the groups to find a space of their own and return to the classroom after a set time. In these smaller groups students can be asked to work on a problem, engage in discussions, or any other activity they can work on collaboratively. However when teaching online the use of video conferencing at first glance may not appear to be conducive of groupwork.

Learning Outcomes: Constructive Alignment At this point, it may be helpful have a better understanding of constructive alignment as a curriculum design process."Constructive alignment has two aspects. The 'constructive' aspect refers to what the learner does, which is to construct meaning through relevant learning activities. The 'alignment' aspect refers to what the teacher does, which is to set up a learning environment that supports the learning activities appropriate to achieving the desired learning outcomes. The key is that the components in the teaching system, especially the teaching methods used and the assessment tasks are aligned to the learning activities assumed in the intended outcomes.

Reduced transactional distance and online community – Explorations in the ed tech world At the start of COVID, I hastily wrote a post about teaching online using email and a phone. I wrote that post because I was concerned that faculty and institutional support staff would be overloaded with trying to move courses into a learning management system, which isn’t always an easy undertaking. In some institutions where there isn’t much capacity to support faculty it seemed like it would be an overwhelming task for faculty to have to learn how to use a learning management system if they’d never been in one before. My approach in this circumstance has always been to identify the the lowest common denominator tool from an access and digital literacy perspective.

Fellowship Category Tool The Fellowship Category Tool has been designed to assist you in selecting the category of Fellowship that is the closest match to your current practice. The tool consists of a set of statements that are aligned to the UK Professional Standards Framework (UK PSF) and its different Descriptors and Dimensions. This self-analysis tool will ask about your professional activities in teaching and/or supporting learning in higher education. How Can We Make the Most of Synchronous and Asynchronous Time in Distance Learning? As we look forward to the fall in which many schools will continue in a distance learning model to begin the year, we know that the Herculean effort that has been referred to as emergency remote learning taught us a lot about how we might better design learning experiences in the fall both in person and in a remote or distance learning model. One of the most important perspectives that should inform next steps is that of the students. YouthTruth surveyed over 40,000 students and the first finding of the report is: Only half of students said their teachers give them assignments that really help them learn and 39 percent said they learn a lot every day.YouthTruth Student Survey The report highlights student perspectives on what worked and what was challenging: To better understand the variance in student experiences I want to shared three examples of the approaches I saw to help us think about how we can intentionally design more authentic and empowering learning models in the fall.

digitalstorytellingsynthesis / Digital storytelling in higher education McLellan (2006: 73), while recognising that digital storytelling has applications in a range of disciplines, prioritises its use for personal stories, digital story archives, memorial stories, avocational stories, educational stories and stories in medicine and health. This usage can be said to reflect the agentive nature of storytelling. Oppermann (2008), Coventry (2008), Jenkins & Lonsdale (2008) Olney et al (2009) all provide examples of how digital storytelling use within higher education is broadening out beyond the priority areas identified by McLellan. Behind this increased use, both in frequency and spread is an understanding of the impact that this approach can have on the student learning experience that draws upon the pedagogy of storytelling but also recognises the affordances provided through the use of technology. Benmayor (2008: 198) identifies digital storytelling as a social pedagogy, approaching learning as a collaborative process.

Not Taking Bad Advice: a Pedagogical Model The text for my flipped keynote at Digital Pedagogy Lab 2020. I’ve never created a model for online, digital, or hybrid pedagogies. As long as I’ve been teaching, and as long as I’ve been teaching teachers, I’ve encountered, been flummoxed by, or have cast off models. International Journal for Students as Partners Vision The International Journal for Students as Partners (IJSaP) is a new journal about learning and teaching together in higher education. IJSaP explores new perspectives, practices, and policies regarding how students and staff (used here and subsequently to refer to academic staff/faculty, professional staff, and other stakeholders) are working in partnership to enhance learning and teaching in higher education. Shared responsibility for teaching and learning is the underlying premise of students as partners, and IJSaP is produced using a student-staff partnership approach. IJSaP is designed to appeal to a wide audience of readers and potential authors in the higher education community. It aims to publish high quality research articles, case studies, reflective essays, reviews and opinion pieces from around the world.

QAA publishes 'building a taxonomy for digital learning' While the majority of UK universities intend to offer some onsite teaching next term, most have nonetheless had to move quickly to a greater use of digital delivery. But how should universities and colleges describe the digital education on offer next year in a way that is clearly understood across the sector, and ensures students know what kind of experience they’ll be getting? Following discussions with senior leaders and educators from across the higher education sector, QAA has published new guidance - Building a Taxonomy for Digital Learning - which aims to help build a common language to describe digital approaches to programme delivery. In doing so, the guidance will help education providers explain what students can expect from their programmes and allow them to better understand the differences between the learning experiences on offer.

The effects of physical activity on brain structure and neurophysiological functioning in children: A systematic review and meta-analysis Álvarez-Bueno et al., 2017 C. Álvarez-Bueno, C. Pesce, I. Cavero-Redondo, M. Sánchez-López, J.A. The Open Textbook Project provides flexible and affordable access to higher education resources Subtitle: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning Author: A.W. (Tony) Bates Book Description: On October 10, 2019, Teaching in a Digital Age - Second Edition was published.The book examines the underlying principles that guide effective teaching in an age when all of us, and in particular the students we are teaching, are using technology. A framework for making decisions about your teaching is provided, while understanding that every subject is different, and every instructor has something unique and special to bring to their teaching.The book enables teachers and instructors to help students develop the knowledge and skills they will need in a digital age: not so much the IT skills, but the thinking and attitudes to learning that will bring them success. Book release date (final version): 1 April 2015.

When should we choose to teach live rather than asynchronously? – Dr Robert O'Toole NTF In an earlier article, I dissected a sophisticated learning design for live online active learning, with responsive teaching, peer-learning and group work in breakout rooms. As the example demonstrated, this is a relatively complex approach, when compared to live on-campus teaching, and compared to asynchronous methods. There’s a lot of technical, cognitive, communicational and social complexity involved, and plenty of scope for things to go wrong. The simplest form of live online teaching, the live-streamed lecture, reduces these risks, but at the same time has little additional value over sharing a pre-recorded lecture. We can combine pre-recorded lectures with other kinds of asynchronous collaboration, including discussion forums and tasks, as well as shorter, less risky, live Q&A sessions (as in this example).

A SoTL Primer How many times did you introduce SoTL to someone new in the last year, and what did that introduction look like: a definition, a description, a metaphor, a citation, a workshop, a book, a website? I dream of a SoTL primer, a little anthology of key readings that would together provide some coverage, depth, and range of the field. I imagine a simple cover, a size that fits comfortably in my hands and lightly in my bookbag, lovingly worn pages with dog-eared corners and post-it notes throughout, and oh that book smell.