Greenflame

Following up from my post Student Views on Technology and Teaching, here’s another brief newspaper article: New programs, functionality, gadgets change higher ed experience – chicagotribune.com

Hat tip to Michelle Dickinson.

Student feedback on how we use technology (or misuse or completely miss the boat with) in teaching is helpful to making sure it’s not a barrier for students. Blog U.: Student Views on Technology and Teaching – Technology and Learning – Inside Higher Ed has an example of this kind of student feedback, including a list of things that could be implemented with little effort. These are:

1. “Ensure that all readings, articles, presentations and videos (all course material) are available in the course management system.”
2. “Create a weekly reading assessment that asks students to formulate or discuss the most important things you wanted them to get out the this week’s articles.”
3. “Make your syllabus a living document and let students know about changes via class emails – it will put your class in the forefront of their minds.”
4. “Use technology to help students engage with one another – create peer review groups for papers or discussion groups online.”

I do most of these things already, but it’s something to think about as I head into the next semester.

(Of course, it doesn’t address issues around students’ information literacy, e-literacy, and access to IT – but that’s another kettle of fish).

“Education is the sum of what students teach each other in between lectures and seminars.” – Stephen Fry (‘The Fry Chronicles’)

The question is, of course, whether students in the current tertiary system have any time between lectures in which they can form friendships, explore life, reflect on the world, and be curious about things within, on the fringe of, and outside their programmes. My observation is that the short semesters (12 weeks of lectures – typically in two 6 week blocks), increased emphasis on constant assessment through coursework rather than exams, having to work part-time to support studying, the predominant focus on degrees leading to jobs, and more mature students returning to study (with associated family and other commitments) leads to a significant loss of that ‘extra-curricular’ element of tertiary education. (Not to mention a decline in participation in things like clubs etc.)

In the past few months I’ve started to come across research that’s started to look at some of these things. A couple of local examples are:

Robert J. Manthei, Alison Gilmore, (2005) “The effect of paid employment on university students’ lives”, Education + Training, Vol. 47 Iss: 3, pp.202 – 215. (University of Canterbury study)

and

Edgar Burns, Yahanpath, Noel, Replication Study: Undergraduate Students Balancing Paid Semester Work and Study. (Available from Victoria University)

Spent the last three weeks or so of annual leave thinking about the notion of vocation. Inspired, in part, by the link to Doctoral degrees: The disposable academic | The Economist, because we’ve caught up with various friends over the break who have a strong sense of vocation, and also as I’m in the process of hitting a number of academic milestones (roadblocks?) and processes in my own work situation (e.g. about to go through the whole ‘continuation’ portfolio process, PBRF portfolio, study leave conditionally granted for semester 2). Bill Gates old slogan ‘Where do you want to go today?’ seems apt as I start 2011.