SCALE-UP: solving the shortcomings in traditional physics instruction
"Studio/workshop classes such as SCALE-UP (Student-Centered Activities for Large Enrollment Undergraduate Programs) give instructors another choice by replacing the lecture/laboratory format with 4–6 hours of activity-based instruction per week, typically in 2-hour blocks. This format has several advantages over the traditional lecture/laboratory format. Because the entire class is taught in the same room with the same students and instructors in each class, all activities, including laboratory experiments, can be arranged to build on one another in sequence for greater learning impact (14) than when some activities are taught in small sections running parallel to the lecture course. When a lab section is taught as a separate course, it is often weeks or at best a few days ahead of or behind the lecture, and for some students, the lab course is not even taken in the same term as the lecture. Additionally, even in an interactive lecture, students can avoid instructors by hiding in the middle of the row, away from the aisles. In the studio format, instructors can freely circulate and interact with any group at any time."
(Robert Beichner and Jeffery Saul)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
The creative use of mobile technologies to enhance learning and teaching in the performing and visual arts
Date: 26 Apr 2013, Location/venue: The Old Fire Station, University of Salford, England
The workshop"offers an opportunity for those involved in teaching, or directly managing degree programmes in the Arts, to find out more about the role mobile learning can play in enhancing the student and tutor experience. Through a series of presentations, activities and discussions, led by academics from the Arts discipline area, participants will be introduced to mobile technologies approaches and see discipline-focused exemplars of mobile learning applied in teaching practice."
(Higher Education Academy)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Storyville: Exploring narratives of learning and teaching, the 2nd annual HEA Arts and Humanities conference, 2013
Date: 29 May 2013 - 30 May 2013
Location/venue: Thistle Brighton, King's Road, Brighton, England, BN1 2GS
The Higher Education Academy’s second annual learning and teaching Arts and Humanities conference, ‘Storyville: Exploring narratives of learning and teaching’ will take place on 29 – 30 May 2013 in Brighton.
"At the heart of the Arts and Humanities disciplines sit stories – stories which create and recreate worlds, distant and present, stories which inspire and engage, stories which grow imaginations and expand what is thinkable.
Stories are everywhere, and our second annual conference seeks to explore the intersections between narrative and learning and teaching..."
(Higher Education Academy, UK)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Teach and Learn Online: Die LMS die! You too PLE!
"The PLE project recognises the fundamental flaws in Virtual Learning Environments or Learning Management Systems (VLE, LMS), but falls short in its vision of an alternative. At this stage in the project it is suggesting that the PLE be a desktop application for a student (sounds a bit like my old Perfect LMS idea) or a singular portal online.
At risk of sounding like a broken record, I'll have to repeat my defining question about Internet enhanced learning, but this time in response to the PLE.
Question to the PLE: Why do we need a PLE when we already have the Internet? The Internet is my PLE, ePortfolio, VLE what ever. Thanks to blogger, bloglines, flickr, delicious, wikispaces, ourmedia, creative commons, and what ever comes next in this new Internet age, I have a strong online ID and very extensive and personalised learning environment. Actually I think the PLE idea is better envisioned by the futurist concept known as the Evolving Personalised Information Construct (EPIC). I think we already have EPIC, so why do we need the PLE?
To extend the statement: We insignificant little teachers and our out of date schools and classrooms don't need to be investing in media projects like VLEs, LMS and even PLEs. Our dam walls of knowledge have burst! and no amount of sand bagging will stop the flood that is clearly discrediting our authority over learning. Media, and with it communications, will evolve (as it certainly has in the last 50 years or more) well beyond the limitations of our classrooms, with investments and broadcast influence we can't even fathom. Why waste our precious money and time on projects that only serve to suspend our true position within that media scape. The PLE makes me think of ELGG, and it all makes me wonder why it is we educationalists still think we are even relevant anymore. The people (yes that includes us) are learning how to read and write for themselves, and in an amazing act of collective generosity, the people are teaching each other - why do they even need our classrooms... is it perhaps only credentialism that we offer? Or is it also sense of security and safety? Is it false?"
(Leigh Blackall, 13 November 2005)
Fig.1 "Lords of Graphite" by 5star (Neil Caldwell).
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Computer Supported Collaborative Learning
"CSCL is focused on how collaborative learning supported by technology can enhance peer interaction and work in groups, and how collaboration and technology facilitate sharing and distributing of knowledge and expertise among community members."
(Lasse Lipponen, 2002)
2). Lipponen, L. (2002). "Exploring foundations for computer-supported collaborative learning". Proceedings of the Conference on Computer Support for Collaborative Learning: Foundations for a CSCL Community. Boulder, Colorado, International Society of the Learning Sciences: 72-81.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
