Monthly Archives: February 2014

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Reclaiming Your Classroom

As the name might suggest, Faculty Instructional Technology Services (FITS) is tasked with providing technology support to instructors for the purposes of enhancing teaching and learning.  A great deal of the job entails the development and support of online, hybrid, and flipped classes.  We’ve been doing this for a while, but lately we’ve been hearing a new set of questions as the direction of higher education moves more and more online:

“I’m teaching a hybrid/flipped class, and I’ve put all my documents online, provided lecture videos, and I do all my papers and exams online as well.  But now I have all this extra face time in class…what do I do with it?”

Fear not. We’re here for that too.  It is true that the majority of learning materials can usually be offloaded to an online resource.  Students can come to class having seen the lecture material, perhaps turned in a homework assignment or taken a quiz, and maybe even participated in a discussion online.  This offloading of materials means students can take advantage of the ebb and flow in their personal schedules to complete the class work online, but they still need meaningful learning experiences when they are face to face.  Let’s examine some possible strategies that can be easily implemented to reclaim your class time.

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From Content Critical to Content Cheap: The Change of Online Course Value

In the December issue of the Campus Technology magazine, Gerry McCartney, CIO at Purdue University, was cited in “What Will Happen to MOOCs Now that Udacity Is Leaving Higher Ed?” for his response to the downward spiral of the MOOC.  McCartney “applauded the MOOC makers for demonstrating that ‘content has almost no value…”, and when it comes to the value of this type of education, “the money is not in the content”.

McCartney believes that the learning experience delivered through a MOOC is like learning from watching The History Channel. It is merely access to content—a low-value type of education.  In his opinion, one can get the best Chaucerian professor to publish a book for everyone in the world to read, but it is impossible for the same professor to offer a class to teach everyone in the world because learning requires personal interaction. Personal interaction, as Gerry McCartney points out, is the high-value type of education—something that is not scalable in a MOOC.

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Amazing Learning from Amazing People

A Selected Recollection of my Teaching and Learning Experiences

PART 1

Ever since I was a little boy, I have been blessed with plenty of opportunities for teaching to and learning from others both in academic and non-academic activities. Going back to my first grade times, I recall an assignment where I was asked to draw a traditional family picture: you know, dad, mom, children, and a dog. I was sitting in my study desk at home struggling with this assignment because I was (and still am) not a good illustrator at all. Then a friend of the family who was visiting us that day offered me his help. With his help, I was able to finish successfully the family picture. In his own ways, he taught me a few tricks regarding the drawing of a human face, and the contour of a typical dog. With his help, I was able to tackle later assignments involving drawing with much more confidence. As I learned from my friend, as artistic as drawing can be there are usually some basic steps that can be followed by anyone to end up with a decent picture or portrayal. What is remarkable about this story is that the person who helped me draw a family picture was himself a person who had a moderate degree of intellectual disability. Also in first grade, I remember one of my classmates having difficulties with reading and math, two subjects I was pretty good at. She asked me if I could help her and I gladly did so. Thus, here I was in first grade on the one hand struggling with drawing but improving thanks to somebody else’s help, and on the other hand having an opportunity to help a classmate in her struggles with reading and math. Continue reading →