Monthly Archives: August 2018

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Allowing Students To Explore

pocket compassIn today’s colleges and universities there is an emphasis on developing students with critical thinking skills. This soft skill is less about memorizing a path and more about being able to adapt and apply knowledge in new situations. If this is true, why then do we continue to teach in ways that don’t allow students to explore? How have we gotten to a place where our students seem to be less and less comfortable in ambiguous situations?

If we go back years before we ever see these students walk through our doors, we observe that children in our society are often scheduled from what seems like birth. While the goal is to create smart, athletic super kids who seemingly have it all, the reality is that we are doing a disservice to our children.

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Knowing That They Know What You Think They Know

Illustration of areas of brain dedicated to types of memoryAfter students watch an online lecture, what do they know? What do they think they know? How do you know what they know?

Instructors just venturing into online learning often have the valid concern that they might not be able to tell if their students are “getting it.” Without being able to see students during the lecture, they won’t see the encouraging nods, the confused raised eyebrows, the glazed-over look of boredom. And when your students have so many potential distractions available on the Internet just a click away, it can be troubling to not know how much of their attention you have when they’re watching your lecture.

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Preparing for the Future When the Virtual is so Real

PS4 gaming consoleLike any mom of teens, I am trying to pull my 13-year-old son away from his game console and get him to try something that I think would benefit him for his growth—something like reading!

“But books are history,” Grant claimed. “And this…” he tilted his head toward the screen with his hands still fixated on the bat-shaped controller, “is the future.”

But, Grant, you see, history is…

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Takeaways from UBTech 2018

UBTech 2018This year for my conference choice I picked UBTech. The conference was held at The Mirage hotel in Las Vegas, baby, and it was during June so you can imagine how the weather was. But as everyone likes to say, “at least it’s dry heat!”

As the name suggests, UBTech is very tech heavy. If you are on a mission to find new technology for your classroom/school, this is the conference to go to. As I am an instructional designer, I did struggle to find topics more geared towards online learning but I still feel I came away with some useful knowledge!

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