T&L seminar with UCT Law Faculty
Earlier this year I was invited by Alan Rycroft at the UCT Law Faculty to give a presentation at a seminar on T&L. The seminar took place yesterday and I presented some research that I did in 2012...
View ArticleLearning is difficult
“He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.” Friedrich Nietzsche Learning how to do anything well takes time and often...
View ArticleThis will revolutionise education
Great video on the problems with making predictions about how certain technologies are poised to revolutionise education. There’s nothing particularly new in the video, but the presentation makes it...
View ArticleAbstract: Student Success and Engagement project
Our faculty has implemented a 3 year research project looking at improving Student Success and Engagement in the faculty. The project is being coordinated across several departments in the faculty and...
View ArticleWithout anyones permission: The open web and online learning
As teaching and learning activities move into online and blended learning environments we need to think carefully about how we use those spaces, which is often determined by the features of the...
View ArticleGroupwork and introverts
I really enjoyed this presentation on TED, particularly this line: “… the transcendent power of solitude“. Being an introvert doesn’t mean someone who is shy or reluctant to engage with others. It...
View ArticleMoving between consuming and creating: Thinking about workflow
I use Pocket a lot. It’s not unusual for me to have more than 500 articles saved to read later, which to be honest, causes me a bit of anxiety. It’s a list of “things to do” that I know I’ll never...
View ArticleOur students succeed despite their education, not because of it
Note: Thank you to Dave Nicholls from the Critical Physiotherapy Network for his insight and comments that helped inform this post. Foucault said that the most dangerous ideas were the ones that we’re...
View ArticlePersonal learning environments
Dominant design is the idea that, once a design has risen to prominence, all innovation will aim at improving it, rather than competing alternatives, regardless of whether the dominant design is better...
View ArticleWhy Kindergarten in Finland Is All About Playtime – The Atlantic
Forget the Common Core, Finland’s youngsters are in charge of determining what happens in the classroom. Source: Why Kindergarten in Finland Is All About Playtime (and Why That Could Be More...
View ArticleTeaching, learning and risk
I’ve had these ideas bouncing around in my head for a week or so and finally have a few minutes to try and get them out. I’ve been wondering why changing practice – in higher education and the clinical...
View ArticleHow people learn
Source: Downes, S. (2018). How people learn. A nice collection of quotes in a slideshow, taken from a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, that highlights the...
View ArticleKnowledge is more important than money
Those who work really hard throughout their career but don’t take time out of their schedule to constantly learn will be the new “at-risk” group. They risk remaining stuck on the bottom rung of global...
View ArticleWhen a metric becomes a target it fails to be a good metric.
Lately I’ve been thinking about metrics and all the ways that they can be misleading. Don’t get me wrong; I think that measuring is important. Measuring is the reason that our buildings and bridges...
View ArticleComment: The game of school.
Schools are about learning, but it’s mostly learning how to play the game. At some level, even though we like to talk about schools as though they are about learning in some pure, liberal-arts sense,...
View ArticlePSA: Learning is not fun
At the risk of upsetting people again I thought it’d be useful to reiterate (i.e. double down) on the idea that learning is not fun. Last year I made what I thought was a relatively uncontroversial...
View ArticleSeven principles of learning
This is a short summary of a post by Scott Young that itself summarises the learning principles presented in Why don’t students like school, by Daniel Willingham. I’ve added the book to my reading list...
View ArticleResource: Online learning in a hurry
Dave Cormier has provided an excellent series of short (5 minute) videos called Online learning in a hurry, for teachers who are now expected to move their teaching and assessment online. What I really...
View ArticleFor students: The Learning to Learn project
Earlier this year I launched a small project in my department, called Learning to Learn. The aim of the project is to share and discuss with students a range of evidence-based techniques that improve...
View ArticleRecalibrating expectations?
Last week we had a discussion about teaching practical physiotherapy techniques remotely and one of our participants asked (in the text chat) if anyone had any plans to teach fewer techniques....
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