Category: LearningAndTeaching
-
Of Peer Learning and Being Filmed Teaching
Being filmed when teaching … and other peer review tools I was not so much thrown by my colleague’s presence in the seminar room, but by the video camera. Normally teaching is fleeting; it is a fluid, temporal, and private space, where my students and I create meaning, interact, laugh, banter, and discuss. However, being…
-
Teaching and the Notion of Kata
The impossibility of simple 26th January 2019. Culling this blog, I enjoy revisiting some of the posts and ideas. Even though most of them are half-baked. They are junctions without signposts from crossroads walked in a time and space long gone. But the tracks are still there. Like footprints in the sand. What I learned,…
-
Radiography, Gallery of Modern Art & International Students
The Issue I wanted my students, to take ownership of ‘how’ they use English in their presentations, instead of just focussing on bringing content across any-which-way. As master students the class are all professionals, used to present and speak in front of peers. However, translating this confidence into a different language is challenging—I am speaking…
-
Vulnerability, Possibility thinking and Resilience
Connecting the Dots: Culture of Vulnerability, Possibility Thinking & Resilience Friday thoughts in three dots I am currently working on a couple of projects and research ideas. Some of the conceptual considerations came (more or less) together this morning. Mind you this post is the mind-mappingly drafting of a draft in an attempted linear form.…
-
Learning Space—An Alpine Marmot
Learning Spaces When you undertake a biggish research project, such as a PhD, there will be topics that are like Alpine Marmots. You technically know they are there. You know they can randomly pop-up, unexpectedly, surprisingly, and twitch their little noses right in your face. However, these Alpine Marmot topics make only marginal appearances throughout…
-
Getting a Voice Make-Over
Voice Problems in Teaching I am writing this post to share my experiment: ‘going to a voice coach’. Just in case you have similar issues to mine and may have wondered … However, if the topic sounds mind-numbingly boring, look at the following photo instead: Moon Moon is back! For a year or so I…
-
Prevent students from developing bad habits.
Reflections on participating in our annual Learning & Teaching Showcase (you will find the poster on page two). Prevent students from developing bad habits. That is pretty much the aim of my 1st year academic development module. For my poster I used the cliché of ‘long thin induction’. Clichés have the advantage that at least everyone…
-
Exam Buffet for Exam Diet
Exam Preparation and Coping with Stress Living a bilingual life gives me the very annoying super-power to see beyond words, for instance: exam diet. Oxford English Dictionary explains that ‘diet’ describes activities ‘in which a person or group habitually engages’.* However, my superpower enables me to completely ignore the contextualised meaning and jump straight to…
-
Teaching is a High Risk Profession
The topic: teaching as a high risk profession keeps emerging this year, creating a strange pattern of forced reflection. It became particularly prevalent a couple of weeks ago, when for the first time in months a student challenged me during a seminar. Teaching a high risk profession: or not? Most of you will not know…
-
Proxies and ‘as if’ to establish ‘real-life context’
Auracalia have been my penultimate proxies. Observing these fossil trees can have you time-travel to prehistoric times and spaces. An aspect from my undergraduate studies meandered into my awareness recently: the idea that educational institutions (are supposed to) provide a safe space for learners to try out for ‘real life’ situations. An idea I try…
-
Feedback—Fed Back
The final exercise in the feedback session was: Evaluation forms—revisited. At the end of each module (or sometimes when I am developing new sessions at the end of a session) I hand out feedback forms asking the students very focused and often slightly leading questions about their experience of my teaching. So to keep up…
-
Feedback Rules!
This week raising awareness of feedback, the different forms of feedback and its impact on the students’ academic as well as professional development was on the agenda. I wanted to ensure the students would gain some understanding of how feedback works not only from their perspective but also from the perspective of academic staff. Yes,…
-
Plagiarism, Referencing and Pop Quiz Traps
Teaching plagiarism and referencing can be boring not only for the students but also for the lecturer. However, my colleagues had a brilliant idea! Last year they created a clicker session; alternating information about plagiarism and referencing with quiz questions the students could answer via a voting system. It works really well, particularly when being…