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  • Look at how design thinking can be applied in higher education, specifically distance education
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  • Sandra Law updated the event Community of Learning Design and Development Meeting #1 August 30, 2016 - 12:04pm
  • Mary Pringle bookmarked Teaching at the University of Manitoba July 19, 2016 - 9:52am
    Handbook that has good information on teaching in general, especially on assessment design.
  • Jon Dron commented on the blog ABC RAPID BLENDED COURSE DESIGN FOR EDUCATORS July 11, 2016 - 12:54pm
    An interesting approach. Much better to start with learning rather than what is to be examined.  My suspicion is that you could use any number of different underlying frameworks (including any number of learning style theories and possibly even...
  • Luis Guadarrama published a blog post ABC RAPID BLENDED COURSE DESIGN FOR EDUCATORS July 11, 2016 - 11:16am
    ABC RAPID BLENDED COURSE DESIGN FOR EDUCATORS Clive Young, Nataša Perović, University College London, United KingdomOverview How do we best help our time-pressured academics design rich blended and online courses? To address this,...
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    • Jon Dron July 11, 2016 - 12:54pm

      An interesting approach. Much better to start with learning rather than what is to be examined.  My suspicion is that you could use any number of different underlying frameworks (including any number of learning style theories and possibly even astrology) to achieve something similar: it's about thinking about the diverse ways learning happens more than the particular framework. I tend to use the Lewin/Kolb cycle in a similar way, sometimes Pask's serialist/holist model, occasionally even multiple intelligences. Though I am highly sceptical of all of them as meaningful representations of reality, it's useful in the design process, as you say, to have an aide memoire. With that in mind, using this framework might make it rather easy to forget reflection. Reflection seems to be an implied afterthought in the production learning type, rather than something central to the activity. This is quite strange, given Laurillard's Conversational Framework in which reflection plays such a central and critical binding role.

      My more general slight concern with the approach is that, in a truly integrated design, all of these learning types are tightly intertwingled. Especially when experiences/activities are correllated with technological toolsets (as suggested by the cards), the metaphor runs the risk of being treated as one of assembling pieces to build a machine. It would be very easy to come up with a Lego-like construction, one of those awful designs where students go to one place for their discussions, another for their acquisition, another for their practice, etc. Perhaps it would be better thought of as being more like a cake, in which the individual ingredients are inseparable and indistinguishable from one another when they come out of the oven. And, of course, it makes a huge difference how you mix them, and how you bake them, with each part and each process deeply affecting all the rest.

  • Students appreciate, and increasingly expect, consistent and well considered use of online learning. This guidance document sets out the minimum expectations, or baseline, for e-learning provision for all taught programmes and...
  • Thanks for posting the link to  your session, Sandra. I am really looking forward to the Impact UDL conference.
  • Discussion of UDL principles in the context of engagement of at-risk students and high risk courses.
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    • Mary Pringle December 11, 2015 - 4:43am

      Thanks for posting the link to  your session, Sandra. I am really looking forward to the Impact UDL conference.

  • This session will explore how UDL strategies and tools can be used to promote student engagement in postsecondary learning environments. The discussion will include a review of the way these approaches can be used to support at-risk students and...
  • Archie Zariski commented on the blog Observations from Open Ed 2015 December 7, 2015 - 5:06pm
    Andrew, thanks for the report. I am finding more and more open source materials such as papers and articles on institutional websites that can substitute well for book compilations. As you know, at AU, at least for the present, savings through using...
  • Andrew Han published a blog post Observations from Open Ed 2015 December 7, 2015 - 1:14pm
    OpenEd 2015 November 18–20 of this year, over 500 hundred delegates attended the 12th annual Open Education Conference at the Fairmont Hotel in downtown Vancouver.  This was my second trip to OpenEd as I had last attended in 2012, also...
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    • Archie Zariski December 7, 2015 - 5:06pm

      Andrew, thanks for the report. I am finding more and more open source materials such as papers and articles on institutional websites that can substitute well for book compilations. As you know, at AU, at least for the present, savings through using OER are not being passed on to students, but that may change. What I am doing is also creating parallel open non-credit courses (OCW) which use the OER for the benefit of the publc generally.

  • Sandra Law uploaded the file Games and Problem-based Learning November 26, 2015 - 3:36pm
    PPT associated with LD Showcase.
  • Discussion of the way that games can be used to support the development of problem-solving skills in courses
  • Jon Dron commented on a bookmark Top 10 stupid mistakes in design of Multiple Choice questions November 19, 2015 - 7:20pm
    Nice example, Mary. It suggests to me that they are often just a good way to measure knowledge of how to do MCQs! I think objective tests are mostly OK for some basic fact-oriented subjects as long as they are used solely as a formative learning...
  • Mary McNabb commented on a bookmark Top 10 stupid mistakes in design of Multiple Choice questions November 19, 2015 - 5:36pm
    I guess multiple choice questions are an efficient way of "measuring knowledge". There was a prof from U. Alberta who did studied the MCQs on Alberta Education's standardized tests (Grades 3, 6, 9 and diploma exams in Grade 12) and came to the...
  • Hongxin Yan published a blog post Mapping Out Learning Outcomes Workshop November 9, 2015 - 3:28pm
    On October 13, 2015, CLDD hosted approximately 20 enthusiastic participants for the “Mapping Out Learning Outcomes Workshop,” the first ever learning-outcomes-focused workshop at AU.    Dr. Cindy Ives, former long-time Director...
  • Hongxin Yan created a new photo album img November 9, 2015 - 2:58pm
    • OpenEd 2015
    • workshopOct15-1
    • workshopOct15-2
  • Nice little tutorial from Donald Clark. Mostly very sound advice on good multiple-choice question design, with a very clear focus on formative rather than summative assessment, and with a good emphasis on providing useful feedback rather than just...
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    • Mary McNabb November 19, 2015 - 5:31pm

      I guess multiple choice questions are an efficient way of "measuring knowledge". There was a prof from U. Alberta who did studied the MCQs on Alberta Education's standardized tests (Grades 3, 6, 9 and diploma exams in Grade 12) and came to the conclusion that they tested reading more than content. To prove his point, he showed us the patterns in the test and then gave us questions from a Math 31 test. Even though most of the audience had not taken Math 31 (calculus), we were able to answer the questions and get about 60% based on our knowledge of how the test was constructed. The strategies were very similar to the strategies on the TV show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, so that's how we taught test taking for achievement tests. 

    • Jon Dron November 19, 2015 - 7:20pm

      Nice example, Mary. It suggests to me that they are often just a good way to measure knowledge of how to do MCQs!

      I think objective tests are mostly OK for some basic fact-oriented subjects as long as they are used solely as a formative learning tool and not for accreditation. Even when you use tricks like confidence weightings to reduce the benefits of guessing to a minimum, they still tell us very little about what people can actually do, but they can in principle be a useful way for learners to figure out for themselves what they know about. Unfortunately, even when the marks count for nothing and they are the only people that will ever see the results, many learners still tend to try to game the system. I'm not sure whether that is in our nature or something we have learned, but it's weird.