Faculty Focus

HIGHER ED TEACHING STRATEGIES FROM MAGNA PUBLICATIONS

instructional technologies

faculty learning community - FLC

Building the Ship while Sailing: Faculty Learning Communities and Technology

Dana Schutz has a visually cacophonous, 13-foot-long painting titled Building the Boat While Sailing. In reviewing the work for the New Yorker, Andrea Scott referred to it as, “an allegory for the process of making a painting.” We think this painting might also serve as an allegory for teaching, which is very much its own creative process. Even in courses with clearly stated objectives and fastidious alignment, the learning environment changes shape frequently as a given term unfolds.

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Selecting Online Learning Technologies: An Interview with Tony Bates

With so many technologies available to enhance online learning, it’s important to choose wisely. In an interview with Online Classroom, Tony Bates, an e-learning and distance education planning and management consultant, offered some insights on what to consider when making technology choices. We offer an excerpt of that interview here.

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Save Time and Teach Better with Screencasting

It is critical to spend time training your students how to properly use the systems you’ve adopted into your teaching repertoire. A common fallacy is to believe that because students today are “digital natives”—meaning that they grew up with technology—they are good at using any technology. I’ve found that students’ understanding of technology is narrow and deep. They are very adept at text messaging and navigating Facebook, but they are not versed in using blogs, wikis, document sharing systems, and the like.

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Teaching with Technology: A More Meaningful Learning Experience Starts with Two Simple Questions

We are bombarded with information about online course supplements and the newest interactive multimedia components, all touted as the best approach to engage today’s learners in the online environment. Dedicated practitioners puzzle over how, when, and where to incorporate multimedia within their online courses and further agonize over the potential effects of choosing not to do so.

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2010 Horizon Report Identifies Six Technologies to Watch

The New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) have released the 2010 Horizon Report. The annual Horizon Report features the continuing work of the NMC’s Horizon Project, a long-term research project that identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have considerable impact on teaching, learning, and creative inquiry within higher education.

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Millennial Faculty Are Coming. Are You Ready?

Don’t look now but it won’t be long before Millennial faculty arrive on your campus as well. For four-year institutions, the first wave of Millennial faculty should arrive by 2013. For community colleges, where many faculty often are not required to have doctorates, the wave will arrive even sooner.

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