The Teaching & Learning Centre offers facilitation and support for bringing groups of faculty members (and staff, and grad students) together to talk about various topics and issues that interest them. We’re calling these groups “Learning Communities” because they’re not intended to be a TLC-led workshop or presentation, but a hands-on in-the-trenches active discussion between the faculty members who are interested in a topic. More information on the “Learning Communities” concept is available here. Basically, we provide a room, some caffeine and munchies, and help get a discussion going, with the goal being to have faculty members sharing their strategies, tips, successes and failures to help each other.
Currently, we’ve had a few gatherings of a “Blogging and Student Publishing” group, and although we’ve only met over the summer break and so haven’t had huge turnout, I think the discussions and ideas that have been generated have been fantastic. (see my notes from one of the last gatherings)
I’m looking to extend the idea beyond the initial “Blogging and Student Publishing” learning community, but need some help from you to identify which topics are most of interest.
Instead of having us just randomly pick topics that faculty members might be interested in, we’re now running a poll to let you identify which (if any) are of interest to you. If you have ideas for other topics you’d like to discuss with other faculty members who share an interest, please describe it by leaving a comment.
Also, please circulate this poll to anyone whom you think might be interested in a faculty discussion/support community.
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Although student publishing overlaps, I’m currently working on ways of helping a group of project managers from China take charge of their own English-language learning community by creating a Wiki that isn’t just a product of learning but actually affords an emergent learning process.
Paul Anderson
Master’s thesis student in learning design
The best ways to communicate key messages to students and ideas for integrating on-line tools, social networking sites, and mobile device features into your communication plan.
Paul, I’d love to hear about the project!
Martina, I should have added an option for “Social networking” – perhaps that fits under “Student Publishing (and collaboration)” for now?
I would like to learn how to use MOODLE (Modular Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment). This open source Learning Management System (LMS) is being used more and and more by post-secondary institutions and students apparently love it.
Marg, I think Moodle (and potentially other LMS?) would be great candidates for a learning community. I wonder how many faculty members have opted to use other LMS platforms already?
D’arcy, If you hear of other instructors, grad students, etc. who are interested in learning to MOODLE, please let me know. It s market share in both higher education and workplace is growing rapidly. I would not be surprised if other instructors might already be looking at MOODLE as an option. Cheers.
D’Arcy was good enough to follow up with a few support questions for my emerging class wiki:
His entries are the questions; mine are the attempts at answers.
Mostly, I’m curious about how the students are engaged – are they creating new content?
Well I’ve been going over my notes on the Garrison and Vaughan course, and looking at ways to propel the engagement through a cycle of inquiry. I think Jonassen’s paper on Activity Theory for the design of learning environments will be valuable.
Having the participants create/adapt/transform content for each other is central to what I hope to accomplish. I’d actually like to see them create an ongoing community of practice for themselves. Each iteration of our course for this particular client becomes a kind of legacy piece…
The course starts off f2f, transitions to blended as the site evolves, then needs to transition to fully online over the course of 12 weeks. Each year an infusion of new blended builders…
I think my concern is to reign myself in. I’m excited that they would have the skills to manage the evolution of the community but my mantra right now is to do less–well.
responding to existing content? linking to external resources?
The Internet and company intranets contain a wealth of language-learning interactions, activities, content. The key is for them to transform it … creating mini-lessons on grammar points and technical structures, summaries, outlines and concept maps of technical papers, glossaries of technical terms…
The wiki is a bit light in a few areas–we’ll probably need to link to outside tools if we’re to develop a solid social presence/culture of inquiry. Blogger, maybe a listserv, Flickr…Clipmarks…not sure what else yet
I haven’t seen that much in the way of exemplars of learners actually creating their own community and learning materials. Not sure if you have run across any gems…?
Are they using the discussion features to reflect on the content and decide on changes?
May need a listserv…not sure yet about PB Wiki 2.0 chat. Have a couple of queries out regarding other social networking tools, many of which I’m sure I’m not even aware of. Most of their small group discussions of content I would see f2f, but at least some of the feedback and response pieces could be asynchronous.
How are they being assessed?
Moderate intensity of assessment. Rubrics for calibre of reflection, feedback, teamwork, project work. Some of the assessment for learning pieces–surveys, etc.
Is participation mandatory?
Some will be. Don’t want to overdo.
Are they able to edit each other’s work? How does that affect assessment?
Good question about how that affects assessment. I’ll ponder.
I’ve got lots of questions, but those are a good start
Thanks. That was a good workout. Cheers, Paul
Hi all,
What I’m looking for at the moment are good ideas for establishing an online social presence in a blended live/wiki second-language learning environment for senior technical professionals drawn from a single company in China.