Learner Bytes

Post #6 – where this writer has a pressing deadline

It’s Friday night and I need to write this post to ensure my commitment to #blogjune is maintained. A busy week and looking forward to the weekend. Is there anything of interest that I can scribble down to make your visit to this blog worthwhile? Maybe there is…

I think I need to reflect a little more about an experience I had during the week. I was challenged to think about how higher education is responding to the digital revolution (whatever that is). I was presented with a number of provocations on how technological developments might change the world as we know it. Wearable technology, mobile devices, personalised experiences, robots replacing humans, and in particular in cognitive computing and the development of a capacity to transfer our minds into artificial bodies. We were also reminded of the pending technological singularity when machines become as smart/er as/than humans. 

What I found disconcerting about all this was that it’s in the realm of speculation and hypothetical (for now), and didn’t relate much to the problems we’re trying to solve today. It is important to be aware of technological developments and to consider how these might effect aspects of higher education. It’s too easy to be distracted by the hype (cycle) and take your eye off the ball and forget that we’ve got things to do now. I’d rather discuss the best ways to leverage the systems, applications and devices we have to ensure best practice and outcomes for all. It’s important to ensure we keep an eye on the present, and tweak the tools we have to provide the best environment for learning we can. What about you? 

Winter sunshine created this spectrum as it focused through some glass onto a wall.

Word of the Day is: ‘peregrine’, I’ve felt very peregrine during some of my travels, particularly in Niger.

Post #2 for #blogjune – where I feel like it’s going to be a struggle…

Today I sat in on a Problem Based Learning (PBL) session where a small group of medical students had to finish off working through a patient case. PBL is a useful pedagogy that has been around for a while and does encourage students to investigate a range of issues involved in diagnosis, causes and treatment as a doctor would do. It does depend on all members of the group participating and a facilitator ensuring everyone is able to make a contribution. 

It was interesting to note that when students are post-grad and already have a degree such as optometry, nursing, physiotherapy or pharmacy, the other team members often look to the ‘expert’ to answer questions. This can shortcut the hard work of investigating the (learning) issues of the case so a facilitator helps keep things on track. 

I’ll be involved in the facilitating of such a group in semester two and wanted to see how the sessions run – I’m certainly going to have to brush up on my cardio-respiratory knowledge. 

In the meantime we are investigating if Team Based Learning might be a useful alternative as it’s a slightly different model and can provide better learning outcomes for weaker students. One issue that will need to be taken into account is the flexibility of learning spaces and how large the cohort of students is…

Today I managed to get a walk in during lunchtime and strolled through this little forest – very fortunate to be in a workplace that has a parkland campus.

Oh, and the Word of the Day was ‘gnomist’ – nothing to do with studying little garden statues…

This post started as a blank page that I kept looking at, wondering whatever I was gong to scribble on it so that it wouldn’t be blank anymore.

Waiting for inspiration didn’t work – too many dumb ideas and in no way, clever enough. The dictionary Word of the Day didn’t do it for me either: ‘braggart’ – couldn’t think of what to do with that.

So why signup for this #blogjune thing and start writing in this space again after neglecting it for nearly two years? The invitation from @flexnib, a rush of blood, a recognition that I should be writing regularly, or a need to start collecting my thoughts about a topic I’m interested in? Who knows, let’s see where it goes… I guess there’s always enough going on in my head to be able to turn some of it into text – I guess that a good part of the thinking process – getting it down on paper into a form that articulates an idea or two. 

The challenge to write every day for a month has been accepted, and I’m interested in seeing what the outcome is. Hopefully there will be something that evokes a response, so looking forward to comments.

Just in case the writing doesn’t work, I’ve decided to post a photo of something I’ve seen each day as well. 

PS. playing with the Word of the Day might have worked if I had spent some more time thinking about it…