Category Archives: Pedagogy

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Teaching and Learning While “Life Happens”

The first time I read the expression “life happens” was in a syllabus of an online course that I was reviewing. The professor indicated that he understood there would always be reasons for students to not complete course work, because “life happens.” In the case of “life happens,” he asked students to communicate with him: “No response, no explanation, or showing no sign of life will result in an F!”

Over the years, the strict yet humorous tone of that syllabus stuck in my mind. And so did the notion of “life happens.”

Life happens. As much as you try to take control, life sometimes just takes its own course of action.

Then, on January 29, 2018, life happened to me.

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Toward a More Inclusive Design Approach

Without setting out to do so deliberately, I’ve developed a strong interest in accessibility and universal design over the last year. Last June, my buddy in the ELI/Penn State ID2ID program suggested that we collaborate on an accessibility project for a faculty audience. Then, in July, I attended the annual Distance Teaching & Learning conference in Madison, which had an unofficial “accessibility track.” After returning from the conference, I started talking with my colleagues and found that several of us were on the same page, so we have formed a working group to begin exploring how we might support implementation here at DePaul. Over the next two posts, I’m going to give an overview of the work our group has been doing.

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An Afternoon of Educational Technology

Google Box Virtual Reality viewerOn Feb 15th, the Center for Educational Technology (CET) at DePaul University hosted our annual Tech Fair, inviting faculty, staff, and students from the College of Education and across the university to socialize, demo tools and gadgets, connect with organizations, and participate in a discussion on educational technology.

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Digital Story Telling

Silhouette cartoon figures listening to a storytellerDigital story telling is an instructional practice that is used to tell stories by using computer-based tools. For example, individuals or groups may tell a story by using a variety of multimedia such as audio, graphics, voice, text, and video. For centuries, many people have learned messages from stories that were either passed down orally or written in a book. We now live in such a technological advanced society that learners can now comprehend an intended message by using technological products of the 21st century.

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Rethinking School

Lately I have been doing a lot of walking and have used that time to catch up on a number of podcasts, including a recent episode of the TED Radio Hour titled Rethinking School. A couple of things in this episode really caught my attention and made me think about what we are doing here at DePaul—and how perhaps we can rethink our own practices.

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Imposter Syndrome, Creation and Negotiation of Identity, and Freshman Fear of Failing

“What if they find out who I really am?”

Every quarter, I meet a new group of (mostly) freshmen students in my First Year Writing courses, and every quarter, there’s one conversation I can’t wait to have. I always make sure that we have a discussion of “Discourse Communities” and what it means to become a “professional” within any of the fields the students might be studying.

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Tips for Accommodating Different Learning Styles

As educators, we should always be looking to meet the needs of accommodating various learning styles.  Often times, as instructors we tend to be creatures of habit, using the same content over and over again. Instructors should be open to using and selecting the appropriate tool that will help students achieve the learning objective. I recently had an instructor that wanted more information or training about how to select the best tool for a particular learning style. I imagine other instructors would have this same question. So here goes. Continue reading →

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Manipulating Learning with Tools and Rules

Three months ago, I published a blog entry called “Summer Math Class with Khan Academy: A Case of ‘Manipulated’ Learning”. Ever since then, I have tried a few more rounds of manipulation on my IRB-free research objects—my two kids. As a proud mother of manipulation, I’d like to report on a couple of cases of manipulating learning—and behavior—with tools and rules.

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Technology Habits of Ineffective Instructors

I recently stumbled across a blog post about the 7 habits of highly ineffective developers and couldn’t help but see direct connections to the challenges people encounter when thinking about using educational technology. Like developers, instructors (and instructional designers) face all types of challenges. Understating yourself and being aware of these challenges can help make the most of your time, energy, and resources—as well as lead to better results.

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Too much Technology?

Let me begin by saying that I have been a geek and technology freak for more years than I care to remember. In 1967, I wrote an undergraduate paper for a History of Mathematics class that dealt with computer generated music compositions. In the 80’s, I wrote for Nibble magazine (Apple II). I worked for Apple for 11 years. I always have the latest beta and bleeding edge software on my phone, watch and computer. My work involves helping faculty develop and deploy courses using technology. All that said, I worry about our students and if they are relying far too much on technology and less on critical thinking skills and the ability to estimate and solve problems.

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