This week’s blog post is dedicated to the assumptions we make when we are planning our courses and designing our activities. A pivotal feature of Universal Design for Learning is ANTICIPATING VARIABILITY. We try to anticipate variability so that we can design for the margins (the folks who would otherwise struggle to access learning opportunities)….
This week’s blog post is about scaffolding, one of my favourite topics, favourite ways to support instruction, favourite puzzles, and favourite way to work some magic. And now that I am a UDLer at KPU, I get to talk about scaffolding from a course design perspective, which frankly, is where this discussion belongs. When people…
You have a team project in your course this semester. Should you encourage students to form their own teams? Or should you put them into groups? Will it make any difference in the overall outcome of the project? As you consider your decision, you might imagine the possible results of each scenario. If you put…
In a recent chat with a colleague and friend, he asked “what is the difference between the different labels for online learning, for example the difference between hybrid and blended and when does it meet criteria for fully online.” His question reminded me that for some this confusion about terminology alone is intimidating and a…
I still find myself wondering what digital literacy really means in higher education. Despite presenting a concise explanation of what digital literacy means in my last post, I am still pondering its true meaning! Although unsure, I think the reason for my continued inquiry is associated with the continuing transformation of technology. As technology evolves…
How was my summer? My summer was great because I got to travel to and through Singapore. Since I travelled to see and stay with a very best best friend (my heart, walking around outside my body) I got treated to special and secret places. We scooted down fragrant paths in Tiong Bahru, walked over…
by: Gina Buchanan I am delighted to feature Alena Buis for our faculty profile series in our monthly newsletter. I had the opportunity to chat with Alena earlier this month and I am excited to share her story with you. “September 4, 2019. I arrived this morning for the first day of classes and parked…
I have regular conversations with educators about the role of technology in their practice and was encouraged to write a series of blog posts to foster curiosity, provide information and suggest resources to begin dialogue for and with the KPU community. I have been an educator at KPU since 2010 in the Faculty of Health…
This blog post was originally posted by Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani on his website blog found here: http://thatpsychprof.com/why-have-students-answer-questions-when-they-can-write-them/ Many thanks to Rajiv for allowing us to share his words! I recently trialled a new assignment in my Social Psychology class: During each of the 10 weeks when there was no scheduled exam I asked my students to write multiple-choice…
The first level of a Universal Design for Learning framework is the access level and that makes sense; learning can’t happen if you can’t see, hear, pay attention to, read, or speak. The roots of UDL trace, in large part, back to neuroscience research (Reid Lyon, 1985; Meyer, Rose, & Gordon, 2014) on students with…