Theoretical perspective (as part of constructing courses)

Audrey Campbell


National Certificate in Animal Care






Aims

To improve the already flexible delivery program, by enhancing written materials with video and discussion forums via a blog.

To address learner’s feedback regarding lack of visual demonstration for several important procedures which are currently shown only in diagram form.

To enhance the range of information available to learners; taking into account VARK learning styles, in relation to practical aspects of caring for dogs unit, such as restraining a dog, lifting and handling, and basic care procedures such as claw clipping.

To providing information in a form that can be accessed anywhere asynchronously.


Theory behind it all

The restructuring of this unit fits into the connectivist theory of learning dubbed "a learning theory for the digital age” which utilises several Principles

Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.

Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.

Learning may reside in non-human appliances.

Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known

Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.

Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill.

Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.

Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision. Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age

The objective of providing additional visual information for this part of the unit is to ensure learners are able to demonstrates competence in carrying out the tasks required to complete the unit; but more so, that the learner feels confident in carrying out what's required because the tasks will be in context for the learner as the videos will show appropriately dressed veterinary nurses in uniform performing the tasks. Linking videos to social networking sites will allow a range of opinions to be developed and raise new ideas, hopefully stimulating learners to want to know more, and being available on-line will allow learners to access the material as needed allowing them to take control over their learning.

Learners can have positive concepts of how they are performing when in control of the methods of learning, which Bandura, Schwartzer (1992) termed academic self efficacy, in particular that an individual learner’s belief that he or she can control what they learn, how they interact and how they perform, encourages learners to engage in and complete course-specific tasks. If we as teachers feed those positive concepts, through social networking and asynchronous content, for example, learners will have a positive experience and want to achieve more.

I liken Bandura’s concept to motivational speakers that say if you think positive then you will succeed a bit like Winston Churchill who said “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

I envision it will be a bit difficult to measure a learner’s confidence (as it’s more of an internal feeling not easily quantifiable, currently we measure efficiency rather than confidence) but we may see more learners completing individual units, and the courses, and draw inference to confidence.

So what about the learners?

The veterinary nursing school already has a good grounding in using alternative methods of delivery; we have used on-line teaching for some time and have developed a good understanding of using tools like Moodle, Exe and Elluminate. These tools are useful to some levels of students, but as with most on-line content, some computer experience is needed and the confidence to ask for help without looking stupid is required. OP has a good I T support network available until early evening, but many distance learners need help 24/7. I know from personal experience how frustrating not having the computer knowledge can be when desperate to complete something. The school is also forging ahead with embedding literacy and numeracy within our course notes, and more recently into the multi-media arena, I envisage the use of learner and tutor videos will help, with embedding literacy in particular, as the content will include explanations and verbal instructions relating to the written course notes.

One very useful aspect of the school is the diversity of learners and courses, there is access to many learners who have completed previous, similar and higher level courses, as well as different disciplines, companion animal nursing, and rural animal technology (large/production animal); we are now starting to use learner video and photographic evidence as material for current learners, I find this an exciting prospect which I think will help to further conceptualise the information for current learners, and as a by-product show them they can succeed (back to Bandura).

So what about our industry? (I still think of myself as a nurse first and lecturer second)

We are governed by many industry and government regulations in what we can teach, mainly aimed at what the industry needs; after all nurses need to be providing what employers need or they won’t find jobs, and our school’s reputation would be diminished, but there is no constraints on what we can enhance for prospective nurses over and above the set curriculum. If we don’t keep up with current trends and information then learners will not have the skills to meet industry needs, the industry will also feel less confident in our ability as a provider to equip nurses to think as well as do. So learners passing courses are great for the school success rates, and the industry, but I feel the use of social networking (as one tool in our toolbox) will allow us to keep information current, get nurses in touch with each other and new developments around the world, grow nurses confidence, enhance the nursing profession as a whole and allow Otago to maintain its standing in the veterinary nurse education field.

References

Bandura, A., & Schwarzer, R. (1992). Exercise of personal agency through the self-efficacy mechanism. Hemisphere Publishing Corp. Retrieved from http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=psyh&an=1992-97719-001&loginpage=login.asp&site=ehost

Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, Vol. 2 No. 1, Jan 2005

VARK learning styles http://www.vark-learn.com/english/index.asp

More information

See more of Bandura’s ideas at http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Self-efficacy#Self_Efficacy_in_the_Classroom

Treading Softly On Learners Dreams

‘Connectivism is the notion that knowledge is distributed across a network of connections, and therefore that learning consists of the ability to construct and traverse those networks’

http://darcymoore.net/2009/09/18/connectivism-connective-knowledge-cck09/


Darcy suggests that tertiary learners make sense of their surroundings, and by default the course content, through social interactions, and that the tutor’s role is often one of change agent, helping the learner make the jump from the world of high school, where teaching is linear (study this – take this exam – gain this qualification), to the tertiary setting where they will be expected to have a degree of independent thought and action. Rather like Sir Ken Robinson’s metaphor of a car production line, each learner has an engine, four wheels and a gearbox, give it a little petrol (job to do) and it will go from a to b in roughly a straight line without much thought, but give the same learner a jumble of parts and the ability to make connections with other like minded learners through media such as the internet and hey presto, the car parts now become an organic thing, basically anything the learners can envisage.

See Darcy’s simple but very useful presentation on connectivism:

http://ginag2.vodspot.tv/watch/2544655-connectivism-in-plain-english

And Sir Ken Robinson’s full (and funny) take on moving education from linear to organic:

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/865


Zone of proximal development (ZDP) Vygotsky

‘The distance between the actual developmental level... and the level of potential development [facilitated] through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers’.

Vygotsky suggests the role of education is to provide learners with experiences which are within their ZPD, thereby encouraging and advancing their individual learning, for example students need to try out tasks that are not too easy for them to avoid boredom, but the tasks must not be too hard, to avoid frustration (basically stretch the learner a little without frightening them to death).

Pitching the instruction at the right level seems to be critical for learner success and what can be a better leveler than a group of peers (learners doing the same course, or previous learners who have completed their study).

Vygotsky’s work is based around the constructivist theories that suggest learners are in charge of their own learning with the help of facilitators, and that using tools such as reciprocal questioning, (where learners work together asking and answering their own questions), jigsaw Classroom, (where learners become "experts" on one aspect of a joint project and teach it to the others in their group), and structured controversies (where learners work together debating a particular controversy) the learner works at their own level within a safe environment with mutual support from his or her peers.

I suggest that this is already available to the techno-savvy generation; they already communicate well, give and receive instant feedback via their peers (try facebook for instant reactions!), collaborate on anything and everything (Wiki, twitter, blogs and podcasts to name just a few) and are more ‘expert’ on the whole multi-dimensional social networking than I could ever be.

Perhaps it’s time for me to recognise that sometimes the learner is in fact the teacher in this relationship.

Learn more about Vygotsky’s theories:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Vygotsky

Tread Softley On My Dreams

I have just spent the most enthralled 17 minutes of my teaching career. I was looking for a bit more information on how connectivism can be used to help a range of students, hoping, I guess, that something would come up and slap me in the face, making everything seem easy. I am so surprised to have found this while I was trolling through blogs and wikis, a lecturer I have never heard of who, just by watching his video, has changed my way of thinking entirely.

He makes a great reference ( about 8 minutes in for those in a hurry) to how we 'oldies' (over 25) take a wrist watch for granted as a means to tell the time, because we are conditioned to do it, after all we were made before the digital age and wouldn't have a clue what time it was without a watch; but how his daughter wouldn't be seen dead with a 'single function device' like our watch. 'Newbies' (under 25) obviously want multi-function, fast and instant access to time data, and their ipod, iphone, web browser, podcast and every other electronic gizmo world allows them to dispence with a watch. So if their ipod, iphone, web browser, podcast and every other electronic gizmo world can allow them to dispense with a watch, then why not allow them to dispense with lectures in favour of multi-media.

This appears to be the fundamentals of connectivism, the lecturer is no longer a 'lecturer' but an agent for change, maybe the way forward is to teach the skills necessary for the learner to find out how to use his or her ipod, iphone, web browser, podcast and every other electronic gizmo, and research the world for themselves.

Have a listen to this guy and see what you think.

Sir Ken Robinson

PERSONAL LEARNING NETWORK

I have been looking for an easy to understand and easily related work on Connectivism. the roots of which appear to be based on social networking rather than me as a lecturer doing the 'know it all teacher' and the student the passive recipient, and here it is. Have a look at this short video and it will show you how easy it seems to connect with others, I expect it isn't quite this simple but imagine if it was. I really like the idea that lecturers no longer lecture but inspire, I can think of a few people in my life that have inspired me to do something better than I thought I could. I would love a student of mine to think of me that way.
Watch and learn http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwM4ieFOotA

connectivism

I was looking at the right learning theory that would let me express how I feel about teaching as well as look at the needs of our learners. And voila there is one that fits nicely into how I feel.

Connectivism

It springs from the ideas of a child psychologist named Vygotsky, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Vygotsky who put forward a theory that we never learn anything from scratch, that even young children grasp a new idea, add it to their existing knowledge and come up with a new thought. I wondered if this relates to adult learners and when I looked closer into connectivism I discovered that it's main ideas support learning as part of a social network, and that this theory sees learners as both consumers and creators, that by actively participating in a collaboration, be it something like blogging or wiki, or just interacting with another learner, they learn what is already known, link it to their own experiences and produce a new and unique idea.

By doing the above process learners can change the content of on-line and collaborative knowledge, keeping the entire body of knowledge current and relevant, it seems a bit like Darwin's theory of evolution, whatever the learner finds relevant they will use, alter, re-create and enhance, information not of use will fall by the wayside and eventually become irrelevant.

Unfortunately the use of blogs, wiki and the like rely on the learner having some knowledge of how to access these media, technology can be daunting to some people but, as in my case, if you give some extra input you can get learners using technology and even enjoying it.

Initially it would take some extra effort by staff and require increased resources, in both time, Internet resources and support staff.

On the up side, connectivism can have benefits to learners through ownership of content, relevant feedback and person to person interaction. If learners can work collaboratively there should be an increase in creative thinkers not just rote learners.

useful links

http://www.connectivism.ca/about.html

http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/connectivism-a-theory-of-personal-learning  A good easy to understand slideshow giving good information.

electronic portfolios post

HI Jenny and the other guys, it is interesting that some of our material requires a high standard of comprehension (i guess) and how we can assume because we can read it confidently the rest should be able to. Our students in vet nursing have a similar problem, the notes can often contain strange language and words a mile long, very of putting to students, we have done a lot of work in re-vamping our written notes to reduce terminology where we can and to introduce ideas in picture, video and interactive forms, all seem to have students engaging more in various topics, the problem we face is we are constrained by unit standards which often want us to assess using written material, where most of our teaching is done in kinesthetic styles because nursing is a 'hands on' profession, i'm sure this causes confusion for the students who learn to 'do' then have to write about doing it. not sure what the answer is?


We are now looking at using things like a portfolio to show evidence of competence, and I remember from my nursing days that attestations from other nurses and colleagues could be counted as evidence (with other bits as well) to show competence, I would be interested if an on-line portfolio might be the answer,showing students doing tasks, getting feedback and reflecting on that feedback (just like we are doing). anybody have any ideas?

Other peoples posts

HI guys, I was reading these posts and thought about what our students want from their particular path of study, I'm sure there are a number out there who want a qualification and some type of career progression, and with the talks of Vet nursing being regulated and having a professional body (may be a while away yet) then there will be more opportunity for students to do just that. but I am sure there are a few who go into the programs for other reasons. I am reminded of a colleague of mine from another life who said he went into Psychiatric Nursing so he would know the signs to look out for if he was 'going mad'. I though about my reasons to do vet nursing and I did want the qualification but I also wanted to know what to do if my animals got sick and how to keep them healthy. I have had some discussion with students who already work in the animal industry and they talk about wanting to know how to deal with XYZ but not necessary wanting to be nurses. I wonder if some research into why students come into courses would help us to provide them with what they want, Gill and I have had discussions about what if students could just do the units that were of interest to them or work through the requirements for a qualification as and when they liked? It would be a logistical nightmare and hard with unit standards but offering short courses epecifically for things like first aid, animal nutrition caring for large/production animals and behaviour units, might be of interest to those who don't want a qulification.




enough rambling!

constructing courses who are our learners? a reply

Thanks guys, i really like the idea of small steps as some of our students come to us straight out of school and have little if any knowledge of what nursing in any form involves, I find that I often have to take students back to the basics of understanding our language (terminology) as this seems to be the thing that frightens them the most, I would love a dollar for every time I have said, 'print this out (i know not very sustainable) stick it to the back of the toilet door so you see it every time you visit and it will stay in your brain" I think you are right Helen I often overlook the need to show students how to study, I can remember my nursing and the first thing we did was a study skills day, where we were shown how to make mind maps, draw pictures to link ideas (my favourite) and stuff like that, It was very helpful.




I think a day before the course showing things like this would help the student to feel part of a group without much pressure and give them an insight into what distance studying really means. I went to the imbedding literacy forum yesterday and was interested in how this is becoming a requirement, but it got me thinking about how we can support more than just literacy and numeracy, I am really interested in how we connect to other people and how they help us to learn, mentoring comes to mind, as I remember my nursing mentor's help, we still keep in touch even though it's 30+ years ago so definitely made a connection there. Going a bit off track but I guess that's the whole idea of forums so we can blurb away and get feedback, bit like blogging I suppose, something I'm also getting into.



Isn't connecting with others great!

Constructiong Courses AKA run off my feet

I have just started a paper on constructing courses to enhance learning and here are a few posts I have made about the topic. the picture is of Fin's feet, he had a hard day seach training and rubbed the soles of his paws quite badly so he is on three legs at the moment but luckily he has mum to fix it for him.






THE POSTS

Hi Guys, I have been thinking about our students in the Veterinary Nursing school and what they might expect from us, and what we can expect from them.


I work mainly with the animal care distance students with a little bit of teaching on the full time certificate in Veterinary Nursing, these students have a range of ages and life experiences, from the yougster who doesn't really know what they want in life and caring for animals seems like it might be fun, to the mature student who has had enough of one careeer and is looking for a change (I did just that) and knows something about the way the world works.

With these diferse ages and life skills come a range of learning styles, some straight from school still think we 'teach' everything and can't understand the concept of self directed learning, while our mature students often question us more as they have experience challenging the norm and have had chance to form stronger opinions.

The school has a good reputation around the country and abroad because we supply the Veterinary industry with well trained and confident nurses, the school's vision is to improve this reputation through more diverse teaching, so we end up with students who can do the job but also use new technology and have more initiative. the poly's vision is a successful relationship with our employer stakeholders, like Veterinary clinics, animal care facilities and the New Zealand Veterinary Association. A happy set of students who will be sustainable in their employment, because they are enjoying nursing and being valued as professional (so more likely to stay in the industry) and a financially viable school through word of mouth recommendation and industry support.

Our aim as lecturers and facilitators is to try to accommodate all of the above, and in my opinion to give the students some valuable life experiences that can set them up to work in the animal care industry, I often think about the younger students who sometimes think it's all fluffy bunnies and the shock they must have when they help with their first euthanasia. If we can help give them the reality we are doing them a good service.

Flexible learning - the final fronteer

Flexible learning AKA Anything for a biscuit!

http://www.baxterboo.com/catdogblog/assets/content//yoga-dog1.jpg

Background

The aim of this blog is to look at my strategy for future improvements to the Veterinary Nursing School’s flexibility of delivery.

We currently have a good track record of providing a range of learning materials for our students; they have 24 hour access to online notes, assessments and additional information via the Moodle website. This year we have introduced a range of forums and ‘drop in’ sessions that students can use to discuss anything they feel is relevant; this includes both moderated and non moderated sessions, the latter means students can feel free to chat about anything they like in a safe ‘won’t upset the tutor’ environment.

It was the forming of the drop in sessions that made me think about the whole online community way of engaging students. I looked at a couple of models for engaging students firstly the participation model of learning by Collis & Moonen, they suggest that students should learn skills, but that being part of a community is equally important, and Race who suggests we actively embrace all cultures instead of aiming for bland and neutral (something I can’t stand) in an attempt not to upset any particular faction of our students.

So Now I need to look at a forum that will allow me to create a community and embrace all cultures. So what will be flexible, sustainable and engaging?

Blogging!

Strategy

I first set up this blog in an attempt to better understand the way technology has pushed on line learning forward, I have never been one to facebook, tweet or blog so it has been a steep learning curve for me. I want to create an environment that students can interact with each other and with me in a place that feels less like work and more like having fun. I also want to link our students with other forums for veterinary Nursing around the world, after all nursing is all about communicating, and just because it’s working with animals there is little difference in the way we communicate with clients and colleagues.

When I look at sites like the UK Vetnurse, http://www.vetnurse.co.uk/ I find a dynamic interactive and informative forum that links to many others, sometimes it sends me off at a tangent but the content is still fun and usually relevant to vet nursing. My ideal would be to have a one stop shop for students to access information that is lively and fun, we already have Moodle which is going well but I want something that has a bit of my personality about it, I think this might demonstrate to our students that who they are is equally as important as what they can do.

So what is my strategy to do just that?

Firstly this blog, it is only a few weeks old and I am having difficulty figuring out where to go with it, so I plan to get help to   Improve this blog  from our IT department and my colleagues, then the world is my oyster.

I plan to make sure students who access the site will be able to link to many other vet nursing sites, so I will be incorporating the ‘followers’ gadget in my blog, this allows others to follow this blog and get regular updates through RSS feeds (but as I don’t really know what this means I will need help to set it up).

Secondly to make the site more interactive I will produce videos of some of the procedures vet nurses are expected to do and upload them to Youtube YOU TUBE and link this blog to them. This site has the facility for people to contribute to the videos through comments and suggestions; I think this will also add to the feeling of a global community. I am used to making videos on windows moviemaker so with a little bit of help should be able to produce something worthwhile, I also plan to ask students to be involved so they can feel like a movie star for a day (I think they would like it).

Access, equity, diversity and cultural sensitivity

Maori and Pacific Island students need to be catered for as part of any strategy and the Treaty of Waitangi sets out how inclusiveness is paramount to the welfare of New Zealand, we do not have a large number of indigenous learners accessing our course but this could be increased if we included Maori and Pacific Island students in our videos, photographs and online material, so indigenous people can see we don’t just show ‘white guys doing white guys work’ (I borrowed this quote from a colleague and can’t remember who said it but thanks it really made me think).

The most important part of this plan is how to get it across to the students, they don’t all have unlimited broadband and can watch hours of videos and me waffling on my blog. We do have good access to computers here and many of the full time students bring laptops to class, but it is worth acknowledging that we have a much larger proportion of students doing distance study. We stipulate students have to have a computer, as we produce an on line course, but we don’t take into account that there are ongoing cost of internet use and often limited downloads like 2 gigabytes a month, not a lot if you need to watch videos! So we should be encouraging downloading and saving rather than downloading again and again. I will be asking IT how I can get my videos as small as possible to help out.

Blogging and videos are all well and good but what if a student is a complete technophobe like I was a few months ago, rather than wanting to revert to paper notes (which isn’t very sustainable) I would love to see students encouraged to embrace technology, it is a pity that the community learning centres don’t provide as much free IT training to students as they used to, but there are a lot of resources around the country that can help out, most libraries have internet and there are lots of IT service centres (but I bet they would charge). I don’t really have the answer to this but it is something that I will be looking at. We do have students at block courses around the country so I guess working on the blog with them at this time would be OK but how would they feel part of the community and not having instant access to be able to comment seems to defeat the idea of the blog or is that just me?

Sustainability

Seems to be the buzz word of the era and to most people it means saving paper and ink, in terms of vet nursing my thoughts are around producing competent future nurses who can interact, communicate well and are not afraid to embrace new things. Student nurses working with humans have always been good at looking outside the square; they are used to supervising others and are often articulate when being an advocate for their patient. I would love to see Vet nurses have the same negotiating skills when looking after their patients, and believe that being part of a world-wide vet nursing community will encourage ‘professionalism’ within our students. So what does this have to do with sustainability?

I think that nurses who are autonomous enjoy their work, and being seen as professional raises vet nurses profile with the public and governing bodies, as a past human nurse I can say that being held in high esteem is a major influence on staying in a profession and staying put, using valuable skills and growing with experience has to be the most sustainable thing nurses can do.

So what now?

I need to get more IT training desperately!

Get heaps of links on this blog to sites that are relevant to vet nursing

Stop abbreviating it to vet nursing and encourage students to say veterinary nursing (makes us sound more professional)

Understand the ins and outs of video and youtube.

Stop being afraid to tackle new ideas!

http://questionabletopic.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/blogger-monkeys.jpg

References
 
Collis, B. & Moonen, J. (2001) Flexible Learning in a digital world Kogan Page, London.
 
Race, P. (2007) The Lecturer’s Toolkit, A practical guide to assessment, learning and teaching, Routledge, London.

Hard copy notes

Here is a picture from the A&P pavement art competition

HI Guys, I am very interested in what happens to our material once students finish their course, as a great accumulator of paper material I often think how I would cope with the information I needed being on-line for only a short period of time. I could be very unsustainable and print it out I guess, I encourage students to keep stuff as an e-book (if there is a term like that) for future reference. When I studied here in Veterinary nursing, a few years ago now, the notes were sent to us in huge folders and covered the whole course material, I remember thinking do I have to know all of this? I would read bits of the course material that wasn't even relevant to the unit I was studying at the time, and very often got side tracked into doing other stuff because I found something interesting; I was able to be very disciplined though and do what was needed but I can now imagine a student overwhelmed with the old hard copy material, reading irrelevant topics and struggling to get back on track. The idea that the information is now sent out in manageable chunks, in individual units with timeframes and guidance through wiki books, work plans and weekly study plans from the tutors seems much more manageable.



So I have completely changed my idea about the need for hard copy materials, when we changed over I first thought that we were short changing students who paid for a course and now had to pay to print out their own notes etc, but I now see that it isn't the notes that provide the driving force for the study, it is the interactions between people, students now access stuff any time of day or night, and at any place (with a wireless connection) and we can keep notes up to date at the touch of a button, it doesn’t get more flexible than that! But on the downside, I think when our students finish the course the shell is closed to them so they have no on-going reference material to support the lifelong learning idea whereas I still have my monster folders. I wonder if we should now be encouraging graduates to join other forums to remain current such as the Veterinary Nurses association and others like our OP facebook forums, if anybody has any suggestions feel free to let me know.

Careers Expo

Have been spending a few hours at the local careers expo, lots of parents and prospective students here. Took Bam with me ( a puppy we are looking after) and she really enjoyed it, lots of treats for both puppies and people. It was really good to talk to students and find out what motivates them to go into a chosen field of study, there is a wide range of people out there, it was obvious some just got dragged along by mum and dad, but others so enthusiastic it gives me hope.
I am going back again today and tomorrow, I really like this sort of stuff but will swap dogs today and take Finbar ('cos he's missing out on the treats).
Will hopefully get some pictures to make it more interesting for you. Great being able to just write my thoughts down without feeling stupid, the more I do it the less stupid I feel. Good for my morale.

The organisation and flexible learning

I see the organisation (in this case Otago Polytechnic) like the picture of this magnificent tree. The solid rock with it's intertwined tree roots is an analogy for the foundations that an institution can provide in order for the student to feel thay can lay roots, feel part of and use the rock to produce upright growth and ultimately flourish. In order to give the student the best chance at succeeding we can aim to be as flexible as possible in our interactions, this can mean time (out of hours for instance), location - do we always need to meet at the office or classroom, and content. The latter can be the most difficult for a lot of unit standards based vocational courses, like veterinary nursing, where stakeholders (agricultural industry for one) have a big say in what type of workforce they require, and we then tailor our courses to meet those needs. We do have some flexibility in the way we interpret the unit standards assessments but these must fall in line with industry not student.

I like the notion of treating our adult learners like adults, the use of lerning contracts to set out what we are going to study and when can be very useful, I have found that given the choice students will use their time wisely, and if they know exactly what is expected of them, they can negotiate and take ownership of the study.

There is some good information about using learning contracts at this website

https://www.msu.edu/user/coddejos/contract.htm

Happy learning!

Flexible learning

Well I have at last got to grips with the flexible learning component of the Graduate Certificate in teaching I have been doing for the last year and a half (almost). I have been examining the ways I try to be flexible about my teaching and find I think only of the different ways to get the message accross. Trouble is it's not all about the message ( I thought it was) and now I am examining the way the institution as a whole helps or hinders access to subjects, as well as how our own internal thoughts and feeling do likewise. I am also looking at how parental attitudes can influence because I realise without the support of my Gran, who pushed me to try stuff, I wouldn't be here now blogging! I still can't believe it.

Delphie-Diego

We have a couple of Guinea Pigs here at school and I have just spent some time with them, feeding them greens and tomatoes, Diego Is getting to be a bit of a round boy and needs a bit more exercise, so for a treat he has had a run around with the rabbits, he looked a bit nervous to start then discovered his running legs and had a great time working of the Kilos. I will post a picture when I get my camera out, he is great and I would love to adopt him when the students have handled him a bit more.
My boy Fin has a new friend called Bam, she is a year old Huntaway cross and they are just playing until they drop, ripping stuffed toys to shreds is the play for today, but I am going to give them the run of their lives now with the launcher ball (best exercise toy out in my opinion) so a quiet afternoon I hope.

Happy Easter

Well it's been a great Easter here in very sunny New Zealand, Fin and his pappy and me went to the blue lakes at Saint Bathans for camping in the great outdoors. Hot, hot, hot during the day, but cold as a freezer at night, the three of us huddled under the duvet in the back of the van for warmth. Sky so blue it hurt to look at it. I am always amazed at how beautiful the sky gets here, we are really lucky!

Flexible learning

Hello guys (and gals).
I have been reading the last few blogs about this course, I am still trying to get to grips with the course, but I have just created a blog for the first time in my life. I am currently lecturing in the school of veterinary nursing and we usually have a class of about 40 full time students. I have been trying to think of novel ways to put the content across and cater for everybody. I really like the comments that Julie made about some aspects of the class she couldn’t alter, like the layout, so she allowed the students to work it out for themselves. I have recently tried negotiating with the students how they want to achieve the goals for their study and it’s surprising how many will come up with interesting themes, Recently the students decided they would like to do a big sidewalk drawing of an animal’s internal organs, great said I, so arranged the tools, then they decided smaller groups to make it a competition, great again, and now it has evolved into a sidewalk art competition judged by passers by (staff on way to tea probably). I can see how they have taken ownership of this unit, everybody has had their say, and those that don’t feel too comfy painting have opted to make signs for voting and directions to the art work. I was exceptionally pleased when they asked if I could video parts of it to put on Moodle, (and my blog I hope) real progress for a class that’s only been together 12 weeks. A lot of waffle I guess but I was really inspired by allowing adults to make adult decisions, they know what’s needed and how to get it done.

These are my two favourite fellas in my life my hubby Dermot and my boy Finbar, both are handsom devils!

I don't beleive it!

I cannot beleive that I have started blogging at the ripe old age of 51. I have never had a go before but found the process so easy, this software does it all for me.

I have decided to join the blogging group because I feel really left out of the latest technology and being a lecturer I think I should be up to date and current so I feel a connection to my students.

I can't wait to let you all know about how Finbar (my huntaway pooch) is doing and what being a lecturer is like.