It’s been three weeks since we talked about what makes an explanation effective, which seems like a good time for a refresher. Whether you missed out the first time around or just want a reminder, we present Say What You Mean – Effective Explanations in the Classroom for your viewing pleasure.

Having all the answers is hard enough, but figuring out a way to share them with others brings its own set of challenges. No matter the subject matter, being able to explain concepts and ideas in a way that makes sense to the audience is something every instructor struggles with. This session will explore the different things you can do to make sure your explanations are clear, concise, and engaging. We will cover the do’s and don’t’s of effective explanations so that what you mean and what you say match up with what you want your students to learn.

View the slides: Effective Explanations.

 

 

Fridays around here are only vaguely academic. That’s because scholarship is heavy work, and a little levity can go a long way towards recharging a research-weary academic. As for the links below, if we had to argue for their academic value, we might say something like, “Well, what do you think is academic about them?”

  • How do you top someone who can solve a Rubik’s Cube in 7.65 seconds? Easy. You challenge that person to solve a Rubik’s Cube while juggling. And then he does it and you need a new way to top him.
  • In the future, there will still be fevers, and the prescription for those fevers will still be “more cowbell”. But in the future, our methods for delivering said cowbell will become more advanced. In fact, the cowbell of the future arrived some time ago, thanks to Maverick Software LLC’s “More Cowbell!” app.
  • @JasonElsom shared a dazzling infographic this week from Online College called “Are You Left Or Right Brain?” You’ve probably seen a lot of its ideas before, but the theory that the right side of the brain has a tendency to want to read lying down and the left prefers to read sitting up was news to us. Pay special attention to the debate the infographic caused in the comments and to the mention of learning styles.

And on a lighter note (if that’s possible), we bring you a study on the cutting edge of psychology: “cat therapy”. It doesn’t appeal to me. Does that make me Left Brain?

 

Apps to Boost Productivity

On January 27, 2014, in Monday Motivation, Tools, by gregorynpaziuk

Trust me, I get the whole “technophobia” thing when it comes to technology in the classroom. We’ve all been burned by technology before, and being burned once is usually enough to makes us think twice about relying on a computer or computer program in our work. Still, it’s hard to ignore the possibilities offered by today’s apps. Here’s a preview of just a few of the apps we’ve been hearing about lately:

  • Last week we retweeted an article from Edutopia on 8 iPhone Apps to Use in the Classroom. Many of the apps in the article were focused on K-12 education, but MyScript Calculator has plenty of applications for those of you in the maths and sciences who are making the transition to touch screen interfaces like the iPhone or iPad.
  • Liz Homan and Emily VanBuren at GradHacker posted their own list of productivity apps recently. The list highlights apps designed to help you focus during study time, manage your tasks, and even test your knowledge before your comprehensive exams. Whether you use iOS or Android or something else, the apps in Homan and VanBuren’s collection could prove handy in some of the more unique challenges you’ll face as a GA/TA.
  • Sometimes it feels like you’ll never get out of university alive without a personal assistant. As your work gets more and more complex, you’ll need tools that are more and more complex, too. It takes some time to master, but Redmine can become a valuable ally to the busy scholar. Warning: You’ll need to be a lot more tech savvy than I am in order to truly master this tool (not that I’m all that tech savvy).

 

Read more:

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/iphone-apps-for-classroom-monica-burns?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=blog-teacher-apps-image

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker/7-productivity-apps-new-year

http://www.redmine.org/

 

There’s a lot going on in the world of higher education, both in Ontario and beyond. We won’t try and catch you up to speed all at once (because that’s the Internet’s job), but it suffices to say that educators, politicians, and economic crises everywhere are reshaping the educational landscape. That’s why we chose these items to remind you it’s not all grief and woe out there in education land. Thank Aristotle, it’s Friday!

  • It’s not unheard of for students to switch schools half-way through their studies. According to the Toronto Star, “Some 21,500 Ontario students switch campuses every year.” But while mobility makes sense in the technological magic space of the 21st century, many students looking to transfer still run into headaches when trying to sort out what kind of progress they can transfer from one program/institution to another. The government of Ontario has started a website to help. Meet ONTransfer.ca.
  • Sometimes we just want to know there are good things happening in the world. It’s even better when those good things are happening at schools with young kids making good decisions. Take, for instance, the story of an elementary school football team that came to the aid of their young water boy after he was bullied at school.
  • And because you’re all such keen academics, you really should have submitted to the Windsor-Oakland Conference on Teaching and Learning already. But if not, consider this your reminder. You should also check out the call for proposals for the University of Guelph’s Teaching & Learning Innovation Conference.
 

Dave Johnston is an Information Services Librarian and Scholarly Communications Coordinator at Leddy Library. He received his MA in philosophy and MLIS from the University of Western Ontario. His research interests include open access and the continuing impact of digital technology on scholarly publishing. He recently joined us at GATA Winter Academy to talk about Scholarship at UWindsor, an exciting open access project here at the Unversity of Windsor. In this guest post, Dave explains what the project is and how it affects you.

http://leddy.uwindsor.ca/sites/default/files/sc_banner(2).png

Scholarship at UWindsor is the institutional repository of the University of Windsor. So what is in an institutional repository (IR)? An IR is a curated digital collection of an organization’s intellectual output intended to centralize, preserve, and make accessible the knowledge generated by academic institutions. The knowledge generated by institutions is typically in the form of journal articles and books but can also include musical scores, images, reports, presentations, datasets and so on. IRs are a relatively new phenomenon in the timeline of academia, but most major universities now have an IR and many (Harvard is a great example) now require their researchers to post their work in their IR. You may be asking yourself why IRs matter. Typically interested users gain access to the journal articles and books they are care about through their university library that pays a lot of money to make sure these works are available to you. My goal in this article is to look under the hood of this simple picture of scholarly communication in the hopes of explaining why institutional repositories like Scholarship at UWindsor are important.

Copyright Transfer

When an author writes an article they are the copyright holder and control the rights to that work. These rights include the right to reproduce and publish the work. If you wanted to, you could just put your work up online for free for anyone to access. However, most researchers want the first place of publication to be in a peer reviewed journal in their field (though there is a long history of physicists using the arXiv to quickly communicate the results of research). However, when you publish with a journal in most cases you sign an agreement to transfer your rights to the work to the publisher. In doing so you have given up your copyright. The publisher then controls the work and dictates the terms of access. Usually they turn around and sell your work as part of the journal it appears in along with hundreds of other journals they control to universities around the world.

Pros of Copyright Transfer

The most obvious benefit to you is that your article by your has been reviewed and will appear in a journal that is recognized by your peers and potential employers. It also will be indexed by in database of like resources so it is easily discoverable.

Cons of Copyright Transfer

You no longer control your work. Though your work may be funded by public grants (SSHRC, NSERC etc.) and reviewed by your peers for free as part of a their academic service, at the end of the day it is only accessible to those who can afford to pay, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to afford to pay even for academic libraries. The increasing cost of journals means cutbacks to journals, books, and other resources. Outside of universities many potential readers have no access to this research. This includes government agencies, not-for-profits, community groups, developing countries, researchers outside of institutions, interested members of the public. It can become cumbersome to navigate the rights around simply using your work in a classroom setting. Once you are no longer a member of an academic institution, it can be difficult and costly to access research in your field at all.

http://leddy.uwindsor.ca/sites/default/files/open-access-networks_shutterstock_85392325_300.jpg

Open Access to research 

How can we ensure the broadest access possible to the research produced by our scholars? Open access is essentially free online access to research. If an article is available open access, anyone anywhere with access to the internet can get online and access the work. IRs have become the the place where institutions seek to make the research output of their scholars available open access. Scholarship at UWindsor is a growing full-text searchable database of Windsor research which is in most cases available open access. This includes scholarly articles, books, and theses and dissertations. It is optimized for indexing by Google and Google Scholar (along with other search engines). As of January 20th, the items in Scholarship at UWindsor have been received 104,351 downloads from readers around the world. Each author with a publication in Scholarship at UWindsor receives reports about the usage of their work. Our IR is also a place that provides long term preservation and showcases Windsor research in once convenient space.

What about Peer Review?

The articles in Scholarship at UWindsor have been published in academic journals. We simply work to make sure the journal provides us the right to host a copy of the work in our IR. Theses and dissertations in our IR are included by the permission granted to us by our graduate students when they publish their thesis or dissertations. Some users also find it helpful to host works like conference presentations and reports in the IR as well as a means of communicating about their current projects. Because of the growing pressure from government granting agencies and universities to open up access to research, publishers are becoming more explicit about providing authors and their institutions the right to post copies of their works in IRs.

Think about rights when Publishing!

When you publish an article you can discuss these issues at the time of publication. There is a lot of good information about your rights as an author to look into. There are also many high quality peer reviewed journals that are open access from the ground up. There are several such journals published at the University of Windsor with support from the Leddy Library and grants. If you’re looking to publish and are interested in finding open access journals in your field you can contact me or another librarian and we’d be happy to help!

To wrap up, Scholarship at UWindsor is here to showcase and preserve Windsor research. As part of a larger network of such repositories at universities around the world it is helping make research everywhere accessible to the broadest possible audience and helping to lift the cost barriers that exist accessing research. However at the end of the day it requires the cooperation of researchers here at Windsor to continue to grow and work. So please get in touch with me (Dave Johnston djohnst(at)uwindsor.ca) if you have works you’ve published and are interested in including in Scholarship at UWindsor or have any other questions about the process. To read more about open access I would recommend visiting Peter Suber’s page (Harvard’s director of Scholarly Communication) or reading his book on the subject which is itself available OA through MIT press. For answers to frequently asked questions you can visit our OA FAQ page. As always, feel free to drop me a line.

Dave Johnston
Information Services Librarian
Scholarship at UWindsor Administrator
http://scholar.uwindsor.ca
University of Windsor
Leddy Library
Ext 3208

 

 

No matter what experts disagree about when it comes to identifying best practices in teaching and learning, most tend to agree that self-reflection, research, and professional development are pillars upon which they rest. Sharing also tends to be a critical component of teaching and learning, but publishing doesn’t come easily to new scholars, and the very idea of sharing in itself is scary for new teachers. But have you thought about conferences as a way to do both?

Each year the University of Windsor and Oakland University assemble the best and brightest in higher education from Detroit, Windsor, and around North America for the Windsor-Oakland Conference on Teaching and Learning. Now in its eight year, the conference is tackling the issue of “Empowering Students to Learn”, and the organizers are looking for your interactive workshops, presentations, and posters. Presenters will also be able to submit their work for a digital publication archiving conference proceedings. Here’s how the organizers see this year’s conference  theme:

The Learning Paradigm (Tagg) shifts the teaching mission from “instruction” toward the goal of “successful student learning for every student.” And indeed, one primary mission of higher education is to educate and empower students for a variety of contexts including the professional, personal, educational, and civic. But how do we know we are achieving that goal? How do we know college isn’t just a “hoop for jumping through” (to quote Tagg) but a meaningful, engaging experience? Empowering Students to Learn will help us move from teacher-focused instruction to student-focused learning.

The Eighth Annual Conference on Teaching and Learning will offer interactive workshops, oral and poster presentations, and keynote speakers. This year, we are encouraging participant collaboration and involvement with small-group discussions and round-tables. We’ll explore the following questions:

  • How and what students learn?
  • What pedagogies empower student learning?
  • How can we assess learning?

Our two invited speakers are John Tagg, author of The Learning Paradigm and Stephen Carroll, creator of a six-step strategy to promote effective, self-directed learners.

See our call for proposals, for which submission will open December 2013. Plan to join us in May 2014!

 

You can find that call for proposals here: http://cleo.uwindsor.ca/oakland/callforproposals.php

 

 

Learning From Mistakes

On January 20, 2014, in Being a GA/TA, Monday Motivation, Think About It, by gregorynpaziuk

Winter 2014 is the semester of the wise GA/TA. Wisdom, as you know, comes with the experience that leads to good decisions. What no one ever talks about, however, is that experience often comes from colossal failures that we’re careful never to repeat. That’s why the self-review is an important part of developing as an educator and a life-long learner. While it may not be fun to do, jotting down a list of your worst teaching experiences can help you identify areas in your craft that you want to work on.

Or maybe you can just use Todd Finley’s list. Two years ago, as part of Edutopia‘s 20th anniversary, the Associate Professor at East Carolina University wrote about his 20 “Biggest Teaching Blunders“. Finley prefaced his list as follows:

We teachers make 0.7 instructional decisions per minute, according to research summaries by Hilda Borko and Richard Shavelson. We make them in contexts that shift from hour to hour in overstuffed portables with finicky projectors, after grading, without enough time to collaborate, without enough information and with too much. We look confident when we’re not, look enthusiastic during second period when demoralized by first. We speed up for the majority when a few need us to slow down. We make decisions about what’s important on festive days and during dark ones, such as 9/11, when raw grief and disorientation filled America’s classrooms like hurricanes of ash.

In honor of Edutopia’s 20th Birthday, here are 20 embarrassing teaching mistakes I’d rather not repeat.

So what kinds of things made it on Finley’s list? We especially like “11. Hiding Ignorance” and “4. Pre-Lesson Agonizing”. You’d also be surprised how important “10. Rejecting Sensible Footwear” can impact your teaching (and how much it gets noticed by your students). See any mistakes on the list that you can identify with?

Read more at http://www.edutopia.org/blog/20-teacher-mistakes-todd-finley.

 

 

Free Webinars For Budding Academics

On January 16, 2014, in Research, Tools, Workshops/Courses, by gregorynpaziuk

If there are two things GAs and TAs love, they’re webinars and free stuff. Webinars because who doesn’t love to learn new skills from the comfort of an environment of their choosing? Free stuff because you don’t pay for it and can therefore exchange your money for other goods and services, like laser tag. So imagine someone combined those two things and started offering free webinars on something useful.

It turns out Academic Coaching and Writing™ (ACW) is already doing just that as part of the Free ACW Winter Webinar Series. Branded as a group of “professional academic coaches and consultants”, ACW offers a range of professional development services to graduate students, faculty, and staff. Their Winter Webinar Series touches upon everything from writing your dissertation to Academia 101. Check out this winter’s offerings below (Note: “Writing a Journal Article” is still available for download):

Writing a Journal Article: How to Move from Evidence to Argument – This webinar will address the fundamentals of crafting successful article submissions in the sciences and social sciences (January 15, 2014). Register here: http://goo.gl/GBE0RS

The Dissertation Proposal: Putting the Pieces Together – Completing a Proposal is like doing a jigsaw puzzle with 1000 pieces. Join Dr. Kat to learn how to put the pieces together (January 22, 2014). Register here: http://goo.gl/JuSnhl

Designing Your Online Presence to Promote Your Academic Persona – This webinar will introduce you to the most popular online platforms and tools and help you decide which ones to use to promote yourself and your academic work (January 29, 2014). Register here:http://goo.gl/rmdzd7

The Review of Literature: Finding Your Way Out of the Literature Fog – In this webinar you will learn how to begin the literature review, organize your materials, decide when you’ve read enough, and synthesize the research (February 4, 2014). Register here:http://goo.gl/ZnBkX8

Timing Your Tenure Clock– How do you create peace of mind when working against the tenure clock? Learn strategies to create a tenure plan and rethink your relationship to your tenure process (February 13, 2014). Register here:http://goo.gl/xaVzxz

An Introduction to Academic Blogging – Find out how to start your own academic blog to share your research-in-progress and develop your online academic presence (February 19, 2014). Register here:http://goo.gl/K1Gmbm

Publishing Your Dissertation Research – This webinar will walk you through the process of getting your dissertation ready for publication–whether you decide on a book manuscript or articles for submission to jouranls (February 27, 2014). Register here:http://goo.gl/cNMJMV

The Performance of Academia: Overcoming Self-Limiting Beliefs – Do you ever feel like an academic “imposter” or have negative thougths about your capabilities? This webinar will help you rethink how you present yourself (March 13, 2014). Register here:  http://goo.gl/nQKy5V

Writing an Academic Book Proposal – Do you want to learn how to start the process of writing a successful book proposal and how to find the best press for your academic book? (March 20, 2014) Register here: http://goo.gl/A4regV

Finding Your Topic: Setting Out on Your Dissertation Journey – Finding a topic that you are passionate about will sustain you as you traverse the various obstacles that lie ahead on your dissertation journey (March 24, 2014). Register here:http://goo.gl/6N8BDD

Hunks, Chunks, and Bites: Managing Your Small and Large Projects – This webinar offers structures and strategies for conceptualizing and completing your unfinished projects (March 27, 2014). Register here:http://goo.gl/JxMnYJ

For more information on these workshops and ACW, visit http://www.academiccoachingandwriting.org/.

 

 

First-day-of-school anxiety is one of the most palpable memories most people have. The first-day-teaching anxiety may be less common but it’s no less intense. And while most of us have already had our first day teaching this semester, it’s worth repeating this now: “Those anxious feelings are normal.”

As Peter Kakela would tell you, they never really go away either. Kakela, a professor at Michigan State, still finds himself nervous at the start of a new semester and even doubting his ability to teach. He also voices one of the most common concerns among teachers of all experiences and abilities:

I want my classes to be fun—places where students receive good information and real insights that slide down easily. I want my students to grow and see how learning can be connected to things they already know. I want them to be creative and find a piece of themselves in the readings I have selected. Is there a textbook that tells teachers how to do this?

Does such a textbook exist? Probably not, though some try to sell their work by claiming it is just that. As you might notice checking out this blog, finding the balance between creativity and structure is an ongoing battle. How can we find that balance?

 

See more at of Kakela’s article at http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-and-learning/start-up-anxiety-professor-shares-his-fears-as-a-new-semester-begins/#sthash.vC3i6gGi.dpuf

 

It only seems right to celebrate the first Friday of Winter 2014 by celebrating some of the best moments of GATA Winter Academy (sort of). Despite being snowed out in Day 1, we managed to cram a lot of teaching and learning into this week. Remember?

  • Remember when we had Professor Frink teach us about copyright? Couldn’t we all use a little more Professor Frink in our lives? Well here’s a Professor Frink soundboard collecting his best moments for you to enjoy daily. And maybe incorporate into your teaching. “Professor Frink, Professor Frink. He’ll make you laugh, he’ll make you think.”
  • Remember when we had to rate each other’s handshakes? Talk about wounded pride. And while the difficulty in assessing something like handshakes was an example for assessment can go awry without clear criteria, maybe we should all take a refresher on what makes a good (or bad) handshake. So here’s this pleasant video tutorial entitled “How To Shake a Hand”.
  • Remember when we learned about CANSIM with the good folks from the Academic Data Centre? We learned that data has its uses and its limits. But did you know that data makes for great satire? Introducing @stats_canada, the parody Twitter account that tweets things like “74% of Canadians have cracked open their third box of Pot of Gold so far”.

But most of all, remember this: no matter how busy you were this week, and no matter how much winter can suck, always make time to have fun in the snow. And don’t care if people are watching you.