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Upcoming: Exploring Threshold Concepts, 28th October 12-1.30pm

Posted by on October 21st, 2009 · 392, 393, Exploring Threshold Concepts

This will be the first seminar in the ‘Exploring Threshold Concepts Series’.

The aims of these sessions are twofold –

  • firstly to showcase research that is being done into the area of threshold concepts at UNSW
  • secondly, to provide the opportunity for participates to discuss their own research – or potential research – into this area with the view of supporting the development of abstracts for the  International Thresholds Symposium 2010 hosted by UNSW

The session will be facilitated by Jan McLean, Learning & Teaching at UNSW.

In this first session Noel Whitaker and Chris Hughes will discuss the ALTC funded project they are involved in ‘Using Threshold Concepts to Generate a New Understanding of Teaching and Learning Biology’ which is a collaboration between UNSW, USyd and UWS. For further information see the project website at http://bugs.bio.usyd.edu.au/thresholds_in_biology/Index.html.

Time: 12.00-1.30pm
Location: Climate Change Research Centre, Level 4 Mathews Building
Light lunch will be provided by L&T@UNSW with support from the ALTC.

Please register online at http://www.edtec.unsw.edu.au/event_rego/events.cfm
For further information please contact Erin Withers at e.withers@unsw.edu.au or phone x58636.  You can read more about the Connections in Learning & Teaching Seminar series here.

After this, the next ‘Exploring Threshold Concepts’ session will be held on 25th November.

Write-up: Showcasing Teaching: Using Case studies in Social Sciences, 14th October 2009

Posted by on October 19th, 2009 · Research, Resources, Showcasing Teaching

The first Showcasing Teaching session that took place on Wednesday, 14 October, focused on using case studies.

Christopher Walker from School of Social Sciences and International Studies presented the way The Social Science and Policy Case Studies course uses structured case studies to teach policy theory and its application. The course is structured around 3 consecutive case studies, each lasting 4 weeks and culminating in a role play where student groups present their analysis of the issues, including the group representing senior public officials response to the policy problem. Christopher explained the rationale, the process and the issues involved in organising the whole course around case studies. The presentation was followed by a fruitful discussion about applying case studies in different disciplines and contexts, such as medicine, business, postgraduate courses, etc.

Christopher shared some of study materials that he uses at the course and his recent journal article:

Walker, C. (2009). Teaching Policy Theory and its Application To Practice Using Long Structured Case Studies: An Approach that Deeply Engages Undergraduate Students. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 20(2). 214-225.

This session has been recorded. The video recording will be posted to this blog soon.

UNSW students

UNSW students

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Upcoming:Researching Learning and Teaching: Mapping areas of interest, Wednesday 21st October, 12 – 1.30pm

Posted by on October 13th, 2009 · 392, 393, Research, Researching Learning and Teaching

The first session of Researching Learning & Teaching seminar series will focus on discussions around the scholarship of learning and teaching and on identifying areas of interest and topics that participants would like to explore in future sessions.

Researching Learning and Teaching sessions will offer opportunities for those investigating aspects of teaching and learning to present and receive peer feedback on their ideas and papers. In addition, it will provide a forum through which we explore current thinking and research drawing from recent conferences and journal articles.

1070 HOLY COW-UNSW markdonaldsonphoto 28-7-06

Location: Climate Change Research Office seminar room, Level 4 Mathews.

Light lunch will be provided by L&T@UNSW with the support from the ALTC.

Please register online at http://www.edtec.unsw.edu.au/event_rego/events.cfm

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Upcoming: Showcasing Teaching: Using Case studies in teaching, Wednesday 14th October, 12 – 1.30pm

Posted by on October 5th, 2009 · 392, Showcasing Teaching

This Connections – Showcasing Teaching seminar will be dedicated to the theme of Using case studies in teaching.

Come and listen to a short presentation by your UNSW colleagues who use case studies in their teaching, and ask questions.

This seminar will be more formal in structure and take the form of a presentation on teaching with opportunity to discuss with, and ask questions of, the presenters

Location: Climate Change Research Office seminar room, Level 4 Mathews.

Light lunch will be provided by L&T@UNSW with the support from the ALTC.

Please register online at http://www.edtec.unsw.edu.au/event_rego/events.cfm

Roundtable discussion at Learning and Teaching Forum 2009

Roundtable discussion at the Learning and Teaching Forum 2009

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Student engagement: facilitating a transformative learning experience, 7th October 2009

Posted by on September 21st, 2009 · 392, Talking about Teaching

Through the interactive session at the L&T Forum 09 the UNSW community came up with a list of factors that contribute to student engagement (the original Etherpad list is available at the L&T Forum 09 wiki). From this list we have been able to distinguish four characteristics of a learning environment that facilitates student engagement. These are:

•    Situated Contextualised, relevant, has real outcomes, transferrable, students are aware of bigger picture of the discipline and beyond
•    Active Interactive, enthusiastic, passionate, students participate in dialogue and are focused
•    Connected Importance of communication, emotion, relationships, community, sense of belonging
•    Transformative Reflection, growth, discipline identity, leaving the comfort zone, courage to risk, generate new knowledge, lasting impact, developing independence, a sense of ownership, desire to learn, life-long learning

As the follow-up of the L&T Forum 09 we would like to dedicate the first Connections – Talking About Teaching seminar to the theme of Student engagement – facilitating a transformative learning experience. The seminar will take place on Wednesday, 7th October, 12-1:30pm at Climate Change seminar room, Level 4 Mathews.

Come and join an informal conversation with your UNSW colleagues about challenges in motivating the learner, and discuss strategies that enable your students to develop independence, courage to risk and generate new knowledge in your discipline.

This seminar will be informal in structure and take the form of talking about teaching as “work in progress” rather than a presentation of finalized teaching cases. Please bring any interesting journal articles or resources related to this topic that you would like to share.

Light lunch will be provided by L&T@UNSW with the support from the ALTC.

Image by chekabuje, Flickr CC

Image by chekabuje, Flickr CC

Please register online at http://www.edtec.unsw.edu.au/event_rego/events.cfm

If you would like to propose a theme for a future seminar in the Connections seminar series, please send an email to Ann Wilson at annwi@unsw.edu.au.

All the information and documentation of the Connections seminar series will be disseminated through this blog. You are welcome to continue the dialogue by commenting on blog entries.

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Launching CONNECTIONS in Learning and Teaching – 2009

Posted by on September 21st, 2009 · 392

A suite of four monthly seminars under the heading of CONNECTIONS will be facilitated by Learning and Teaching at UNSW. All seminars will be held on Wednesday from 12-1:30pm in the Climate Change Research Centre seminar room, level 4, Mathews Building (next door to L&T workshop room 416).

1. Talking about Teaching
This monthly seminar is aimed at providing an opportunity for conversations and sharing ideas and strategies around teaching. The seminar will be held monthly on the first Wednesday in the month.   This seminar series will be informal in structure and take the form of talking about teaching as “work in progress” rather than a presentation of finalized teaching cases.  Each session will have a theme, the first being “Student Engagement”.
•    7th October
•    4th November

2. Showcasing Teaching
This seminar series is intended to provide a forum for presenting and discussing good practice in learning and teaching, with invited speakers providing insight into their practice.  These sessions will be held on the second Wednesday in the month.  Invited presenters will come along to share their practice in learning and teaching, followed by questions and a discussion on the issues and strategies raised.
•    14th October
•    11th November

3. Researching Learning and Teaching
This seminar series will focus on research in learning and teaching and discussions around the scholarship of learning and teaching. These sessions will offer opportunities for those investigating aspects of teaching and learning to present and receive peer feedback on their ideas and papers. In addition, it will provide a forum through which we explore current thinking and research drawing from recent conferences and journal articles. The sessions will be held on the third Wednesday of the month.
•    21st October
•    18th November

4. Exploring Threshold Concepts
This seminar series will provide support for colleagues, who are interested in exploring threshold concepts in their discipline and developing conference papers for the International Thresholds Symposium 2010 hosted by UNSW. The sessions will be held on the fourth Wednesday of the month.
•    28th October
•    25th November

Please register online at http://www.edtec.unsw.edu.au/event_rego/events.cfm
For further information please contact Erin Withers at e.withers@unsw.edu.au or phone x58636.

Australian Architecture Forum 2009 Keynote Slides and Recording

Posted by on September 4th, 2009 · Uncategorized

Thanks to the AAF 2009 organisers, my keynote presentation “Architecting Cloud Applications – The Essential Checklist” is now available on the event website. Enjoy!

Note to the recent Sydney Cloud-Campers – this is the master deck from which you got the 5 min lightning talk session the other evening.

The team here is also busily working on getting the corresponding paper publications out there, incorporating lessons learnt, experiences, and details of the experimental setups etc, so stay tuned.

Smart Services CRC PhD Scholarships Available in Cloud Computing Research

Posted by on August 28th, 2009 · Uncategorized

Thanks to Wayne, the scholarships are now being advertised, happy to talk to any final year students expecting to receive 1st class honours with WAM > 85, and or industry professionals interested in pursuing some research work for a while.

Attending NICTA TechFest

Posted by on August 14th, 2009 · Work

I was very impressed with some of the fantastic research showcased at NICTA TechFest earlier in the week. Was a great chance to catch up with a number of old colleagues from the research world as well as some familiar faces from Microsoft. I even had the chance to talk geek with James and Liam about how to embed some of our cloud platform evaluaton results into an architecture analysis tool like ePASA as part of the Business Adaptation and Interoperability program of work, so to carry out pre-Cloud migration assessment (more about this later). Besides all the cool science embodied in some of the projects, I think I am most impressed by the enterpreneurial culture the management team at NICTA have created for the next generation of Australian innovators.
I even got to find out that Bob is the one responsible for naming the event TechFest, which is a very familiar term for me having spent some years at Microsoft attending the MS TechFest event.

One observation is that I didn’t see many of the bloggers and twitteratis/digiratis attending, and I fear the word about this great event simply isn’t out there enough? plenty of VCs and government funding body reps were there though!

Sharing our early UNSW Research Findings on Cloud Computing

Posted by on August 11th, 2009 · Uncategorized

Thanks to the AAF2009 organisers for their kind invitation, we will be at the next Australian Architect Forum sharing some of our early UNSW research findings on ‘Evaluating Cloud Application Platforms’. Should be fun, look forward to seeing you all!