amiddlet50

Understanding polycontextuality through Happy Valley

by amiddlet50
February 26, 2023

Sinister connections
The penultimate episode of Happy Valley on BBC TV included a very tense scene that helps to explain polycontextuality and why it is useful for educators.

It seems like the whole country was gripped by Happy Valley – a psychologically charged drama about a police woman and a …
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Being smarter than AI – rethinking our assessment design?

by amiddlet50
January 31, 2023

The discussion channels used by educational developers have been dominated by the topic of ChatGPT since the New Year. There are two dimensions to this: concerns over academic integrity and the opportunity ChatGPT and other AI tools bring to assessment.

Addressing anxieties over concerns about academic integrity is more urgent. …
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A Man Walked into a Bar: humour, space, self-deprecation, #activelearning

by amiddlet50
September 16, 2022

In this post I explore the pedagogy of humour in the context of higher education teaching and learning and begin to realise there’s more to humour in the classroom than having a bit of fun!
Laughter (photo by Jackaylor Toni on Unsplash.com)
This was my starting point, realising that I …
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The importance of creating ambiguous space

by amiddlet50
September 12, 2022

In addition to being an educationalist, I am a photographer. Indeed I identify as a creative in general. I am a printmaker, musician, and painter. I don’t usually list these separately – these things connect and make me who I am. As an educator this connects to the concept of …
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Ritual in the learning environment

by amiddlet50
April 6, 2022

Photo by Chang Duong on Unsplash
In this post I explore what is meant by ritual in relation to the teaching and learning experience and, as we reset our post-pandemic classrooms, why we should care.

Given that there is little obligation to care, beyond a notion of professional value and …
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Connecting curiosity, creativity and criticality

by amiddlet50
December 11, 2021

Connecting creativity, criticality and curiosity
In this post I explore creativity and critical thinking and how they connect with the fostering of curiosity.

This post continues my exploration of curiosity as a state of learning in which learner motivation and agency are central. Following on from the earlier post on …
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Community of Enhancement

by amiddlet50
November 23, 2021

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
I keep returning to the phrase Community of Enhancement to describe my philosophy behind my staff development role. It is not astounding but, significantly for me, it is a better than Community of Practice.

It reflects and models the ethos of student-centred active learning …
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Curiosity – untapping latent energy

by amiddlet50
November 22, 2021

Continuing from the post ‘Sublime, curious and distracted – challenging conceptions of learning’, I want to examine curiosity towards finding strategies that can be deployed by the academic and the learner themselves to create an engaging learning environment. Surely, curiosity is a defining human attribute? We exercise our …
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Sublime, curious and distracted – challenging conceptions of learning

by amiddlet50
November 19, 2021

Sublime and curious
Tyson E. Lewis in ‘The Dude Abides, or Why Curiosity Is Important for Education Today’, looks at the idea of curiosity from a pedagogical perspective. He sets curiosity in stark contrast to widely held beliefs about education where blind faith in truth and certainty keep the world …
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Education as a liminal state

by amiddlet50
September 18, 2021

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
I have been reading Thomassen’s (2014) ‘Liminality and the modern: living through the in-between’. Liminality comes up in my work on a daily basis, whether I am thinking about the connections we make through models of hybrid learning, interdisciplinary learning, or learning spaces – …
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Unified Active Learning – our commitment to #activelearning wherever and however we access learning

by amiddlet50
September 1, 2021

Photo by Clint Adair on unsplash
I am in reflective mode – it’s summer 2021 and in the West we’re trying to get over the pandemic, catch our breath, and decide what we value, what we have done, what changes will stick. It is both a time to explain what …
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Transparency, turbulence, ambiguity and uncertainty in #activelearning

by amiddlet50
August 30, 2021

“One student’s safe uncertainty is another student’s chaotic nightmare.”

(Orr & Shreeve, 2018)
Photo on Unsplash
Based on research I conducted with others into student satisfaction of learning (Heaton et al., 2015), being clear with students about what is expected of them has become a key principle in my thinking …
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Photopedagogy and photovoice

by amiddlet50
August 14, 2021

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
Loopmans et al. (2012) observe that photographs incite public debate about place and community. When that public context is the university course and where there is a desire for learning engagement and community building, how can photography empower the learner?

A useful baseline for …
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Deviation and self-determination #activelearning

by amiddlet50
August 11, 2021

A learning constellation
In a previous post I suggested that the art of teaching to an active learning philosophy is about creating loose structures so that each and every student has the space to bring their own knowledge, experience and imagination to their learning. Designing for learner deviation is about …
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Vertical and horizontal learning networks: implications for #active learning

by amiddlet50
August 1, 2021

Understanding Difference Between Vertical and Horizontal Networks from Daniel Bassill Slideshare presentation on Horizontal and Vertical networks
This presentation is useful for thinking about the difference between collaborative and co-operative learning. My interest in social media for learning, studio-based learning, and hybrid learning centres on how people work and learn …
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Simulation – storyboarding and paper prototyping #activelearning

by amiddlet50
June 14, 2021

<img src="https://tactilelearning.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/matt-popovich-pjwwrp-oifk-unsplash.jpg?w=1024" alt="Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@mattpopovich?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Matt Popovich</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/storyboard?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash
Photo by Matt Popovich on Unsplash

Educational simulation is an interesting and, in my view, underutilised area of active learning. Often associated with technology-based approaches, educational simulation is in fact a broader field. In this broad sense it creates a …
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Crisis – what crisis? A time for academic innovation

by amiddlet50
June 10, 2021

RSA Future Change Framework
At Wonkfest I attended a panel session titled Changing the Culture of Changing the Culture in which Charlotte Summers, who is Head of Commercial Development at the RSA, referred to the RSA’s excellent Future Change Framework.

Admittedly, I am a sucker for a framework, but …
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Conversation-base #activelearning – exploiting the differences between dialogue and debate

by amiddlet50
May 30, 2021

Photo by Olga Guryanova on Unsplash
Active learning is essentially conversational – a ‘to-ing and fro-ing’ of ideas, whether this is a collaborative exchange or personal cogitation and reflection. Pedagogically, there is a lot to exploit here.

I was recently involved in a discussion about the difference between dialogue and …
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Learning walks with awe are good for you

by amiddlet50
May 23, 2021

Intense colour captured on a #nightwalk
Awe walks boost emotional well-being according to a recent study conducted by researchers from UC San Francisco and Trinity College Dublin. The study looked at the effect of a weekly 15 minute walk on adults in which selected walkers reported positive effects on their …
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Playing with time and crossing boundaries: multichronicity #activelearning

by amiddlet50
May 16, 2021

after DALI ‘The Persistence of Memory’
In Reimagining Spaces for Learning in Higher Education I examine the inadequacies of binary descriptions of space and time for representing contemporary learning experiences. Within the exploration I considered social media for learning and two of the case studies described tweetchats. An analysis of …
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Learning with consequence #activelearning

by amiddlet50
April 21, 2021

Evening walk following the campfire session
It’s the Global Festival of Active Learning this week. Our secret question in the organising group is ‘so how do we make this a festival and not a conference?’ It’s got to be about people and attitude. Just feeling good with each other!

It’s …
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Between states: metaxis, connectedness and fluency

by amiddlet50
March 13, 2021

In-between (Photo by boris misevic on Unsplash)
Learning, for me, often describes a state of being between. This betweenness may refer to ideas, knowledge and understanding, modalities, or spaces.

In this post I examine the nuances of terminology used to describe these states; terminology that goes beyond the impersonal …
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Fluency – standing, walking, dancing

by amiddlet50
February 21, 2021

Photo by Ahmad Odeh on Unsplash
Being able to distinguish between skills, literacy and fluency is a perennial part of my job as an educational developer. This is most visible in thinking about how to communicate and engage people in conversations to do with digital capabilities, as is the case …
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Lifewide learning domains: rich intersections or contested spaces

by amiddlet50
February 6, 2021

Deerhill in the snow. One of the moor top walks I take to wonder and wander
I noted in my previous post on mapping our learning that I would be engaging in the collaborative inquiry ‘Towards a Better Understanding of Our Own Learning Lives’ led by Norman Jackson, Rob …
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Mapping my learning: visualising not just being visual

by amiddlet50
January 30, 2021

The echo of people moving within the display of Jackson Pollock’s paintings at MOMA, New York
A few posts ago I thought through some ideas about using metaphorical maps as a way of navigating learning. I want to pursue this here to discover further intersections and connections, especially as …
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Revisting the 5Cs to discover value for different times

by amiddlet50
January 16, 2021

Bring Your Own Device 4 Learning
I have had an immense feeling of warmth and solidarity this evening as good thoughts and memories have been triggered by Sheila’s post on How Sheila Sees It ‘Bring your own device for learning or bringing learning to your device?’

Bring Your Own Device …
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Bring your own device for learning or bringing learning to your device? – howsheilaseesIT

by amiddlet50
January 16, 2021

Bring your own device for learning or bringing learning to your device? – howsheilaseesIT
— Read on howsheilaseesit.net/curriculum-design/bring-your-own-device-for-learning-or-bringing-learning-to-your-device/…
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Structure and memory-mapping in #activelearning

by amiddlet50
December 20, 2020

Photo by Alice Butenko on Unsplash
The idiom ‘from pillar to post’ both indicates the role of structure in a journey and cautions that substance, purpose and clarity are needed if an experience is to be fruitful. In the previous post, I discussed divergence and convergence as ideas that can …
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Playing with divergence and convergence: designing #ActiveLearning

by amiddlet50
December 11, 2020

Playing with divergence and convergence – designing #activelearning
Active learning is a process of opening up and closing down possibilities.

Whether you look at course, module, session or activity design, knowing that your role as an academic is to play with divergence and convergence can be really helpful. As a …
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Learning Spaces Iceberg

by amiddlet50
October 27, 2020

This infographic represents the complexity of learning space discourse and points to the experiential value of the ‘hidden depths’ where the space is least understood because it is least represented and least visible – who are the advocates for the non-formal experience in which the agency and spatial literacy of …
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Syndicated Blog Posts by amiddlet50

A Man Walked into a Bar: humour, space, self-deprecation, #activelearning

The importance of creating ambiguous space

Ritual in the learning environment

Connecting curiosity, creativity and criticality

Community of Enhancement

Curiosity – untapping latent energy

Sublime, curious and distracted – challenging conceptions of learning

Education as a liminal state

Unified Active Learning – our commitment to #activelearning wherever and however we access learning

Transparency, turbulence, ambiguity and uncertainty in #activelearning

Deviation and self-determination #activelearning

Simulation – storyboarding and paper prototyping #activelearning

Crisis – what crisis? A time for academic innovation

Conversation-base #activelearning – exploiting the differences between dialogue and debate

Learning walks with awe are good for you

Learning with consequence #activelearning

Fluency – standing, walking, dancing

Structure and memory-mapping in #activelearning

Playing with divergence and convergence: designing #ActiveLearning

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