This week with my final year "leadership" students we have been exploring ideas around digital citizenship and the way leaders use social media. The group exercise this week was to find the blog, Linked In page or Twitter feed of a well known leader and comment on their digital identity. This was a follow up to the work we did last week on our own digital identity.
There are some great resources out there on the whole subject of digital citizenship including this video and this infographic which provide nice jumping off points for discussion.
I fear I am getting to the point now where I feel the need to lecture. Over the next few weeks there is some heavy content that I want to ensure they are getting to grips with on the theory of team work, for example. I don't particularly want to stand in front of them regurgitating stuff they can go away and read for themselves, but I do at least want to give them some pointers on where to start and what the main themes are. I am thinking of perhaps doing some mini videocasts which they can review after the seminars - I really want to keep the class time for group interaction - and my more personal interactions with each team as they get to grips with the tasks.
Each week as we wait for the class to start I conduct some mini focus groups with students to see how they are getting on. They report that they are finding the Macs a challenge even though most are managing to use them effectively in the class. They also acknowledge that in Year 3 there is so much more work to be done outside the official "contact time" - in all modules, not just mine. This group of students are possibly having a harder time in the Scale Up environment as they have not used technology before in the classroom environment (well apart from checking Facebook updates on their phones...) and are more used to a traditional lecture format, but some it has to be said have worked in a workshop setting before and like the more interactive way of working.
This week I came across this lovely Edutopia blog post about student engagement. This was written about US 8th graders but I think it applies equally to undergraduates. In brief the principles are:
1. Interaction with peers
2. Using technology
3. Connection to the real world
4. Love what you do (teacher)
5. Get me out of my seat!
6. Bring in visuals
7. Student choice
8. Understand your students
9. Mix it Up (varied activities)
10. Be human (teacher - have fun yourself!)
I couldn't have put it better myself and I'm pleased and proud that I am incorporating much of this already into the module. Getting them out of their seats is perhaps one thing I might try to do better at... something to think about!
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