Thursday, October 22, 2009

profs and instructional design

Interesting paper from Europe; Report on the Standardized Description of Instructional Models highlights the need for more instructional design skills for profs. In online learning, profs usually have assistance from an instructional designer when setting up their courses. That doesn't often happen in face-to-face teaching.

here's a quote:

"What adds to the problem of an emerging domain is that a career in higher education is still driven by research results that a scientist achieves rather than the teaching performance s/he exhibits. Instructors at a higher education institution are experts in their respective field but have most likely not been trained in setting up learning and teaching environments. Rather, they often teach how they were taught. It is uncommon that higher education instructors apply theoretical models from instructional systems design in their teaching practice (Beetham, 2004). In addition, teachers and instructors are not used to communicate among each other about their teaching, and they don’t document their teaching practices in a systematic manner (Beetham, 2004). Therefore, little is known about the process of how instructors (in higher education settings) go about designing their instruction."

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Termium

Just noticed that the Canadian government has made Termium available to the public (free!). It's an online app that can help you with your spelling, grammar, and style issues.

http://btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/site/termium.php?lang=eng&cont=001