Reading Time: < 1minutesConnected individuals. Shared as CC0 from Pixabay
In the Digital Scholar this week, Weller looks at interdisciplinarity. While looking for additional resources for this post, I came across the concept of transdisciplinarity.
IN the course, blogs and twitter are looked at in detail, do you feel these tools help you build up relationships with those in other disciplines – whether in Dundee or further afield. Or do you have other preferences – whether those are digital tools, or a more traditional approach? Do you think that you’re taking a interdisciplinary approach or a transdisciplinary one?
For students, we have the Global Health Challenge getting students to work together at Dundee. Do you run any activities with students from other disciplines? How well do you feel these fit into the curriculum? Can you see ways we could further enhance interdisciplinarity between students?
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This week, the Digital Scholar looks at a key aspect of scholarship, dissemination. Weller starts off considering the “long tail” – initially looking at how that can lead to opportunities in personal life – though the example given of online music sales vs. high street music shops is largely now a difference that doesn’t exist, due to the changing nature of the music market. It is, however, still recent enough that most readers should relate to the example.
He then moves to scholarship, and how we might disseminate it. In a similar vein to previous weeks, the focus is on collaborative “Web 2.0” (S0cial Media) approaches to dissemination. Some of these are similar to those that were noted as being a way to engage with other researchers (such as blogging), while others look more at tools that are more aimed at distribution, such as YouTube.
At the end of this week’s exercises is the first of the formal tests – one that counts towards the final badge. Don’t worry, you can have more than one go if you need to!
At the start of week 5, we look at the concept of abundance vs. scarcity of resources – how does that link to teaching? While Weller doesn’t dwell on it, it’s clear that we have moved from a situation of a relatively limited set of resources that students could have access to (a few books in the library, a few more if you can track them down), to today, when students have access to a vast range of materials; some of which are more useful than others. In order to make use of them, we have to look at newer approaches to teaching. He covers a range of approaches, not all explicitly requiring technology to support them, but rather they’re approaches that can enable staff / students to make good use of that wealth of information.
He covers:
constructivism
connectivism
problem based learning
resource based learning
Communities of practice.
MOOCs
Do you feel that you have used any of these approaches in your teaching?
Do you have any other comments about this week’s activities?
Reading Time: < 1minutesI know, I’ll tweet about my book!
This week, Weller looks as aspects that are critical to many academics – how digital scholarship can be recognised, both within an institution, and externally. He refers to guidelines that other institutions have developed, several of which have been listed by the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities.
He presents the case for using the online to support the traditional, and using it for ‘micro credit’.
How much do you find you use the digital to support the traditional in your research – does it tie in as well as the examples Weller gives?
When we first came up with the idea of Learning X, we hoped to be able to involve other staff, both for the blog based seasons, but also for the idea of Learning X Live, the series of face to face sessions held in the Strawberry Bank Ideas lab. We have had a number of locally arranged sessions (such as one looking at visitors and residents ). This session was, however, the first when we had presenters from the rest of the University.
Susie Schofield, from the Medical School, and Jenny Woof from Biomedial Sciences joined with us to look at the benefits for both markers and students when staff use rubrics to help them with the marking. Susie outlined the benefits of rubrics generally, while Jenny looked at her experiences of working with a large team of markers, using rubrics.
The presentation is available to Dundee staff via Office 365.
Groups discussing rubrics
In groups, staff then started to look at the different ways that they are using rubrics already in their disciplines – or how they might apply them. To help with the discussions, we made available examples of rubrics and generic criteria from Dundee and other Universities. (Examples in Box – Dundee staff only). We had staff from most schools in the University – Medical School, DJCAD, Humanities and more, this lead to lively discussions, clearly there are some expectations in student performance that differ greatly across the university, but there are others that all expect their students to be able to do as graduates.
Looking at different criteria.
From my point of view, I felt that the session went very well; and the comments invited from staff seemed to show that they also found it beneficial (see the last few slides on the presentation).
If you have any ideas for other sessions you’d like to see as part of the Learning X series, please let us know.
By Cleonard1973 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia CommonsAs part of the Learning X – Live sessions we would like to invite you to our first session with guest presenters.
We welcome Jenny Woof and Susie Schofield, who have both used rubrics for marking students work.
The outline for the session will be:
An overview of the benefits that using a rubric / grading form can bring to the marking process (Susie)
Case study of the way they have been used in Biological and Biomedical Sciences. (Jenny)
Group activity – looking at existing rubrics – whether on paper or electronic, and to start to develop new rubrics / grading forms.
Technical – short overview of the process of getting from a paper rubric to a Turnitin one. (Emma)
Time / Date: Tuesday November 28th, 2:00 till 4:00 in the Strawberry Bank Ideas Lab (mid floor of the library)
All staff welcome, but please register your intention to come via Eventbrite
Don’t forget, we also have a “How to” session on Wednesday 22nd, looking specifically at using rubrics and quickmarks in Turnitin. (Bookable)
