Week 5: Teaching and Digital Scholarship

A professor on a laptop screen
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A professor on a laptop screen
Source: Bluefieldphotos https://www.flickr.com/photos/125497459@N03/14440759691

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?