The Difference Between Learning Objectives and Learning Goals

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I’ve found that some professors don’t understand the difference between the goals of a course and the objectives of a course. Writing solid, meaningful, and measurable learning objectives is difficult, while writing learning goals, in my opinion, is much easier but not often required.

Let’s start by understanding the difference between the two.

The learning goals describe, at a high level, what the contents of the course will cover. Open up any university or collage course calendar and you will find a list of descriptions of all the courses. These descriptions are the learning goals. Continue reading →

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The Pros and Cons of using Social Networks in Education

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I’ve always been an advocate of taking whatever is happening in the mainstream and discovering if it can be used as a learning tool. The use of social networks is an excellent example of taking a ubiquitous tool and discovering how it fits into all levels of education.

This isn’t another blog post that staunchly advocates one side or the other of the social networking debate. Instead this post presents some considerations that illustrate both the strengths and weakness that educators will face if they decided to use social sites in the classroom.

Here is a quick list that I hope will help educators, policymakers, and learners understand the opportunities and challenges of adding social networks to the curriculum. Continue reading →

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The Challenge of Finding a Part-time PhD program

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Every so often I look at my first post of 2012, which is my vision list for the year. I had never created such a list before and I find that referring to it helps me stay focused on my short and long-term goals and achievements that are important to me.

I’m making great strides toward reaching my goals, but one item is causing me a bit of frustration. The item is to plan for a PhD in education.

One choice I have to make in the near future is which universities to apply to. My criteria are simple: I want a Canadian education, be able to study part time only, and delivery must be in-class. I’m just not an e-learner. The second criterion will change if I win a lottery. Continue reading →

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E-learning: The Silver Bullet that Can Miss the Target

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Have you noticed the similarity between the promise of e-learning and the promises made in advertising?

Much like the advocates of e-learning, advertising sells us on the benefits of a product. For example, did you have a bad night’s sleep last night? Lack of sleep could lead to poor grades, drowsiness while driving, decreased social activity, and inattentiveness at work, which could put your career at risk. The solution is buy the sleep-e-z pillow for only $29.99

Much the same way, e-learning was touted to be the cure-all for the ills of education. Continue reading →

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Implementing Blended Learning in Education

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Blended learning is a hybrid between traditional classroom learning and online or e-learning. It is best described as a mix of traditional classroom teaching and online learning. When designed properly, blended learning, or b-learning, is a powerful learning and teaching tool that can be used in education and training.

B-learning is often overlooked in instructional design and training in favour of e-learning. This may be because of the added cost of renting facilities where learners can meet instructors face to face; however, it is a powerful tool that, when skillfully used, is the best of online and face-to-face learning.

Over the last few years, the flipped classroom has become more pronounced in the education mix. The flipped classroom is an excellent example of b-learning. In this this method, students use online tools to view lectures, listen to podcast, or conduct inquiry-based learning as the home portion of learning. Later in class, they use this knowledge to complete assignments and partake in classroom discussions, assignments, and exercises.

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The Take-Home, Open-Book Test

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In one of my college prep courses I found that students were very stress about taking college-type tests. While I had to prepare the students for college level learning, I certainly didn’t wan them to drop out or fail because of their fear of tests.

One colleague suggested giving the students a take-home test, but I suspected that students would give into the temptation of using the Internet to answer the questions. Occasionally I had used open-book tests, so as an experiment I created a take-home, open book test.

A week before the test, I have the student a choice of three topics they could write an essay about. I also gave them a fill-in-the blanks form to help them organize their information for each paragraph of essay. Continue reading →

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Brief Case Studies as an Active Discussion

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Long and detailed case studies have been used extensively in universities for decades, but short, well-prepared case studies can be effectively used in colleges to stimulate thinking and interactive discussion or debates.

The Internet, newspapers, and magazine are littered with interesting stories, and there will most likely be hundreds, or even thousands, or articles to choose from.

It is important to remember that the case must provide a problem for the students to solve or debate. IF this is missing professor can add the challenge as a footnote, or, perhaps, by not including paragraphs in a newspaper stories that contain the solution to the problem. Continue reading →

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All Social Media Sites are not Created Equal

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The Social Media BandwagonCommunicators can make the mistake attempting to use all available social networks. With new social networks created almost weekly, it becoming more difficult to know which ones to use and how to use them to achieve maximum impact. But each network offers its users a different experience and a different type of audience.

Here are three tips that can help you save time, energy and help you reach your target audience.

Audience analysis – Look at the different social networks and find out which networks your target audience is using. It’s much easier to go to them than it is for them to look for you. Continue reading →

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Are Luddite Professors still Effective Educators?

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I was recently having a conversation with a college professor about the use of social networks in the higher education classroom. I mentioned that Twitter is an excellent tool for learning, but she disagreed, saying that is a waste of time. Instead of attempting to enlighten her, I heard her out because I wanted to understand how she perceives social networking as a teaching and learning tool.

Her main argument against using social networks, both in education, and in her life, is the invasion of privacy, or lack of privacy, and that very little useful information is actually shared on social networks. Continue reading →

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PR Adds Value to Social Networking Efforts

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No matter which social networks you or your company uses, to be effective it important to go beyond selling your products or services. If customers want to buy your products or services, they’ll visit your company website, not your Facebook, GooglePlus, or Twitter pages. Social networks are an added value to the customer experience and a resource to stakeholders.

The added value includes building and maintaining loyalty to your brand or company. Social networks seem to be made for creative public relations initiatives and not necessarily for marketing activities.

Creating loyalty is easy: Put the stakeholder first. Can your company provide timely and in-depth information to stakeholders in your industry? Don’t forget that customers will also be interested, but usually they do not look for “business” information. Social networks are effective for posting helpful tips about the company’s offerings, or simply as a additional point of contact for customer service. Continue reading →

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