Although students are still enjoining their summer vacation, I recommend everyone working on their thesis to take a look at the Senior Thesis page here: http://lab.passos.jp/undergrad-thesis/senior-thesis-guide/. Make sure you add the ST calendar and don’t forget to set the alerts so you do not forget any deadline!!!!
Category: News
New website published!!!
I know it is not perfect, but if I wait until it is, I will never publish it. Updated publication lists, projects (not finished yet), abstracts of all undergrad thesis I have advised so far and many of my teaching related posts, that were in my university’s Mahara, were also migrated to this new website. The content structure is basically the same as the previous version, and soon I will add “whitepapers” and a section with all my material for Read More …
Helping students with their Journals
Since the beginning of this “e-Portfolio” thing, I have been relying a lot on Journals in Mahara as evidence of student growth and to promote reflective learning. So far, so good, except for the fact that students keep forgetting how to do it or sometimes, do things in a way that is not really what I want. So, last year, in the Global Citizenship Course, I made a video that showed the whole process: from writing a journal entry to Read More …
Mapping course objectives and CT
I am not sure it is possible… yet, but lately I have been thinking that there must be a way to map my course objectives with critical thinking. The Bloom’s Taxonomy comes to mind… now the questions is, can a (easy to understand) mapping be done? Today I found a document from the West University of Florida which tries to educate instructors on how to write effective learning objectives. It looks like a place to start. The document can be Read More …
The material… at last.
And I thought it was over and that this project would never see the light of the day. Surprisingly, my colleague Monica Hamciuc decided to put some material available for new teachers and contacted me to check on the status of the AL&CT “book”. Well, as usual, I had to finish it. Not only because I wanted to, but because it feels really good to know that people are going to use something you have made. The material is available Read More …
Introduction to Global Citizenship: At last, the material
Finally, the material for my ICT module is ready. It took me a while and although not perfect, it is good to go. Today we have our third class in the course where we discuss what a global citizen is. Next week I am changing classroom and will start the ICT module with a different cohort. So far so good, except that, for my lesson to go well, I need next week students to prepare for the class!!! This will Read More …
Introduction to Global Citizenship
Today I decided to start preparing for the “Introduction to Global Citizenship” course starting next semester. The course will have 17 classes from which 9 will be taught by me, and 8 by other 2 teachers. As a “shared” course, I will be teaching 4 classes to each of the other 2 sections. Introduction classes (3) Shared classes (4) Shared classes (4) Shared classes (4) Review classes (2) “Preparing” is not really the term I should have used since I Read More …
Senior Thesis time
We are already in “senior thesis” time. Students running around asking professors to be their advisors and professors trying to avoid some students. I am lucky (somehow) because students generally do not like technology or believe (erroneously) that it is too difficult. Anyway, I put a page together for the few students I am advising: http://portfolio.miyazaki-mic.ac.jp/mahara/view/view.php?id=1284 Hopefully the contents will be useful.
Thesis… OH the thesis…
Soon we are going to start receiving “requests” from students to be their thesis advisor. So, I decided to get ready and prepare (or re-prepare) the material they need. The final result was a very comprehensive page (I think), where students can find most of the information they need. Here it is: http://lab.passos.jp/undergrad-thesis/senior-thesis-guide/ All the documents are stored in Google Drive, giving me flexibility when updating something.
CT & AL Handbook
On Friday last week I sent an email to faculty asking them to provide me a tree paragraph explanation of (at least) one CT and/or AL activity they do in their classes. The idea is to document what we are doing and also be able to provide new faculty with a tangible document introducing some ideas of AL and CT in the classroom. Well, today I finally finished the first mock-up with 11 activities. It might look as a small Read More …