Wednesday, October 02, 2013

National tertiary learning and teaching conference - day 1 afternoon

After lunch, 3 workshops. I attend Jenny McGee's workshop on 'communicating across cultures'. Cultures do not only mean ethnicity but includes all aspects of social, economic and values systems.
 An interactive session with much input from all group members. 5 strategies include know yourself, watch your bias (check out project implicit), mind your language, what you do not say matters just as much, and understand the values.

Keynote 2 from Jenny Magee on 'Turning outsiders into insiders'. Discussed layers of diversity as one way to approach understanding diversity in all  its myriad contributions. Inclusion to make how to make. diversity work.
Bringing diversity and inclusion together provides for engagement to take place. In organisations, communications and relationships contribute to inclusion in turn leading to cohesion, belongingness and inclusion. So instead of 'treat others as you would like to treated
' to treat others as They would like to be treated'. Inclusion derailers include: we recruit people like us, making assumptions, unconscious bias, abd cultural norms. Inclusion enablers include modelling from the top, finding common ground, little things matter, check your expectations and reframing political correctness.

5 parallel streams of 3 sessions follow. I stay with the stream I am presenting last on.
First up, Georgie Gaddum from on 'technology and teaching: a case study of software enhanced enquiry based learning across academic pathways'. Project evolving since 2004. Provides students with an authentic learning experience with del life expectations and time limes. Journalism, photography and web design students, education it and publish a paper for each of the 4 days of the agricultural filed expo held each year at Mystery Creek near Hamilton.

Secondly, Dr. Monique Dalziel, Chris Dunn and Belma Gaukrodger with 'nursing students on cloud 9: engaging students in their assessments'. Used to help first year nursing students learn appropriate communication skills with patients. 5-6 minute videos are taken of interview between student and actor. Students upload the videos on to YouTube and have to reflect on their performance.

My presentation 'applying principles of situated technology enhanced learning to improve trades learning' closes a busy day. Provided overview of the four projects. Firstly completing competency based assessments using photos and videos in level 2 automotive programme. Second, compiling videos into workbooks with barista students. Thirdly, using video to improve learning of front office skills. Fourth project to improve students critical evaluation of web sites via virtual hotel tours.