This week the focus is teaching and the evaluation of teaching.
This #fslt12 course is based on a course which runs face-to-face at Oxford Brookes University. The First Steps course is an element of the Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development’s (OCSLD) HEA accredited Post Graduate Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education (PCTHE).
#fslt12 has been aimed at new lecturers, people entering higher education teaching from other sectors and postgraduate students who teach. But in true MOOC spirit we have also had some very experienced ‘teachers’ join us who have openly shared their experience.
(Click on the image to see it more clearly)
In the face-to-face course the key activity is to ‘microteach’ - i.e. teach a short 10 minute session to a small group of peers and receive feedback from that group. In order to try and ensure alignment between the face-to-face course and what is offered online, we are trying out this activity in #fslt12. On Wednesday and Friday of this week, #fslt12 participants will showcase the teaching sessions they have prepared in the live sessions and receive feedback from their peers.
Click here to enter the Blackboard Collaborate room. (See time zones below)
Wed 20 June – Check your time zone
Frid 22 June – Check your time zone
I will be able to reflect further on this activity at the end of this week, but it has already raised some interesting challenges. These include:
- feelings of exposure. I think it’s fair to say that it’s one thing to practise your teaching in front of a small face-to-face group, but quite another to practise openly online in front of anyone and everyone
- 10 minutes. This will also be a challenge face-to-face, but how do you demonstrate your teaching skills in just 10 minutes
- technology. I also think it would be fair to say that however this activity is presented it will involve a greater degree of technology than it’s face-to-face equivalent.
Finally this activity also demands the skills of evaluation from those involved in peer review.
Greg Benfield from Oxford Brookes University has provided some excellent resources this week, which include two audio video presentations in which he introduces the topic of evaluation, reference to key readings and some sample videos for us to use to try out our evaluation skills.
The microteaching activities are beginning to be posted, both by participants who are being assessed and by others, and we expect some more over the next few days. Have a look in the Moodle wiki and on people’s blogs
It promises to be another interesting week.
