I’ve just returned from the first meeting of a new group here at Newcastle. The Learning Futures Forum is an opportunity for staff who teach to meet and discuss topics of mutual interest in a fairly informal way. People attend as individuals, not as “representatives” of their discipline and the majority of people seemed keen to network and engage in some “blue skies” thinking about T&L. I was interested in one comment that perhaps learning outcomes actually restrict learning by disempowering the students and discouraging them from taking their own learning experience beyond the boundaries of the planned teaching activity.

!Xanthorrhoea”, grass tree or more commonly called “Blackboy” tree, WA

Marian Rixham from our Medical Library alerted me to this article in Library Policy and Practice 2007. It has some interesting active learning ideas (very relevant after the active learning presentation I went to at LILAC too). The authors suggest that “one possible solution to dull and ineffective didactic training is to incorporate educational games with predetermined learning objectives into the curriculum” and give examples of word searches, riddles and games relating to teaching chemistry students

Rottnest Island, WA

http://libr.unl.edu:2000/LPP/f-smith.htm

This is my last week at work before my next period of study leave for my NTF. Over the next few months I shall be analysing the data I have gathered so far, as well as continuing to visit local schools. I also have a variety of conference commitments to prepare for – from Aberdeen to Lesvos (Greece) and a lot of reading to catch up on!

Kookaburra in WA

Yesterday we held our IL event at Newcastle. It was launched by Prof Ella Ritchie, the PVC for Teaching and Learning, who stressed the importance of IL in the curriculum. Christine Bruce then ran a workshop in which participants worked with her six frames for IL education theory to identify their preferred frames. Although not an easy thing to do, it certainly generated a lot of discussion and made people think about what they do differently.
After lunch, Sophie Brettell from QuILT explained what we are doing with our IL Toolkit and Liz Stockdale described how she has a “golden thread” of IL running through the Environmental Science curriculum. The day culminated in an inspiring talk on assessment given by Sally Brown, PVC for Assessment, Learning and Teaching at Leeds Metropolitan University.
Feedback on the day has been excellent, for which I am much relieved!
We will be adding copies of the presentations and other documentation to the website as soon as we can.

Here is a pic of some daffodils until I can get an official shot of the speakers from the photographer

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/quil…it/infolit.html

It has been very exciting to have Christine Bruce visit . We spent the weekend sightseeing (Durham Cathedral, Northumberland Coast) and discussing my project and the research I’m doing. Christine gave me some valuable advice on tightening up my interviews and even said that she thinks what I’m doing is “exciting”, which was great news!

Moira and Christine at Dunstanburgh Castle

Yesterday I was invited to attend an IL day at Sheffield University, the special guest for the day being Christine Bruce from QUT. Christine came to the UK to do a keynote speech at the LILAC conference and is coming up to the NE today so that she can run a workshop in Newcastle on monday. I’m planning to get some advice on my own project this weekend, in between doing some quick sightseeing around the region.
The meeting in Sheffield was excellent – in the morning we had an informal seminar in which Christine addressed some presubmitted questions around topics such as IL in the workplace, IL and Web 2.0, IL and threshold concepts. Lots of things to think about! In the afternoon she explained what the research group at QUT are working on and we also heard from Sheila Webber and Bill Johnston on their research into academic conceptions of IL in chemistry and english academics.

Durham riverbanks