Category Archives: hea
by elenizazani
The Higher Education landscape is a rapid changing environment and I feel that the new challenges of the 21stcentury will continue to transform our practice.
I recently attended the 8thLibrarians Information Literacy Conference (LILAC)in Glasgow where Lord Putnamargued that oracy has to become an important element in our teaching as voice recognition technologies (e.g. Google voice, Apple’s Siri) will dominate in the future. He also referred to an expert panel that is currently reviewing the UK National Curriculum and acknowledges the central importance of spoken language to the new curriculum.
One my considerations is how I will persuade my students to talk more as I don’t have the luxury to meet them regularly to …
Promote participation in higher education and equality of opportunity for learners: Value 2by elenizazani
In my previous post, I tried to address some of my considerations on how the design of learning activitiesreflects the level of my respect to the diverse student body in Stratford and Bloomsbury campuses.
I really enjoy being in a position to support my Institution’s mission to “increase access … to flexible higher education through delivery of a range of new programmes in East London, where participation rates are among the lowest in the region” (Birkbeck College, 2009)
I realised that one way to achieve equality in learning opportunities was to be as much flexible as possible. I proposed to my team that we repeat sessions on different days of the week so that we create more learning opportunities …
Respect individual learners and diverse learning communities: value 1by elenizazani
It is well established that the Higher Education environment is overwhelmingly diverse in its student body and so is my experience in supporting their learning across two universities (Birkbeck and University of East London) and two main campuses. My main teaching takes place in Stratford Campuswhile a small part of my time is spent on the central campus in Bloomsbury. I support students from both universities but booked sessions (groups and one-to-ones) are aimed to Birkbeck students. Since I am not focused on a single discipline, I meet students from across all disciplines and levels of study.
The literature I have come across so far underlines the importance of knowing our students and links this element to the success …
Professional values of the UK Professional Standards Frameworkby elenizazani
My career in Higher Education started in 1997 when I undertook a professional role as a Librarian in the Kapodistrian University of Athens,Greece. Teaching students was a natural function of my librarian role; it came about as a need to “educate the Library users”, smoothen their transition to Higher Education and address their steep learning curve regarding subject-specific resources. Having served in the Central Library of the Theology School for eleven years, I decided to move to London in order to re-establish my relation with my profession and seek learning opportunities to expand my career.
Very soon, I joined the Birkbeck Library, realising my dream to engage into teaching mature learners and be involved with what had already evolved …
First Steps to Planning a MOOCby jennymackness
We started planning for this MOOC last week – I blogged about it here – http://jennymackness.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/a-new-mooc-for-mayjune-first-steps-into-teaching-in-fehe/
There has already been a lot written about planning and running a MOOC. Stephen Downes has written a lot of blog posts about this and done many presentations. (See for example, http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2009/02/access2oer-cck08-solution.html; http://change.mooc.ca/how.htmand http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/how-to-organize-a-mooc)
There is also the MOOC Guide Wiki – initiated by Inge de Waard
….. but there’s nothing quite like having to do it yourself for learning! George, Marion and I had our second Skype planning meeting yesterday to discuss the MOOC that we are planning for May/Junethis year.
The full Title of this MOOC, which is being offered by Oxford Brookes University, …