Socio-cultural: Developing An Online Course

Socio-cultural The learning trajectory of the human learning experiences aims to create boundaries and create new opportunities. This experience of learning and negotiation of meaning within a community through concepts of imagination, alignment and engagement is the socio-cultural or ‘Communities of Practice‘ (Wenger, 1998). Socio-cultural theoretical framework involves the learning experiences from both past and…

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John Hattie & Visible Learning

Journal Club Article: Hattie, J. (2008). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge [sample]. Background Aimed “to synthesize over 800 meta-analyses about the influences on achievement to present a more global perspective on what are and what are not key influences on achievement” (Hattie, 2008). Hattie found 138 influences of learning…

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Blended Synchronous Learning

Journal Club Article: Bower, M., Kenney, J., Dalgarno, B., Lee, M. J., Kennedy, G. E., Carter, H., … & Hedberg, J. (2013). Blended synchronous learning: Patterns and principles for simultaneously engaging co-located and distributed learners. Electric Dreams. Proceedings ascilite. Background The traditional view of learning is of the on-campus University experience is changing, with students wholly…

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Phenomenographic & Variation Theory

Phenomenographic & Variation Theory The phenomenological perspective is based around understanding the experiences of others, for example a teacher gaining an understanding of the student’s perspective of a particular lesson. Basing this approach around the individual’s perspective, continual evolvement occurs in the different learning experiences we participate in (Marton, 1981). The same educational content could…

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Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development

Vygotsky’s “Zone of proximal development” describes how the learner moves cognitively from potential to actual development (a constructivism theory). What the learner cannot do. What the leaner can do with guidance. What the learner can do. This type of learning can only be facilitated through guidance and support (Moll, 2013). “Vygotsky’s social constructivism is an…

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Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

Intended learning outcomes (ILOs) are explicit statements of what a learner is expected to achieve, and to what standard or level of achievement (Biggs and Tang, 2011). When creating nurse education and training in the workplace, simulation centre or higher education setting, the importance of designing intended learning outcomes are vital. ILOs are central to…

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The Perfect Assessment: Competency

Background Whilst working as a postgraduate course coordinator I regularly had discussions with students, nurse educators and the higher education team of the ‘ideal’ assessment. Everyone seems to have their own views and preferences on the correct method of assessment. This variability is matched by workplaces and universities assessing using an array of assessment methods…

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Social Media for Nurses: Twitter

Beginners Guide To Twitter Twitter is a service to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick and frequent messages. People post Tweets, which may contain photos, videos, links and up to 140 characters of text. Twitters Mission: “To give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers”. Learning…

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Maker Movement

What is the Maker Movement? “The maker movement is about making things that you care about, things that are meaningful to you and others around you.” (Resnick, 2016). It’s about being more than just a consumer, as we humans like to engage with objects. Dougherty (2012) highlights the tinkering skills of yesteryear and a trend…

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Ken Robinson: Creativity Expert

We believe Sir Ken is worthy of an individual post dedicated to his work alone. From books, Ted Talks, education policy adviser and media, this education guru is a creator and thinker on what teaching is and should be. Just transfer his discussion on education delivery from the school setting, into the hospital or higher…

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