I Learn, Therefore I Am

This is a re-post of something I wrote on Facebook a few years back. Last week, I attended another graduation ceremony and thought about how it still applies. A while ago, I attended the graduation ceremony of my Interactive Multimedia students. I never miss that. It always makes me a little sad to see them leave (that’s another topic on its own) but it is really an exciting, joyful, and proud day. While sitting up on the faculty platform watching all the students coming and receiving their degrees and medals, I noticed that a large percentage of medalists were female. Even though I’m a man, that made me feel twice as proud. Asking why? Well, hold that thought. I’ll get back to it. I’m a big Star Trek fan. Have watched and read them since I was a little kid. Like many sci-fi and fantasy stories, Star Trek is the brain-child of people imagining a better world when the human race has reached a state of peace and friendship among themselves and “boldly goes where no one has gone befo...

My last blog post talked about a study I did on the role of emotions in education. It argued that, despite a strong body of knowledge, the universities are not paying enough attention to affective aspects of education and the emotional needs of students (or staff and faculty, for that matter). When I discuss this subject with other faculty, a common answer involves the lack of resources that prevents them from helping with this situation. How can they relate better with students when they have a large class? How can they spend time with their students when they are overwhelmed with work? How can they put effort into improving their teaching practices when they are rewarded primarily for other things such as research publications and funding? There is no doubt that a healthy educational system requires systematic and institutional support. This includes a wide range of things from better training programs to more impactful reward systems. But it is not helpful to simply assume "...

A few years ago, I had a bright and enthusiastic student in one of my first-year classes who was always cheerful and eager to get involved in many academic and extracurricular activities from volunteering in conferences to planning holiday parties. When I had her again in the 4th year, I noticed that she didn’t have the same attitude. She was quiet and less active, and somewhat bitter. When I curiously asked her if everything was ok and what had happened, she said “you guys did it,” referring to the university. This encounter and many other conversations with students made me wonder how we emotionally affect our students. It is not uncommon to find those who are frustrated, overwhelmed, stressed, and disappointed, those who can’t wait to get out, don’t trust us anymore, or have given up any lofty learning ideas and just want a passing grade. There is a strong body of knowledge discussing the affective aspects of education, the role of emotional intelligence, and frameworks such as so...

This is a re-post of a blog entry for Digital Scholarship Ontario , Dec 17, 2015,  by Ali Arya and Luciara Nardon.  Most educators are familiar with students’ growing reliance on online search engines for finding information and researching topics. “Google It!” is a near-universal term. The ubiquity of Internet search technology has made it possible for people to find information and solve problems for which they have no personal expertise. While in daily life online searches have positive uses, in an educational setting the overreliance on search technologies may result in a reduction of student problem solving and critical thinking abilities. This, in turn, may result in weaker academic performance when search tools are not available, in the long term compromising creativity, adaptability, and originality. While everyone “sensemakes” on a continual basis, expertise plays a role in influencing what is noticed and what is the subject of ...

While the number of university students has increased in the last few decades, the rising cost of university education, the introduction of online methods of acquiring knowledge, and more recent trends such as industry apprenticeships have made most of us in academia question the role we will have in the new age of digital media and how relevant and sustainable that role can be. Back in mid-1990s, I used a website for downloading music lyrics. The Internet connections were low-speed so downloading or uploading music files was not quite imaginable yet. I remember one day there was a notice on the website saying they were sued and forced to stop operating by the record companies. The entertainment industry had a different business model back then: you had to buy a record with fixed content, and that was your only way of getting music (and even the lyrics), and you couldn’t copy it either. It didn’t take long before Napster and peer-to-peer file sharing announced the beginning of the...