Summary Sessions
28 February 2008 (Thursday)
1330 to 1500 hours (1.30 pm to 3.00 pm)

The Summary Sessions are parallel sessions to provide the platform for the seminar participants to reflect, share and interact with the invited speakers on the specific issues and areas discussed throughout the seminar duration.

The intent is for the participants to bring with them useful tips, good teaching ideas and greater awareness on building bridges to link content to pedagogy, information and communication technology as well as provide appropriate learning support to better enhance and enrich the students’ learning experience.

The four (4) Seminar Tracks in the Seminar include:

1. Pedagogy, Methodologies and Good Practices
   This Track looks into the appropriate pedagogy and review of learning design for effective teaching and learning. The topics covered explore those principles underpinning active learning which facilitate the development of a student-centric and life long learning environment.
   
   
2. Emerging Technologies for Teaching and Learning
   This track seeks to explore how information and communication technologies can be infused into the pedagogical practices to extend and enrich students’ learning experience. It also explores the appropriate use of emerging web 2.0 technologies and learning support tools to better cater to learners’ needs.
   
   
3. Learning Design and Support
   This track explores ways to build conducive and engaging learning environments to better facilitate and enrich students’ learning experiences. It also explores the trend towards building learning communities and the need to keep pace with the continued emergence of technologies that will bridge constraints we normally associate with time and space.
   
   
4. Content Design and Development
   This track focuses on application of appropriate learning principles and the re-design of content learning environments. It also explores the strategic use of information and communication technology to provide appropriate learning activities, resources and support to enhance student engagement and learning experiences.

Summary Sessions – Format for the Discussion Groups in the Track Summary
Track Facilitators for the Summary Sessions to appoint one Leader and one Secretary for each sub-group:

1. Collate the Magic Number that comprised of the collective years of teaching among the group of participants in the track.  
2. Identify 3 areas to build bridges to enhance the student learning experiences
3. What are the 2 challenges faced in building bridges and
4. The 1 thing to do as follow up to this seminar

Summary for Track Sessions

1. Magic Number - The collective years of teaching among the group of participants in the track

S/N	Seminar Track	Track Facilitator	No of Attendees	Magic Number	Average collective years of teaching
1	Pedagogy, Methodologies and Good Practices	Prof Tom Reeves	24	299	12.46
2	Emerging Technologies for Teaching and Learning	John Larkin	24	219	9.125
3	Learning Design and Support	Westley Field	10	133 yrs 8 months or 133.67 yrs	13.37
4	Content Design and Development	Prof Henk Schmidt	24	310	12.92
	Total		82	961.67 yrs	11.73

A total of 82 participants attended the Summary Sessions and amongst them, the parallel groups have a total of 961.67 collective years of teaching expertise. The average collective years of teaching expertise is 11.73 years.

Summary on 3-2-1 in building3 bridges to enhance student learning experience, the 2 challenges faced in building bridges and 1 thing to follow up from the seminar…..

S/N	Track	3 Areas to build bridges	2 challenges to overcome	1 thing to do as follow up	Closing Remarks
1	Pedagogy, Methodologies and Good Practices (PM)	Motivation: Using incentive, from extrinsic to intrinsic Learning Environment: Lecture-based to activity based; teacher-centred to student centred Align content & assessment with clear learning objectives	Changing the mindsets of teachers and students (motivation & attitude, mode of assessment) for teachers, students, parents, policy makers, and the public Time and resources. Too many hours of lectures and tasks. Need a balance	Creating interdisciplinary interest groups	Ours is a design profession, and thus we should combine creative design principles with effective evaluation.
2	Emerging Technologies for Teaching and Learning	To embrace appropriate emerging technologies Setting content to connect to real-world context Building links with teachers and students to enhance the learning environment	Changing the mindsets of staff to adopt new challenges/tools for teaching and learning Time constraints - keeping pace with advance in use of learning technologies	Know what the students are doing to learn and to explore scope for collaboration network (COP) for good practices to share and support	Lead by examples – learn by doing and show to convince others to join the Web 2.0 band wagon
3	Learning Design and Support (LS)	The ability to construct and share ideas using tools such as wikis, LMS - ability for everyone to   contribute - variety of ways     participants can   contribute Accessibility - quality of access - anyone can access from anywhere, anytime Speed and wide access to information - speed of publication (getting the message out quickly)	Time (design, implement and assessment) To cater to different learning styles	To adopt appropriate web 2.0  tools to better cater for an engaging learning environment	To encourage more sharing and collaboration between and among staff and students
4	Content Design and Development (CD)	Alternative Assessment -- peer evaluation,  portfolios, journals, Group Project Work Authentic Tasks (i.e., Case Studies )	Buy-in by teachers of new ways to think about teaching Student Motivation and Their Sense of Relevance	Designing Engaging Lessons ( i.e., by Teaching  Less Learning More )	Infrastructure set up and content redesign

 

Putting it all together and moving forward…
In summary, the key concerns and barriers to building bridges to enhance and enrich student learning experiences include:

• Lack of motivation (extrinsic and intrinsic) as incentives for change of mindsets
• Time constraint is a hindrance to creativity and strife for innovative approaches
• Need for infrastructure and support to create conducive learning environment
• Keeping pace with emerging technologies for teaching and learning
• Need for redesign of content delivery to incorporate activity-based and authentic learning scenarios
• Alignment of content with assessment to better cater to learning objectives and outcomes

The encouraging signs include:

• Availability of wide range of web 2.0 applications and resources
• Opportunities for innovative approaches in teaching and learning
• Readiness of students and willingness of teachers/lecturers to take on new challenges
• Availability of collaborative environments for sharing and knowledge building
• Environmental and infrastructure support from school/university management

As we move towards a networked learning environment, we need to seek to build appropriate bridges to link content with innovate design principles and emerging learning technologies to create opportunities for more engaging learning experiences. We act as the changing agents to take the lead in embracing new ideas and methodologies while working towards inter-disciplinary interest groups such as communities of practices to share and collaborate across and beyond geographical boundaries. Learning can be fun while engaging for the students and it should be a joy to teach and fulfillment to share.

Some thoughts for the step forward in building bridges to create the learning opportunities for our students…

• Education is all a matter of building bridges Ralph Ellison
  
  
• Learning is finding out what you already know,
  Doing is demonstrating that you know it,
  Teaching is reminding others that they know it as well as you do.
  We are all learners, doers, and teachers. Richard David Bach
  
  
• Teachers are those who use themselves as bridges, over which they invite their students to cross; then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own. 
  Nikos Kazantzakis
  
  

Summary Panel – Review….Reflect….Renew….What’s Next? Download Presentation Slides here. Watch Video Presentation here.