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Using social media as a teaching tool

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by Anatoliy Gruzd, School of Information Management

One example of how I use social media as a teaching tool comes from my Information Policy class that I teach at the School of Information Management. In that class, I have a semester long assignment which requires students to select and follow a single authoritative blog that focuses on issues related to the class. Every other week, each student in the class must give a 3-minute report to the class about the recent news and issues raised in the blog posts and corresponding comments.

Since there is always something new happening in the area of information policy, using blogs in this assignment is a good way for students to stay current with developments in the field. Furthermore, since bloggers often clearly express their position on an issue, it helps students to start thinking about whether or not they agree with the blogger’s perspective. This then leads to the realization that there are usually multiple points of view on each issue (especially policy-related), which is much less likely happen if they were simply to read a news story written in a neutral manner.

Support for innovation as renewal

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by Suzanne Le-May Sheffield, Centre for Learning & Teaching

Like the recurring seasons, teaching and learning experiences compel us to engage in a continuing cycle of renewal.  As teachers, I believe we are also life-long learners.  We need to take time for ourselves to reflect upon possibilities and opportunities to enhance current practice and consider new directions. From my experience at Dalhousie, I find there are several determinants of success when exploring such directions:

  • seeking partners in conversation to inspire our innovations
  • making use of available resources and consultants to support our initiatives
  • sharing experiences to build and grow our teaching and learning communities.

The Centre for Learning and Teaching plays a role in supporting Dalhousie teachers to create exciting learning experiences for their students.  We encourage you to join our teaching and learning community by attending Centre events, workshops and discussion groups.  We also invite you to contribute to our ongoing programming throughout the academic year by sharing your ideas with colleagues across the campuses.  Please also feel free to consult with us on an informal basis about your future plans and aspirations for your students’ learning.

We enjoy hearing from you, supporting your goals, and learning with you. Go to:  http://learningandteaching.dal.ca/ for more information or visit us on the first floor of the Killam Library (G90).

Mixing it up across programs to aid learning

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by Ed Ng, School of Business Administration

In my BUSI 6315/COMM 4315 course on International and Intercultural Management, students get first-hand experience in people management skills.  I work with instructors in the Corporate Residency MBA program in order to foster learning for both groups of students in an interactive, experiential environment.

The graduate students are charged with leading a diverse, multicultural, and cross-functional team of undergraduate students in completing a country case study project.  MBAs apply their leadership and coaching skills to motivate their teams to successful completion of a project which culminates in a “trade mission” presentation at the end of the semester.  As team leaders, the MBA students experience everyday management challenges such as motivating teams on task, resolving dysfunctional behaviours, and facilitating problem-solving using their knowledge from organizational behaviour theories.  They also develop coaching and mentoring skills such as providing their team with guidance and directions, leading by example, providing timely feedback, developing subordinates, and creating an environment of trust in a multicultural setting.

Meanwhile, the undergraduate students also learn to work as a team, resolve work issues, maintain healthy group dynamics, manage workflow and support each other and their team leaders.  Teams must complete their project on time, meet all project objectives and guidelines, and deliver their presentations to the client in a boardroom setting.

At the conclusion of the project, both MBA and undergraduate students learn to conduct performance appraisals by participating in a 360/multisource performance evaluation with each other as peers, supervisors and subordinates.

A very beneficial outcome is that students gain self-awareness in their strengths and weaknesses as people managers and team members.  This academic experience also helps them to develop their leadership and coaching skills, and functional competencies in communication, project management and performance assessment.

“SciVerse Web App Challenge” assignment

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by Anatoliy Gruzd, School of Information Management

In the fall of 2011, as part of the Information Management Systems class that I teach at the School of Information Management, I introduced a new assignment based on Elsevier’s new platform called SciVerse (http://www.info.sciverse.com).

SciVerse is a web-based platform that allows academic and professional developers to design and build next generation applications to improve search and discovery functionalities of Elsevier’s large database of bibliographic records.

As part of this assignment, students worked in groups of three and four. They were tasked to create a conceptual design for a new SciVerse application. The goal was to introduce students to the latest web-based information systems in the field of Library and Information Science.

Later that semester, students had the choice to submit their completed conceptual design into an open competition called “SciVerse Web App Concept Design Competition”. (The competition was not part of the class.) To participate in this competition, students had to create a poster to showcase their design idea and present it during a poster session.

Based on the students’ feedback, the SciVerse Web App Challenge assignment was a smashing success. Many students expressed their high satisfaction with the positive learning experience. Second, as a result of this assignment and the event, Elsevier put together a case study based on this unique-to-Canada format, so that other universities can learn from and organize a similar event in the future.

Share your ideas

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by Fiona Black, Director, Academic Planning

Welcome! This is your blog. Share your ideas by submitting text to Lisa Nociforo at lisa.nociforo@dal.ca.

No idea is too small or too large—showcase your innovations in programs, classes or an individual session. Tell us about things you plan to do, or things you have completed and evaluated. Describe your collaborations, funding sources, successes and failures.

Educate us, intrigue us, join us, comment on colleagues’ posts. There can be no conversation without you.