My academic discipline is educational technology. When I tell people that (assuming their eyes don't glaze over), they often ask me how I keep up with a field that is in a constant state of flux. Educational technology tools and resources, not to mention the related emerging research, is continually evolving. This is what is exciting about the field for me, but it is a challenge to keep current. Fortunately, I have a system in place that helps. In a pair of video posts, I'm going to walk you through how I try to stay current in my field. Specifically, in the video I explain:

• how RSS (real simple syndication) feeds can bring new content to you;
• how to find and aggregate feeds from professional journals, Web sites, blogs, and podcasts;
• and, how to quickly scan and process the content in your system. 

Want to learn more? Check out Keeping Current in Your Field, Part 2. 

How do you use tools and strategies to stay current in your discipline? What questions do you have? 
Please post your comments or questions below.

“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.”
- Zora Neale Hurston

One of the cornerstones of academic life is disciplined, systematic, and free inquiry. When we position our students to be curious and rigorously pursue new knowledge, we open up new vistas and opportunities to explore. There is no one way to structure inquiry or research in the post-secondary classroom. Rather, inquiry can be structured at multiple levels for different purposes. There are common features, however, that can guide our planning for and implementation of student inquiry and research.

Key features of the strategy
There are many forms of inquiry employed in higher education. They vary based on the origin of the question(s), the level of scaffolding or support provided to students, the duration and scope of the work, and the relative focus on process or outcomes. What nearly all forms of student inquiry or research have in common is that it is driven either by a question or a problem. In an interesting exploration of inquiry approaches employed by faculty from three Australian universities, Aditomo and colleagues (2011) lay out nine forms of inquiry: scholarly research, simplified research, literature-based inquiry, discussion-based inquiry, applied research, simulated applied research, enactment of practice, role playing and other. You may notice that many of these forms of inquiry are represented with different learning activity types presented on this blog, applied research, enactment of practice, and role playing.

Across all these examples, Aditomo et al., suggest that all these forms of inquiry shared two common features. First, they are all characterized by active learning. Students actively engage in their learning, most often in a collaborative fashion. Second, true inquiry learning activities center on questions or problems rather than on subject concepts or topics. They note, “Even the narrower forms of inquiry identified in this study, such as Literature-based and Discussion- based Inquiry, can be designed in ways that are problem-driven (p. 1255).” What can these different forms of inquiry look like in practice?

Examples and Variations

Undergraduate Research
Despite considerable interest in inquiry and research in undergraduate programs, the literature suggests that it is not widely implemented. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, faculty developed a new course titled, Entering Research, designed to assist students in navigating the challenges of beginning research (Balster et al., 2010). The course is a combination of structured class sessions combined with independent research projects under the guidance of a mentor. The authors explain, “The course is designed to help students find a research mentor, explore the culture of research, write a research project proposal, and begin doing research (p. 109).” While situated in the biological and physical science departments, the model is replicable in a variety of disciplines. A three-year study of student outcomes of the course suggests that students find value in the process of identifying a mentor, understanding their place in a large research community, and connecting their research to their coursework.

Inquiry in Sociology
Atkinson & Hunt (2008) describe a range of different examples of inquiry-based learning activities in sociology. They move from brief, structured examples to a longer-term, less structured example. In one of the examples, students are provided with a data set from the U.S. Census from 1950-1990 and challenged to analyze how occupational structures vary by race, sex or education. In this open-ended experience, students formulate their own questions and hypotheses and analyze the data in a number of ways. Students conclude by writing formal research papers that include their hypotheses, analysis, findings, and discussion. This type of inquiry represents a less-structured, more student-driven approach.

Redesigning Curriculum for Inquiry
In many cases, opportunities for student inquiry are unique to the particular courses in which they are enrolled. Spronken-Smith and colleagues (2011), however, describe an interdisciplinary degree program in ecology that was designed to systematically integrate inquiry experiences for students throughout their coursework. The research team developed a program in which students progressively developed their skills in conducting research over the course of the three-year degree. Rather than moving from one experience to the next, they opted for a “spiraling” curriculum in which students revisited topics or skills throughout the program with increasing levels of sophistication.

Connections to 21st Century Skills and Technologies
When students engage in inquiry/research, they develop critical 21st century learning skills in knowledge construction and self-regulation. As they research important questions in different disciplines, they must make meaning from disparate and sometimes conflicting sources. They have to synthesize and evaluate information to help them to answer the question for themselves. In this process, they also develop important self-regulation skills that include both metacognitive components (How can I organize this information in a meaningful way?), as well as, strategies for both organization and persistence.

Similar to problem-based learning and case studies, digital technologies can help support the process of knowledge construction in a number of ways. First, students can utilize Web-based databases of journal articles and resources along with reference management tools (e.g., Mendeley) to collect and organize their sources. They can also use digital notetaking applications (e.g., OneNote and Evernote) to capture their notes and annotate documents for future reference. Finally, concept mapping tools (e.g., Mindmeister) can help students organize their thinking, helping to prepare students to share their results.

How do you encourage inquiry and research in your courses?
Please post your comments below.

In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Bonni Stachowiak, from the Teaching in Higher Ed Podcast. Bonni is an Associate Professor of Business and Management at Vanguard University. She has producing the podcast for just over a year now and has had some incredible conversations with leaders and innovators in teaching in higher ed, including Ken Bain, Jose Bowen, and Steven Brookfield. On the show we discuss the value of connecting with colleagues, near and far, to discuss teaching practice. She shares some of the highlights and lessons she's learned in producing over 50 podcasts. 

Show Notes:
Conversational favorites: 

• Storytelling w/ Aaron Daniel Annas #43
  
• Metacognition w/ Todd Zakrajsek #47
  
• Teaching Naked w/ Jose Bowen #30

Geeky favorites:

• Evernote w/ Scott Self #48
  
• #7, #8, #9 - PKM w/ Dave and Crystal Renfro and Mary Axford (who has since passed away)
• Start to our GTD series: #32 and #41

The mind-bending favorites:

• How technology is changing education w/ Audrey Watters #18
  
• How to see what we’ve been missing w/ Cathy Davidson #28
  
• Teaching through research w/ Bethany Usher #27

The teaching genius ones:

• Discussion w/ Steven Brookfield #15 
  

• Cheating lessons w/ James Lang #19
  
• Cultivate creative assignments w/ Cameron Hunt McNabb #24

Additional mentions:

• Coaching with Leaders Podcast with Bonni's husband, Dave
• Teach Better Podcast
• Hybrid Pedagogy Podcast
• Academic Personal Knowledge Management
• Ed Tech Co-Op Podcast
• The Skillful Teacher

• Planbook by Hellmansoft

Integrating technology in college and university teaching can be a polarizing topic. There are enthusiastic proponents and adamant critics. We’ve all experienced situations where digital tools and resources can introduce problems and get in the way of content in a learning experience. There are, however, many opportunities to enhance teaching and learning with technology. The trick is, how do you sift through all of the options and how can you devise effective uses of technology in teaching?

The TEI Project
This is the question we set out to explore in designing a professional learning experience for faculty through the Technology Enriched Instruction (TEI) program three years ago. With support from Microsoft Education, a faculty design team developed a full-day, inquiry-based workshop that helped faculty member participants to consider how to best integrate technology with their disciplinary content and chosen teaching and learning activities. The course is framed around a model of pedagogical reasoning that helps faculty discover ways to integrate technology in meaningful ways.

The experience begins by considering the kinds of skills and experiences that would best prepare our students for the 21st century world of learning and work. From there we introduce the 21st Century Learning Design framework (described here) and encourage participants to examine the degree to which students engage in these skills in a course they teach. We then consider how technology can be aligned with disciplinary content and appropriate learning activities to support one or more 21st century skills. By the end of the workshop, participants redesign a course session, project or assignment that they can use in their teaching.

TEI Online
To this point, participation in a TEI workshop was limited to face-to-face events hosted by universities around the world. Recently, however, we’ve launched a fully online, interactive, and self-paced version of the workshop through the Microsoft Virtual Academy. For a quick “trailer” of the course content, please take a moment to watch the video below.

While this is a beta version of the course, I hope that you might consider taking part in the learning experience. It’s free and can be completed in a relatively brief period of time. By engaging in this pedagogical reasoning process, our hope is that you are able to more strategically consider the potential benefits of integrating technology in your teaching.

How have you navigated the opportunity and challenge of integrating technology in your teaching?
Please post your comments below.

I’m just getting back into town from a family vacation. And while it’s always great to get away, it can also be a little stressful as emails pile up and tasks can fall through the cracks. In prior posts, I’ve shared how I try to handle email while away as well prioritizing the tasks on my plate. But how do you make sure that you keep the plates spinning so that nothing important falls through the cracks? For me, it’s Todoist.

Todoist is an excellent task management tool that I use on my computer, smartphone and tablet. It offers a free plan that would be sufficient for most users. A $29 per year Premium option adds several features, including the ability to share tasks with collaborators. This is excellent if you’re part of a research team or work on large projects with a graduate or teaching assistant. Todoist offers free client applications for Mac and Windows as well as mobile clients for IOS, Android, and yes, even Apple Watch. They also have extensions for a variety of services including Google Chrome, Outlook, Evernote and more. It is as ubiquitous a technology service that I’ve ever used.

How I organize my complicated life
Like many of you, my life can get complicated. I’m serving in a role now where I split my time between teaching, scholarship, and administration. For each of these areas, I usually have multiple ongoing projects. Perhaps it’s due to my Austrian and German heritage, but I live in constant fear of being late with things or letting things fall through the cracks. Todoist literally helps me to keep organized, on time, and on-track.

Users can customize Todoist in virtually any way you can imagine. Like most faculty, my life is basically divided into teaching, scholarship, service, and home. These are four of my main “projects” in Todoist. I’ve also added other categories that include Projects, Administration, and Strategic Initiatives. Within each of these projects or categories, you can include sub-categories. For example, within Teaching, I have separate categories for each of the courses I’m teaching in the current semester, as well as, those upcoming.

Once I’ve set up my categories in ways that make sense for my work life, I can add tasks to each. Roughly following the Getting Things Done or GTD method, I try to include all the “actionable” tasks involved in each project. This helps me get the tasks out of my head and into a system that I know I will review and keep on top of. This is really the crux of GTD, getting all the tasks and projects into a system so that they aren’t always on your mind. At the same time, you can trust that you’ll stay on top of them and get done what you need to do.

For each task, you include a number of details including due dates, priority levels (1-14), recurring due dates and multiple levels of sub-headings with the free version. The premium version adds some incredibly helpful features. With Premium, you can add notes and file attachments to each task, color code them, set both time-based and location-based reminders, and integrate with your calendar application. With the Premium version, you can also search your tasks, track your productivity, and create automatic backups.

What does this system do for me?
With Todoist, I can easily add a task on my phone, tablet, or computer, and it will instantly synchronize across all my devices. I can see different views of what’s on my plate – by project (or sub-project), by when the tasks are due, or by priority level. These different ways to access and view my tasks helps me to keep track of everything and prioritize my day.

At the end of each workday, I look ahead at tasks due for the next few days. I, then, either reorder them in my Todoist app or transfer them onto a paper-based task list. I enjoy using the paper-based Week Dominator planner to plan my day and week. I really like this combination of digital and analog approaches.

While I’m not sure I’m ready to go back to work tomorrow, I can say that I do feel ready to plan my week so that I balance competing priorities and keep all of my varied projects moving forward.

(NOTE – If you’d like me to create a video walkthrough of setting up Todoist as I’ve described above, please leave me a comment below)

How do you manage your tasks?
Please post your comments below.