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Searching for a Singular, Nonbinary-Gendered Reflexive Pronoun

Bycward

A recent human service (HUMS) course has a lesson about using critical reflection to uncover and deconstruct assumptions. The lesson explores how language is changing to acknowledge nonbinary-gendered people through pronouns. For example, a writer might choose “they” as a singular pronoun instead of “he” or “she”.  Using “they” as both singular and plural pronouns shouldn’t seem that…

Assessment Editing

Bycward

I recommend this excellent “Assessment Editing” blog post  at the ACES website. Evelyn Mellone and David Pisano are language proficiency test editors at the U.S. Defense Language Institute. They presented a workshop on editing assessments to ACES members, and their PowerPoint notes offer best practices and areas of concern that will be useful for anyone editing…

Reflective Practice: eLearning Rubric to Self-Assess Quality of Online Courses

Bycward

Reflective practice is a valuable approach to editing. Reflecting critically on our work allows us to learn, innovate, and ultimately improve our courses. eCampusAlberta’s eLearning Rubric can be a valuable tool to self-assess the quality of our work: http://www.ecampusalberta.ca/files/rubricBooklet.pdf. Their rubric offers benchmarks for course design, accessibility, presentation, writing, learning activities, assessments, copyright, learner supports, etc. The checklist has many good ideas for course developers and editors: Some we…

Fairness to All

Bycward

A few years ago Mona Hall, Danielle Collins, and I collaborated on an infographic about inter-culturalization of the curriculum. Our central question was: How will we create learner-centred courses for culturally and linguistically diverse readers? We found that the university has some excellent guiding policies and resources for educators, but it did take some effort to…

Student Cafe as Interculturalization of the Curriculum

Bycward

Our online courses often include the Student Cafe, which is an ungraded discussion area intended to encourage peer-to-peer interactions, foster or enhance student engagement, and build a learning community. Sounds great, but I wonder sometimes how many students post to the Student Cafe? Do they find it useful? Open Learning students often start a course at…

OLFM Guide Revision

Bycward

The Open Learning Faculty Member Guide will be revised in the near future. The resources specific to Blackboard Learn will be updated to the new LMS, and these guides to facilitation and technical tools may be collected with other resources on a web page or wiki to be maintained by OL Delivery Support.