Almost a month has gone since I arrived in Windsor, warmly welcomed by Dr Alan Wright, the Vice Provost (Academic) at the University of Windsor and currently also acting as Director of the Centre for Teaching and Learning. Since it has taken me till now to get round to understand blogging (a little) I will pick out the highlights of the last month from the work perspective and record those and then try to be a little bit more methodical and consistent and post regularly my progress. This picture is of the flowerbed outside the registry bu idling. It denotes that spring has arrived.
CTL is on two floors in one of the tallest buildings on campus, in the basement live the technical folks with some very impressive equipment for distance learning, video conferencing, studio productions, language lab and other things which I apologise for omitting. On the second floor live the academic developers, administrators and the LMS support folk. I have a lovely office on the second floor from where I constantly hear the peals of laughter coming from the various offices. So it is a fun place to work, with all my new colleagues very willing to share what they do and what they know with an inquiring traveller. I have arrived at time when the count down to the STLHE conference (Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education) which the CTL and University is hosting from 18-21 June. So there is serious pressure and deadlines for the conference, as well as a lot of the day job also to be done.
The highlight of the month for me has been time. Time to browse the web, time to read documents and comment on them for the University of Canterbury (I might be far away, but UC is certainly not far from my mind), time to read journal articles and sort them into piles according to the various undertakings I have made for my study leave, time for conversations with my new colleagues about what is happening at Windsor, in particular the "Focus on Learning" which is manifesting itself as a focus on writing learning outcomes for all courses and programmes and brief discussions about the new learning management system which the University has been implementing over the last year. It is called CLEW (Collaboration and Learning Environment Windsor) and I am hoping to earn my CLEW badge.
I have also participated in a heartwarming final session for Alan's Graduate class on teaching and learning. His regular class time was 7-10pm on a Tuesday so I understand many of his classes were enhanced by provisions to keep the flagging brains engaged. On my first Friday evening I was included in the pot luck supper class hosted by Alan and his wife Marie-Jeanne at their home. Judging by the conversations I had with some of the learners, who ranged from PhD and masters students to school teachers including a deputy principal, the class it self was stimulating enough without the need for food! But the potluck supper was delicious and plenty of doggy bags to go home! We had all been asked to bring a small something that was important to us in our educational lives. The small items ranged from a red furry dog (sorry Marie-Jeanne I'm not sure what sort of animal you had), to an i-pod, to a very moving tribute to the freedom of Canadian citizens and many others.
I have also run a workshop and had about 22 participants, a very noble turnout for exam marking time and end of year general busyness. We explored the value of learning outcomes and the importance of getting the teaching, learning and assessment all constructively aligned. (Biggs). I heard about some interesting practices that are happening here at Windsor.
Another interesting opportunity which has arisen, came about through the Human Rights Officer who fields many of the complaints from PhD students. She wondered could this visitor who was being advertised on the CTL website do something to address the concerns. This has prompted discussions with the Dean of Graduate Studies, Alan, Michael, (my CTL minder) and me and it looks like we will be doing something to start a programme of activities around trying to surface and share good practice in PhD supervision around the University. This is in line with discussions which are happening back in Christchurch in my unit there. So the issues are similar across the hemispheres.
I have made a number of other connections and my to do pile is growing. Ongoing things include welcoming international delegates to STLHE in advance of their arrival, workshop for the Human Kinetics department, writing with Alan, gathering information for the papers I am planning to write for UC on implementation of a new LMS, academic integrity and exploration of the barriers to the implementation of inquiry at universities. These will involve travel to other nearby universities and fortunately there are a number in this region. Not to mention preparation for the ICED conference (International Council for Educational Developers in Salt Lake City, workshops at STLHE and so on. But you will hear more about them as the days progress.
It hasn't been all work (just in case you might worry about me). I've had an exciting shopping trip to Detroit with Jeanne (thank you). It is most unfortunate when the only bag of flour weighs 5 lbs - will last me 10 years, let alone 3 months), I've been to concerts and plays courtesy of Alan, dinner with colleagues, a quick whizz to the Detroit Institute of Arts and a relaxing trip to Niagara Falls - but the Maid of the Mist was still in winter hibernation, so I'll have to go back again later in the year. My friend Hilary, from Wellington happened to be passing through on her way between Berlin and New Zealand, so she spurred me on to being the tourist. otherwise I potter round on my bike exploring the waterfront, side streets and cycling tracks.
I'll pop in a couple of photos to reward you for reading for so long. Next posts will be much shorter.
A new hotel in Niagara Falls - it really did look two dimensional like this, although I went round the back and it was a proper building. Below are the Horseshoe Falls - quite wonderful
