One of the new possibilities we've been exploring at the Interactivity Foundation is the use of wikis for the discussion and development of material. We've set up a general wiki site, the Interactivity Foundation Wiki as a home base for these wikis (a list of the...
As I was digging through old posts, I would like to add my thoughts to the topic “setting up student discussions” 18 months ago. I am particularly going to recommend the website www.doodle.com for scheduling. Scheduling an event and selecting a topic is very time...
The Interactivity Foundation (IF) focuses upon three major discussion areas: sanctuary project discussions designed to develop public policy possibilities in our selected areas of concern, public discussions of the contrasting policy possibilities presented in our...
Ia Natsvlishvili was a participant in the 50-Hour Training Course in the IF Discussion Process that IF Fellows Mark Notturno and Ieva Notturno conducted in Washington DC last Spring for Junior Faculty Development Program (JFDP) scholars. After successfully...
When many faculty hear the term “student-centered discussion,” they imagine students leading a “discussion” that is really just a bull session. In fact, this is typically the sort of discussion that happens when faculty allocate small-group discussion time in...
I want to start my blog by stating that I have really benefited from reading the blogs and email messages my fellow IFers have been sending. It is nice to know that others are also struggling with issues of evaluating student learning, group management and...
The Perspectives articles exploring IF in the classroom have, thus far, largely articulated the benefits of our student-centered approach on student learning, interaction, retention, and skill development (leadership, communication, etc.). It is important that we...
Now that it's been well over a month since my last post, it's hard to know how to sum up all the things that have happened. I'll start at the conclusion: Thursday was the last day of my IF course. All 15 of our first-year seminars are invited to participate in...
If you have not been to a university campus since the 1960s or 1970s, you might be surprised to find how similar the classroom environment is to that which you might remember from forty or more years ago. While technology has transformed the average classroom into...
Since my last post, several things have happened. My students finished their first round of discussions, so everyone has tried their hand at facilitating. It went reasonably well, although I'm changing some small things to make the next round better. I also had...