Mc² = E Learning Reflections

  Firstly, I want to thank Professor Rebecca Ferguson for highlighting the amazing book entitled "Leaving College: Rethinking the Causes and Cures of Student Attrition" by Vincent Tinto (1993).  It's an amazing read and for anyone interested in this area of study, it's a must read!   What's really struck me has been how much I'm learning as I read through it.  This book was written decades before the pandemic and, despite that, I'm learning so much to inform my thinking as an educator in a post-covid world.   So I wanted to share some of that learning with my readers.   "The absence of integration appears to arise from two sources referred to here as incongruence and isolation.  Incongruence, or what is sometimes referred to as lack of institutional fit, refers to that state where individuals perceive themselves as being substantially at odds with the institution.  In this case the absence of integration results from the persons jud...

  What is kindness?  It's a term that's used a lot these days and I'm not sure everyone has an agreed understanding of what it means.  In doing some research I can see that it's something of an umbrella term, a collection of behaviours and attitudes that are perceived as kind by others.  In learning and educational settings this is closely linked with Social and Emtional Learning (SEL) and Binfet et al. (2016) highlights that such SEL strategies are shown to not only improve student behaviour, but also has a positive effect on student academic achievements too.   ( "Have you ever taken the time to notice that when you expect something to have a positive outcome that your effort goes up significantly that you put into the project? ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Our expectations have an enormous influence on what we achieve and t"   by  GrindingForSuccess  is licensed under  CC BY 2.0 ) If you read my previous recent blog post, I do believe that it's...

Why do students cheat?  Why does there exist a presumption that students will cheat in exams or assessments?  So many people said to me in the past year, that open, distance or online learning isn't as good as traditional face to face teaching because students can cheat so easily.  Many say this not knowing that I myself am a graduate of the Open University in the UK.  But in doing so, I can't help wondering if they would question my honesty and academic integrity if they did know.  Maybe they do question me behind  my back, but I would hope not.  But still it raises the question as to why my qualifications, achieved through distance online are perceived by some as somehow less valid.  Moreover, what does that say about the qualification of the generation of students living through this pandemic? I realise that many institutions have undergone a massive overhaul of systems and infrastructure to allow students to continue to access some form of edu...