NurseKillam

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Excel-ent High-Speed Paper-Free Marking

NurseKillam on May 27, 2020May 27, 2020

At the end of the term, I mark a lot of essays. Learning the power of the technology I have has enabled me to improve my marking speed without sacrificing the quality of feedback that I provide to students. What works for me may not work for you. Students have liked my new marking approach, which provides more concise feedback for them and is faster for me. I would not always use this approach, but at the end of a […]

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The #PhD Adventure Begins at @QueensuSON with @marianlflude

NurseKillam on April 8, 2020April 8, 2020

My life is about to change. The mixture of extreme excitement and nervousness about embarking on a PhD is something I haven’t experienced in a while. I am so excited to engage with a community of scholars and grow my skills needed to conduct ongoing research, efficiently produce publications, and engage in focused scholarship. I feel ready. It took me what I feel like was a very long time to take this step in my career. I have been wanting […]

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Exam Design: Promoting Integrity Through Trust and Flexibility

NurseKillam on April 6, 2020April 6, 2020

I spent a lot of time thinking about how to design my exam after a mid-semester pivot to online learning due to COVID-19. In the end, my exams this term are open book with no time limit. They have a due date but are open for a week or more. I am even open to extending it. Students can go in and out of the exam as many times as they want. I also provided them with a downloadable copy […]

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Pivot Perils: Think Before Requiring Video

NurseKillam on March 19, 2020March 19, 2020

Welcome to the new normal: Online learning in a hurry. Que the spam about tech solutions to your problem. Some are rushing in to lecture capture as a way to engage learners. In my opinion that is not the best option. The problem with lecture capture: Audience retention. First of all, long lectures are best for synchronous learning. I have gotten really good feedback about using them when teaching online. Assuming that asynchronous learners will enjoy listening to us for […]

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Online Pivot: Clarity is Key

NurseKillam on March 16, 2020March 16, 2020

One thing I have been working on this term is clearly directing students to key content in my Moodle shell. I have had success with using obvious, clear, consistent, and concise instructions. The goal is for students to find what they need as quickly as possible. Every week is numbered with a clear topic identified. In each section, the content has been consistently organized according to five sections. Weekly topic sections in Moodle. I think that this signalling is even […]

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Code on Bonus Day with @gdg

NurseKillam on February 29, 2020February 29, 2020

I am not really sure what I am about to get myself into here, but past GDG events have been fun. Nick is going to teach us about Firebase. Here we go @gdg … pic.twitter.com/dR7M2EIJ1Y— Laura Killam (she/her) (@NurseKillam) February 29, 2020 We talked about a lot of the possibilities, which honestly I need more time to explore. I was most interested in the possibilities for working with web building as well as Google docs to update multiple documents at […]

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Why not try Something New with H5P

NurseKillam on January 14, 2020

This Tuesday I am preparing to try a new teaching strategy in class this week. In the past students have been shy to role play in a large group (70). When thinking about my options for facilitating class this week I decided to try H5P in class. Typically, I use it for out of class activities, but at the last TESS conference they talked about some options to make use of it in class. The activity below uses branching logic. […]

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Post Haste: Tuesday Time Saving Teaching Tip

NurseKillam on January 7, 2020January 7, 2020

Everyone is so busy at this time of year (me included). When my files are unorganized because I haven’t had the time to create my folder structure I waste a lot of time looking for information (ironic). No more! I am solving that problem by using a program I have been using to organize video editing files to speed up my course organization. Using a similar folder structure and allowing Post Haste to copy and rename all my templates will […]

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Quick Marking Tip: Be Nice!

NurseKillam on December 10, 2019December 10, 2019

It is marking season. I don’t have a lot of time to blog because I have a lot of literature reviews to mark. Marking literature reviews is time-consuming but enjoyable. I also set daily goals. Because I love progress.— Laura Killam (she/her) (@NurseKillam) December 3, 2019 I am behind schedule and have not been meeting my daily goals because I underestimated how long they would take to grade (on average 2 hours each). I decided to blog today anyways because […]

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Three Activities To Improve Exam Readiness

NurseKillam on December 3, 2019December 3, 2019

Today’s Tuesday Teaching Tip is the first one directed at my colleagues instead of my students. Before my last class, I went to the literature to look for ways to improve student readiness for exams and decrease test anxiety. One article, in particular, was quite thought-provoking (Poorman, Mastorovich, & Gerwick, 2019). In class, we talked about the hierarchy of evidence and I shared that although the article is low on the pyramid I can still use it to inform my […]

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