Innovating Pedagogy

This week, I would like to share an alternative to a SoTL article, which is The Open University Innovating Pedagogy 2017, Sixth Report. The authors indicate that "This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This sixth report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education."

The ten innovations include Spaced Learnings; Learners making science; Open textbooks; Navigating post-truth societies; Intergroup empathy; Immersive learning; Student-led analytics; Big-data inquiry: thinking with data; Learning with internal values; and Humanistic knowledge-building communities. Although this is not a quick read (48 pages), I believe that reading the three page Executive Summary could be very helpful. If I were to suggest one of the ten to focus on, if you had limited time, I would recommend the "Spaced Learning," as they share recent research on how we process information. Reminding us that "studies of human memory have shown that we remember more when learning is spaced over time rather than crammed together in a single session."

Ferguson, R., Barzilai, S., Ben-Zvi, D., Chinn, C.A., Herodotou, C., Hod, Y., Kali, Y., Kukulska-Hulme, A., Kupermintz, H., McAndrew, P., Rienties, B., Sagy, O., Scanlon, E., Sharples, M., Weller, M., & Whitelock, D. (2017). Innovating Pedagogy 2017: Open University Innovation Report 6. Milton Keynes: The Open University, UK.