Taking Integrity to the Gym: Using the honour system and reducing cheating. One night I was relaxing at home watching super star psychologist, Dr. Dan Ariely, talk about cheating in his documentary, The Truth About (Dis)honesty. His work is scientifically…
I use team-based learning in all my courses. After I had a year with one or two teams that lagged behind the others. Team-based learning expert, Jim Sibley, suggested the following criteria to form teams. These team-forming criteria worked well…
I have often thought about the precarious and tentative first attempts we need to take to build new community contacts. Indeed, the journey toward building a new community is like learning to walk on a slack line; we fall off — a…
There is a very important practice that great detectives, Pulitzer Prize winners, and creative geniuses have in common — a practice of asking paradigm-busting questions. The following Genius-inspired Questioning process was inspired by three books (see references below). I hope that…
At the start of every class, one student could opt to do a bonus point activity and recite our collective expression of gratitude to our local Aboriginal nation for sharing their land so we could work, play, and live on…
Here is a PDF version of the presentation I gave at Vancouver island University about “reading sprees” — dividing up a text and assigning different parts to different teams to teach back. In this example I discuss the work we…
Law enforcement studies (LESD) students –as a group — are usually NOT keen to read. Indeed, finding ways for LESD to share the reading duties has been a major focus for me in the classroom. I have been developing “reading…
I will describe the use of graphic narration to deepen students understanding of the Truth and Reconciliation 2015 report with this quote from one of my students. A PDF of the completed 3-cohort graphic narration follows the quote. The last thing I…
“Spice of Life” video instructions. To teach peers about students’ and cultural background, they choose one spice (or herb, vegetable, or fruit) and create a 1-minute “foodie” video showing they — or a family member — preparing a dish with their chosen ingredient. But…
At the start of my teaching career I noticed that each term I would have to start at zero with my student and build — brick-by-brick — a respectful and nourishing culture-of-learning. By the time the term ended, the students…