OLE is Learning about Learning

As a team of educators and facilitators, we are passionate about the learning of others, and by extension are always looking to learn ourselves. The third week in September offered a couple of our team member’s opportunities to do just that.

During the first part of the week, PeopleSoft User Training Program Co-ordinator, Kim MacLock, attended a three day session offered through the CACE (Certificate in Adult and Continuing Education) program at the Faculty of Extension. The course was about understanding learning styles and learning preferences, as well as the best ways to work with those as an educator/facilitator. Kim learned about learners with preferences for reflection, questioning, planning and action. In addition it was discussed how some learners learn best from visuals, some from all things ‘audio’ and others who are kinesthetic. In OLE, we work to ensure that all preferences are accommodated in our sessions. This is one of the reasons they are so engaging and of interest to such a wide variety of University employees. Come and join us to experience what works for you!

On Friday, Kim and OLE Training and Development Specialist, Jim Boyes, were privileged to attend a lecture hosted by the Faculty of Science. The speaker, Sebastian Thrun, is a VP at Google, the co-founder of Udacity ‘a 21st century university’, and a research professor at Stanford. His talk, ‘Experiments in Higher Education’, was a discussion of his recent experiences and experiments delivering online classes for free to extraordinarily large numbers of students (think upwards of 100,000)…Wow! It was a great lecture and gave us a lot to think about in the context of how learning can occur.

For more information on Sebastian’s lecture and his other ventures, visit the Faculty of Science website.

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