Wednesday, October 02, 2013

NAtional Tertiary Learning and Teaching Conference 2013 - day 1 morning

After a frenetic week in China, a complete change of scenery and ambience with 3 days in Invercargill for the annual National tertiary learning and teaching conference hosted by Southern Institute of Technology.

A stirring powhiri is followed by opening address from Maree Howden, Deputy CE of SIT and a welcome from Invercargill mayor, Tim Shadbolt.

The first keynote address from Dr.Stewart Hase on the topic 'heutagogy' follows. Heutagogy is a word coined to extent andragogy. It refers to self-determined learning. Encouraged audience to suspend comfortable habits and look beyond the usual means of problem solving or coming up with new ideas. Check http://slideshare.re/GzuMKt. Also new book 'self-determined learning' edited by Stewart and Chris Kenyon. People learn different ways and ask different questions. Self-determined learning one way to match latest learnings from neuro-biology with curriculum and learning development. Humans learn through, focus develops specific regions of the human brain; brains sensitive to culture / environment; memory is fragile unless strengthened; attention span 8 minutes; system 1 (assumptions) vs system 2 (work at problem solving) thinking;  effort develops human brain; learning needs to be multi-sensory; humans are naturally curious and explore; emotion and learning are inextricably linked; humans motivated to resolve incongruity; brain plasticity; state dependent learning; the first 30 seconds; repetition required; takes years to develop reliable memory; when real learning occurs is unpredictable; humans learn best by immersion; ingredients are to puddings as knowledge and skills are to learning.

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