October, 2016

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A “Normal” Chicago Weekend

Hope College Network

As I pass the midway point of my semester here in Chicago (still in shock that it’s over halfway done!) my roommate and I have sort of realized it’s been a while since we had a “normal” weekend. What I mean by that is basically that the last 4-5 weekends I’ve either gone out of town (I went to Philly and back to Hope for homecoming), had friends visiting, or was deathly ill with the flu.

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Interdisciplinary learning: Notes from the whiteboard

Teaching Matters Student Engagement

Delivering an interdisciplinary course is a complex challenge — ideally the learning is co-produced by both teachers and students, but getting the balance right is difficult. Just dropping lecturers with different backgrounds into the syllabus can result in a series of disconnected presentations which pushes all the work of constructing a coherent whole onto the students.

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Effective feedback at scale

Teaching Matters Online Learning

In this post, Dr Celine Caquineau, a lecturer at the Edinburgh Medical School in Biomedical Sciences, shares the findings of a PTAS-funded project, which evaluates the long-lasting benefits of integrated assessment and feedback practices on academic skills and performance of undergraduate students… Designing and delivering learning activities to 300+ students is challenging.

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HighEdWeb 2016 - Western Oregon University's Website Redesign

Terminalfour

Lisa Catto of Western Oregon University delights the audience with her account of their website design (A nod to Adele included)

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Teaching with sustainability in the Vet School

Teaching Matters Student Engagement

Lecturers and students share their thoughts on the focus on sustainability in undergraduate teaching in the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies. The Student Research Course Foundation (SRCF) is a 10-credit course taken in the second year of the five-year undergraduate Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery (BVM&S) degree. It is designed around a student-led group research project, allowing students to self-select their group and topic.

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Throwing caution to the wind in large-group science practicals

Teaching Matters Student Engagement

One of the greatest teaching-related challenges for staff, particularly those engaged in large scale undergraduate teaching, is to provide valuable and rewarding learning opportunities for students. This is acutely true among practical teaching opportunities in the Sciences, due to the delicate balance that must be sought between the desire for the practical to work reliably (any error that can be made, will be made in a large enough class) and the obligation to ensure that the practical will fo

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Playing Favorites: Fall Fun

Hope College Network

There are eighteen days until Halloween. Therefore, I am sure you are looking for some autumnal activities to make you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside as the temperature gets chilly outside. In no particular order, here are five of my favorite things to do in the fall as a Hope student. 1. Apple Picking Going apple picking is a thing in my hometown, but not nearly on the level that it is here.

IT 52

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A Fascinating Connection to the Czech Republic

Hope College Network

Until I was 15 years old I lived in the Czech Republic, a country that in my opinion is still recovering from communistic regime. Since I was 15 years I have lived in the United States, a country that has never experienced communism. Actually on the contrary, United States were based on idea capitalist system, which probably cannot be more apart from communism or socialism.

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Beautiful Santiago!

Hope College Network

Santiago as a city is absolutely beautiful. The city is illustrates long history, modern world, nature, parks, sports or arts. Santiago is very historic city. It was found in 1541 by Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia. Without any knowledge of orientation is he founded Santago right in the middle of future Chile. In the beginning the original Santiago was build like a Chessboard, which is very interesting.

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Street Dogs of Santiago

Hope College Network

There are a lot of street dogs in Santiago. In the beginning, I took a tour and they were talking about street dogs. Usually, they are on the street for two reasons – one is sad, and one happy. Let me start with the sad one, which is the least likely scenario. People buy a little puppy. From a puppy becomes a dog and is too big or as the tour guide said, not as cute, so people just kick the dog out of the streets.

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The Truly “Magnificent” Mile Internship

Hope College Network

As a Magnificent Mile intern I get access to some pretty cool opportunities. We have monthly membership events at various members venues, for instance, last month we had a membership event at Lou Malnati’s where we were able to network with prominent Michigan Avenue business while eating pizza and tiramisu. Not a bad deal! Another really cool aspect of the job is the intern project called “My Day on the Mile” The project allows each intern to chose six members to visit and expe

IT 52
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Dependency on Internet in Santiago

Hope College Network

For the last few days the internet was off in my apartment building, which is the reason for 10 posts today, but also a realization of how much we are depended on internet connection. This is my current position compare to rest of the world. Internet is the only way for people in Santiago to know about what is happening in the world. If internet does not work in Santiago, I and rest of us have no clue what is happening in rest of the world.

IT 52
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Internship: Planet Expat

Hope College Network

I was lucky enough to find an internship while studying abroad. I found out about a company called Planet Expat , which is a headhunter company that works with startups mainly in United States and Europe. They do some other things, like coaching program, but matching students with internships abroad is their main focus. Planet Expat. I worked at Planet Expat for six weeks and besides business development, broadcasting work, I write an article about the benefits on studying abroad to one’s profes

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How Studying Abroad Is a Life-Changing Experience

Hope College Network

Scenery of Prague: River Vltava and National Theater (building on the left with the with the lights around) Most things in life can be translated into numbers and college is no exception. An academic year in college is around 250 days and if we multiply this number by four, the average length of a U.S. bachelor’s degree, we get 1000 days allocated to our collegiate career.

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Empanadas

Hope College Network

In the U.S. people eat burgers and hot dogs, in Chile people eat empanadas. Empanadas are very popular, cheap, and delicious. I do not think that in U.S. we have something, so similar to empanadas , like dulce de leche to m anjar (only in Chile). Probably the closest thing would Calzone Pizza, but I do not like to use word close, because they are not close at all.

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Nykerk Is Just Around the Corner!

Hope College Network

Hello Readers! I hope you all have been doing well and aren’t too overwhelmed this week before Fall Break begins! Have you been busy? Overwhelmed? A little bit of both? I know I have. Maybe one of the reasons you (as well as myself) are busy or overwhelmed is because of Nykerk season. For those of you that don’t know what Nykerk is, I will explain.

IT 52
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What It’s Like to Work From Home

Hope College Network

Working from home. The dream, right? No commute. No long drives to the office. No early-morning wake-up calls. No cubicle, no boss hovering over your shoulder, but definitely a cup of coffee in hand, sweatpants, no shoes, curled up in a blanket. Or, short of that, holed up in the corner of a cute little coffee shop with a laptop and some good tunes on repeat.

IT 52
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Quectures: Teaching through questions

Teaching Matters Student Engagement

“Thinking is not driven by answers but by questions. Answers signal a full stop to thought.” Foundation for Critical Thinking In the face of this apparent truth, it is alarming to consider the 50 minute monologue delivery of facts that often constitutes the traditional science lecture. If one accepts the premise of the quote, it seems that this cherished teaching style is ideally situated to simply shutting down thought.

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Time to Rest

Hope College Network

Five weeks into the semester and the number on everyone’s mind is three : Three days stand between Hope students and a long awaited Fall Break. It’s that time of the school year when papers are due, group projects are in progress, and work is piling up. I know I find it too easy to get off track from where I should be focused and let my time be consumed by work, mindless distraction, and sleep.

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Making large groups like small groups

Teaching Matters Online Learning

For the last few years, I have taught the first year introductory physics courses, Physics 1A and 1B. These are the largest classes in the School of Physics and Astronomy, typically having student numbers of around 300 or so. For several years, both courses have followed a Flipped Classroom methodology, but we still have three sessions a week that we term ‘lectures’: these take place in a traditional lecture theatre, with all the students present at the same time, and with one instru

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All About That Brotherly Love

Hope College Network

As much as I love my dear Chicago, I said goodbye this weekend and headed out to check out the hype behind all that brotherly love, aka, Philadelphia. My roommate for the past three years is doing a similar program to The Chicago Semester but based out of Philly, called The Philadelphia Center. So, this weekend I made my way east to pay her a visit!

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Pumpkin Carving Contest

Hope College Network

Tonight is the first annual Cottage and Apartments Pumpkin Carving Contest. I’m pretty excited about it. Pumpkin carving is one of those weird holiday traditions that most people do every year with their family. But then you go to college and a lot of little traditions like that get disrupted. This year, though, my little housemate family got together to carve a pumpkin for this contest.

IT 52
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I’m 21 and I Still Want My Mom

Hope College Network

It’s been a week since I’ve last posted a blog entry, but when I think back to how I spent the past seven days, I truly have nothing noteworthy to say for myself. You’re probably thinking, “how is that possible?! You’re so fun and interesting!” Why, thank you, my hypothetical reader, and while that may be true, it’s actually because the last five days I’ve had the dreaded flu.

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Chilean ID

Hope College Network

In most of the post Communistic countries, an ID of citizenship is required for every person. People in the United States are not familiar with this. This ID of citizenship works like driver’s license in the United States (it works like, it is not driver’s license.) If police stops you or at hotel they need to proof your identity, so you show your ID of citizenship.

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Machismo Culture in Chile

Hope College Network

Chilean culture has a lot of positives, like cuisine, optimism, tradition, happiness, dances and more, but like in every culture there are some faults, which are very obvious and culture of machismo is one of them. For those who are not completely sure what is machismo culture, then let me briefly explain. It basically means an inequality between men and women, in the way that men are better (based of the case, smarter, faster or more efficient) then women.

IT 40
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Chileans Speak the Hardest Spanish

Hope College Network

Spanish is truly hard in Chile. I have to admit that my Spanish is not at the highest level at all, but Chilean Spanish is truly hard. There is a saying that, if one can learn to speak Spanish in Chile, than one can speak Spanish anywhere else in the world. Again, keep in mind that this is from the perspective of a student who has a lot of room to improve in Spanish, but if I speak with a person from Columbia, Argentina, Peru or Spain, I can 8 or 9 out of 10 words.

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Bus Drivers in Santiago

Hope College Network

The bus drivers in Santiago are a case for itself. I am a person who always grew up in western world, so my view could be little bit tilted, but judge yourself. If a person wants a bus to stop then one has to “stop” it like when you are getting a taxi in New York. In Santiago it is not normal for bus drivers to stop because there is a bus station on one’s route.

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Chilean DHL

Hope College Network

A little bit continuing with my previous article about fast foods, DHL works very differently in Chile as well. As you know my iPhone got stolen. Adding to that my ship one of two debit cards, I have here broke, so my family send me a packing, more like a thick envelope with SIM card, debit card, and 2 (100g) chocolate bars from the Czech Republic. This is what happen.

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My First Chilean Experience Was Switching Families

Hope College Network

Since my 3 out of 4 classes at the university are all in English, I am not improving my Spanish, which is one of main reasons why I came here. I must live with a host family, so I am pushed to speak only in Spanish. I arrived to Santiago on Monday, July 18, and the following Wednesday, we were meeting our host families at 3:00 p.m. The host families came to the hotel where we were staying, and this what happened the Wednesday afternoon after my host mother picked me up.

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HighEdWeb 2016 - Xavier University: The content owner debate

Terminalfour

Control. Who has it, wants it and needs it when it comes to higher education website content?

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HighEdWeb 2016 - Writing Findable Content

Terminalfour

Lessons learned from HighEdWeb: Optimize content for people, not for search.

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Are Vanity Metrics on higher education websites informative or a distraction?

Terminalfour

Vanity Metrics v Engagement Metrics

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HighEdWeb 2016 - Accessibility Standards Higher Ed can't ignore

Terminalfour

Build a P.O.U.R.

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Football Is a Religion in Chile

Hope College Network

Like Canada is run by ice hockey, Chile is run by football, or like Americans would say, soccer. To future references, when I am saying football, I mean soccer, not American football. In Chile everyone watches football, especially when the national team plays. You enter a restaurant or sports bar, there is some kind of football playing. When we wanted watch the fight between McGregor vs.