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Making social connections: the importance of empathy, storytelling and re(building) confidence
The keynote by Sue Beckingham at #digitaled week emphasizes the significance of social connections in learning, highlighting empathy and storytelling as key components. It explores challenges faced by both tutors and students in virtual learning environments, revealing the impact of factors like technology and personal circumstances on engagement. The discussion advocates for a learner-centered approach and the importance of recognizing students' existing strengths to enhance their confidence and self-esteem.
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Making social connections: the importance of empathy, storytelling and re(building) confidence
- 1. Sue Beckingham NTF,Sheffield Hallam University @suebecks Keynote for #DigitalEd Week GMIT Making social connections: The importance of empathy, storytelling and re(building) confidence
- 2. Making social connections:The importance of empathy, storytelling and re(building) confidence This keynote will draw upon the seven principles within the Social Media for Learning Framework (Middleton and Beckingham 2015) as a lens to highlight the different aspects that have informed some of my approaches to learning and/or teaching. I will share my experiences as an educational developer, lecturer, academic adviser and as a returning student. Stepping into these different shoes, the one constant is the importance of making social connections. This can be transformational personally and for the staff or students you work and learn with.
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- 5. Do you wantto zoom? Can you hear me? You are muted... You’ve frozen
- 6. Worries and concerns Entering theroom first and having to make awkward conversation Forgetting to mute.. Not knowing where the leave button was
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- 11. The Tutor’s Story Whenyou go in to a teaching session and you’re confronted with a screen of black rectangles because no one will come on camera and they won’t even have profile pictures on and despite the fact that you might have emailed them beforehand to say please enter the room and have your webcam switched on, it makes for a much more interactive and engaging experience for everyone in the room and myself, you just have a wall of black rectangles and you ask them why don’t you come on camera? They won’t. You’re talking to just a black screen and it’s a really, really hard experience – it’s a struggle to get the students engaged. You can ask a question and it’s just silence and you find yourself having to pick on a name and say, so what do you think?
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- 13. The Students’ Stories I’membarrassed about what others will think of my accommodation. My sister is in the same room and she hasn’t put on her hijab. I can’t turn on my camera. I’m praying I won’t be picked on to answer a questions. It makes me anxious.
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- 15. The Tutor’s Story Itseems that every week just at the point where I ask the students to undertake an activity on the whiteboard or join a breakout room, the same students leave.
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- 17. The Students’ Stories Myhouse has a really unreliable internet connection. My laptop is very old. I tried to join the class using my phone, but then the data allowance runs out. I’m sharing the wi-fi with my siblings who are home schooling and my parents who are working from home.
- 18. ELI 7 Thingsyou should know about... The Educause learning initiative has a library of over 170 resources April 2021 additions: • 7 Things you should know about mental health and higher education • 7 Things you should know about the digital divide
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- 22. Socially inclusive » supportingand validating learning through mutually beneficial, jointly enterprising and communally constructive communities of practice; » fostering a sense of belonging, being and becoming; » promoting collegiality, feeling connected, social glue.
- 23. Learning incomes “I like nowadaysto think of ‘learning incomes’ as well as learning outcomes. The more we know about what our students can already do, where they’ve already been, their hopes, fears and hang-ups, the better we can help them to learn. “ Race 2014
- 24. “More importantly, moststudents find that when they are alerted to the things they did not realise that they could already do well, they gain confidence and self-esteem. As teachers, we need to remind ourselves that our work is not just about telling students what they need to do, but equally about alerting to students to strengths they already have “ Race 2019:27 Competence Uncompetence Unconscious Conscious Target Can do Transit Can’t yet do Danger Magic Unconscious competence: the ‘magic’ box Race, 2019:26
- 25. About me videos Reflective blog postson skills Lego Serious Play Academic Adviser 121s
- 26. Lifewide and lifelong »connecting formal, non-formal and informal learning progression; » developing online presence; » developing digital literacies for experiential, problem solving, creative and critical learning approaches
- 27. My own CPD Studentsand Alumni Family As a student Group chat Department colleagues
- 28. Media neutral » learningacross and through rich multiple media; » providing opportunities for choices and self expression
- 30. Learner centred » creativeself-expression, building self-efficacy and confidence; » accommodating niche interests and activities, the ‘long tail’ of education
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- 32. Co-operative »promotes working togetherproductively and critically as peers (co- creation) in self-organising, robust networks that are scalable, loosely structured, self-validating, and both knowledge-forming and knowledge-sharing
- 33. Applied Live Projects Working with localbusinesses to develop a Digital Marketing Strategy
- 34. Open and accessible »supporting special openness (without physical division » supporting temporal openness i.e. synchronously and asynchronously; » supporting social openness i.e. democratic, inclusive; » supporting open engagement i.e. in terms of access being: geographically extended, inclusive, controlled by the learner, gratis, open market, unconstrained freedom, access to content (Anderson 2013) » being open to ideas
- 35. Authentically situated » makingconnections across learning, social and professional networks » scholarly » establishing professional online presence and digital identity
- 36. https://lthechat.com/ @LTHEchat #LTHEchat Weeklytweetchat about Learning and Teaching in Higher Education
- 37. “We are notall in the same boat. We are all in the same storm. Some are on super-yachts. Some have just the one oar.” Damian Barr Illustration by Barbara Kelly https://www.damianbarr.com/latest/https/we-are-not-all-in-the-same-boat
Editor's Notes
- #20 https://library.educause.edu/-/media/files/library/2021/4/eli7177.pdf