New FLI Teaching Fellows prepare for the year ahead...

Last week I had the absolute pleasure of sharing two days with our new FLI Teaching Fellows who will commence their projects in July this year, as well as our two continuing Fellows who are preparing to complete their projects. I always find these days inspiring - it's a chance to share our passions about learning and teaching, our thoughts about what we want to contribute through our Fellowship projects and our work at FLI, and to start some planning processes to ensure that our projects are a success.

For those of you who are new to the FLI Teaching Fellowships, they are about:

giving gifted educators the space to innovate - to try new ideas in blended and flexible learning and to extend their practice, and then to share what they have learned with as many people as possible to enhance the use of blended and flexible learning across our CSU community.

FLI website

This year, we have educators exploring:

• a model for online, inter-disciplinary practicums in health services management, 
• a course-based strategy for mobile learning, 
• strategies for improving doctoral completion rates in industry-University supervisory partnerships,
• development of cultural competence in speech pathology students, and
• professional development resources for staff transitioning to student-centred learning models.

So what did we do? On Day 1, we started with some 20x20 presentations about the things that really inspired us about learning in the digital age. A great way to get to know each other! The FLI staff then shared various aspects of our work and what we were trying to influence (and how) in 2012, which led us into afternoon tea. Following that, Merilyn Childs, the Deputy Director of FLI, led a session on learning leadership, and after that we looked at digital literacies - how we are thinking about them, and where we are at with our own development of digital literacies.

Day 2 started with a look at some of the realities of a Teaching Fellowship - there are practical 'lessons learned' from past Fellows which we explored through a series of scenarios as we tried to 'future problem solve' some of the more common issues. That led us into some dedicated planning time for the Fellows, EDs and FLI staff on each of the projects, which we shared after morning tea.

After some discussion about future learning opportunities, it was time to wrap up...feedback suggests it was a great two days for all! Stay tuned for updates through this blog and on the Teaching Fellows page of our website.  There, you'll also find links to videos and case studies of some of our past Fellows' projects.