2008 Sessions Abstracts
Keynote Address: Teaching as a Form of Seduction
Dr. Marty Wall
The large class is not merely a larger version of a small class; it presents its own unique challenges and opportunities. Teaching a large class effectively requires the application of a number of skills, but at some point such teaching truly becomes an art. What is the nature of this transition and how can it be achieved? I will explore this issue from the perspective of my own experience in teaching classes with enrolments exceeding 1500 students.
Marty Wall is currently teaching and mentoring at the University of Victoria, having arrived as a professor emeritus from the University of Toronto.
A graduate of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, he spent most of his career at the University of Toronto, including serving as chair of the Department of Psychology, a post he held for a decade spanning the 90’s. While chair, he served as the sole instructor of the introductory course in Psychology, a course of 2200 students. His interest in fostering excellence in teaching led to his establishing the university’s Teaching Assistant Training Program, developing courses on university teaching for graduate students and to faculty, and presenting annual workshops on various topics related to university teaching.
He has been a recipient of several teaching awards, including U of Toronto’s Joan E. Foley Quality of Student Experience Award, and more recently, a 3M National Teaching Fellowship.
End-of-Day Plenary:
The CASTL Affiliate Program: How can it benefit scholarly teaching at TRU?
Penny Heaslip, Centre for Teaching and Learning & Lyn Baldwin, Sharon Brewer, Gary Hunt, Joanne Jones, Elizabeth Templeman,
As we come to the conclusion of the day of exploring the “Heart of Teaching,” we will share information about a new initiative. Last summer, the TRU Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) Affiliates Group, on behalf of the TRU academic community, submitted a proposal for TRU to become a CASTL Affiliate. The proposal was accepted in September.
CASTL represents a major initiative of The Carnegie Foundation. Launched in 1998, the program builds on the concept of teaching as scholarly work proposed in the 1990 report, Scholarship Reconsidered, by former Carnegie Foundation President Ernest Boyer, and on the follow-up publication, Scholarship Assessed, by Glassick, Huber, and Maeroff (1997).
The CASTL Program seeks to support the development of a scholarship of teaching and learning that: fosters significant, long-lasting learning for all students; enhances the practice and profession of teaching; and brings to faculty members' work as teachers the recognition and reward afforded to other forms of scholarly work.
In this session, we will explore what CASTL affiliation could mean for TRU. We will engage you in a dialogue about further initiatives we could develop to promote the development of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning on our campus. We will also ask for feedback on our plans for a comprehensive survey of the state of teaching on campus today. We are open to your ideas about how to advance the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at TRU, and to ensure that teaching is the heart of our work.
Closing Video: The Heart of Learning—Perceptions of TRU STudents
Duane Seibel, Jacqueline Kampman, and Amanda Makortoff, and featuring a variety of TRU students
Concurrent Presentation Abstracts
Concurrent Sessions A (10:10 – 10:55)
A1. Finding the stranger in the crowd: Raising Student Accountability in Large Classes
Lyn Baldwin, Department of Biological Sciences
What does it mean to be a student in a class of 150 students, even 70 students? Over the last year, we have experienced increasing class size in many areas of our campus. As faculty, how do we prevent our students from becoming anonymous faces in a crowd with little accountability within our lectures? In this presentation, I will describe two different strategies that I have used to address student accountability within large classes: “hot seat teams” and team-based learning. The hot seat team exercise asks groups of students to be responsible for answering most of the questions during individual lectures. After each lecture, the performance of each group is assessed and included in students’ final grades. In contrast, team based learning asks groups of students to answer pre-tests on textbook chapters first individually, and then collectively in groups. Again the test grades are included in students’ final grades. While student response to these techniques has generally been favourable, student evaluations have highlighted the importance of peer evaluation whenever students are assessed in groups. In this presentation, I will discuss each of these techniques in detail, as well as summarize student evaluations of the techniques, and then invite participants to brainstorm on further ways to engage our students and increase their accountability within large lecture halls.
A2. The Power of Opposites: A Workshop for the Brave of Heart
Dr. Christopher P. Montoya, Department of Psychology
Psychological teachings flowing from a Taoist philosophy adapted for Aikido termed “the power of opposites" are used and interlaced with a transdisciplinary model that helps to highlight, re-interpret and re-evaluate traditional thinking biases and ontologies. The insights and re-evaluations performed during this 45 minute exercise will alter key components of one's subjective reality by making one embrace and consider that an opposite or opposing transdisciplinary view is often more accurate in certain ways than one's subjective belief system.
Caution! Taking this seminar will alter your perception of the universe and may make you want to become a psychologist.
A3. Audience/Student Response Devices
Doug Baleshta, Centre for Teaching and Learning
Methods of encouraging student participation will be explored through the use of Audience/Personal Response Devices which are sometimes referred to as "Clickers". Participants will be provided with the ability to answer questions and/or assessments through a wireless interface. These devices are the size of a credit card and with their unique ID's can track the students responses individually or provide group feedback. We will also provide a limited number of devices to the audience so they can also participate in the discussion and get a sense of how these devices work and could be applied in their classroom and also illustrate how they are currently being used and researched at TRU.
A4. Encouraging Discourse through Reading Circles in the Post-Secondary Classroom
Lynne Wiltse, School of Education (B.Ed. Program) & Five B.Ed. Students
Reading (or literature) circles have developed as an alternative to the typical interaction pattern of teacher initiation, student response, and teacher evaluation (commonly referred to as IRE) found in classrooms. Rather, literature circles are student-led groups of four to seven students who come together to discuss a shared piece of literature/text (Daniels, 2002). In contrast to the IRE pattern characteristic of teacher-led discussions, literature discussion groups feature participation structures that provide students with more leadership opportunities and more time to talk (Maloch, 2002). Proponents of literature circles argue that these groups allow students to engage in discussions that are relevant to them, thereby providing for a deeper and more meaningful response to the text (Burns, 1998; Many, 2002; Lloyd, 2004; Stien & Beed, 2004). Reading circles encourage intensive reading, foster interaction and collaboration, support diverse responses to texts, invite natural discussions that lead to student inquiry and critical thinking, nurture reflection and self-evaluation.
Although reading circles have been used extensively in the K-12 context, they have much relevance for post-secondary contexts as well. They can be used with novels, short stories, poetry, or information text (chapters or articles). Participants attending this session will learn how to use/adapt reading circles to their particular teaching context. After explaining the rationale and outlining the implementation process, 5 teacher candidates will participate in a mock reading circle to demonstrate the various ways this reading strategy can operate. Participants will also have the opportunity to experience the strategy first-hand. A handout will be provided.
Concurrent Sessions B (11:05 – 11:50)
B1. (One of) TRU’s Best Kept Secrets: Student Opinions and Outcomes
Heather Friesen, Institutional Planning and Analysis (IPA) & IPA Staff
What do current and former TRU students say about their program(s) of study? Were they satisfied? How many found jobs? How many went back to school?
If these questions are of interest to you, join the staff of Institutional Planning and Analysis for an overview of TRU’s results in three recent survey initiatives designed to inform institutional decision-making on several levels: to meet the demand for university accountability at the system level in BC; to gather timely and relevant data for use in program evaluation and planning processes; and to ensure that new, continuing, and prospective students are provided with information they can use to help them make informed decisions about their personal and economic futures.
Participants will be shown how to use the web to access and extract reports on several projects, including:
University Baccalaureate Graduates Survey (UBGS), designed to gather information on baccalaureate graduates' education satisfaction levels, education financing and student debt as well as further education and employment outcomes. The project has adopted a model of interviewing graduates both two and five years after graduation:
BC College and Institute Student Outcomes (CISO), which collects and distributes information from former post-secondary students. Participants evaluate many aspects of their educational experience and talk about their subsequent employment and further education. Former students are surveyed approximately 9 to 20 months after they complete all, or a significant portion, of their programs. BC has collected CIS outcomes information since 1988.
University Report Card (URC), provides current students the opportunity to ‘grade’ TRU on several aspects of university life, including quality of education, course variety and availability, student services, buildings and facilities, off-campus life, reputation, career opportunities and financial aid.
B2. An Experiment That Produces Waste
Nancy Carson and Peter Tsigaris, Department of Economics
We will be discussing the development and use of classroom experiments as a way of experiencing and gaining an understanding of complex economic issues. The participants will participate in an experiment where they are rewarded for production of an output, but penalized for the generation of pollution. The participants will be asked to produce holes on strips of paper using a hole-punch within a certain period of time. The confetti, which arises from the production of holes, is the waste product. The participant must discover ways to meet the pollution control policy, given different constraints on the pollution control technology available. Participants learn that cleaning up waste requires resources and is costly. The experiment allows the participants to measure the social compliance costs of cleaning up the confetti from the floor. They observe a reduction in the number of holes produced as time is also allocated to the clean up of the mess they have created. Having the participants participate in the experiment will allow us to generate a discussion of how to get the most out of classroom experiments and how to deal with unexpected results.
B3. Teaching with Digital Video: Sources, Tools & Techniques
Norm Friesen, Education
Sites like YouTube and Google Video host much more than clips of skateboarding dogs or celebrity bloopers. They have become repositories for a wide range of video resources; amateur, professional and archival, that can be used in teaching and research. This includes discussions
with famous researchers (e.g. a 1971 debate between Foucault and Chomsky), historical footage (e.g., speeches of M.L. King), records of physical and natural events (e.g. eclipses, storms) and explicitly educational presentations (on nearly any subject you can imagine). These videos and video clips can represent valuable resources for both research and teaching, providing different perspectives or voices on issues and controversial topics, providing concrete demonstrations. In
this session Dr. Norm Friesen will introduce you to some of the most useful collections of video clips online, and will also provide an overview of some of the tools and techniques that can be used to put online video to use in your classroom.
B4. Team Approach to Student Learning in Clinical Simulations and Clinical Practice
Les Matthews, Respiratory Therapy
For almost 10 years the Respiratory Therapy Program has been operating an outpatient clinic for people with Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS). In the summer of 2007 the funding for hiring summer students to operate the clinic dried up and we were faced with difficult decisions regarding the viability of the clinic. We reduced our ongoing /follow up patient load but still faced the task of orientating 50 students to a level where they could safely manage their patients in one semester.
The solution came from a conversation with Gary Hunt. He described a system where students work in teams to acquire a group mark. It was this team concept that lead to the development of 11 teams, each one responsible for a patient load. Dividing the students and the patients into separate pods made the clinic manageable. It meant the students needed to take responsibility for team activities including pre-patient simulations and patient care activities. Weekly meetings with each group allowed us to keep track of student planning and to follow progress.
Teams were responsible for self-assessment, with 3 areas of focus: sharing of ideas and positive group interaction; demonstrated knowledge and preparation in study and listening in meetings; and attendance. Students were asked to submit a plan for the semester outlining their teams’ goals and objectives, and to develop and sign a group contract that included a “Vote off the Island clause.” The semester went very well with some very interesting observations.
In this presentation I will describe the program and report on the overall outcome of this novel approach to promoting student learning through group cooperation and progress from simulation to clinical practice.
B5. An Other Experience of Learning
Emma Bourassa, ESL & Crystal Huscroft, Geography
The focus of this workshop is to share concrete examples of how the instructors have offered experiential learning opportunities within curriculum to encourage academic instructors to include such tasks which will appeal to those kinaesthetic/experiential learners.
Beginning with an overview of what experiential learning involves, the presenters will share authentic examples they have used in classes, and the participants will engage in a small group session to share ideas. Participants should leave with ideas of how to adapt a class task to include an experiential component.
Concurrent Sessions C (12:40 – 1:25)
C1. The National Survey of Student Engagement
Heather Friesen, Institutional Planning and Analysis (IPA) & IPA Staff
In Spring 2008, TRU will join the U. of Victoria, UBC, Malaspina and 650 other institutions in administering the the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) to current first- and fourth-year students.
NSSE is designed to obtain, on an annual basis, information from scores of colleges and universities nationwide about student participation in programs and activities that institutions provide for their learning and personal development. The results will provide an estimate of how undergraduates spend their time and what they gain from attending university. Survey items on the National Survey of Student Engagement represent empirically confirmed "good practices" in undergraduate education; that is, they reflect behaviours by students and institutions that are associated with desired outcomes of university.
Institutions will use their data to identify aspects of the undergraduate experience inside and outside the classroom that can be improved through changes in policies and practices more consistent with good practices in undergraduate education. This information is also intended for use by prospective students, their parents, counsellors, academic advisers, institutional research officers, and researchers in learning more about how students spend their time at different colleges and universities and what they gain from their experiences.
Join us for an overview of the project and a discussion of how TRU can best make use of survey results when they are received in August 2008.
C3. Collaborative Diversity: The Application of “Cultural Safety” in the Classroom Practices of a Practice Discipline
James Thomson, School of Nursing
Cultural diversity is impacting the Canadian educational setting by requiring educators to be respectful of students’ backgrounds and perspectives. TRU has set two of seven strategic goals to become the “university of choice” for international students and Aboriginal students. In a post-colonial world, the Euro-centric view (how most educators were educated) is not acceptable by all students. As educators we strive to create inviting respectful learning environment for all our students from a wide array of cultures. Since many educators have not been educated in a culturally diverse environment, it is not clear how to make the classroom culturally safe and may feel frustrations about the idea of “throwing out the baby with the bath water’ when presenting their discipline’s required knowledge. In this presentation the principles of Cultural Safety, based on the works of the New Zealand educator Ramsden, will be presented with examples of practical application in the classroom setting for teachers. Utilizing skills, such as respect, curiosity and communication, the teacher can make cultural safety a reality. Cultural safety is not the sole responsibility of the teacher, yet creating a welcoming environment for cultural safety to take place is the sole responsibility of the teacher. Once this welcoming environment is established, the teacher and students can work mutually to achieve cultural safety. By teaching in an environment of cultural safety students can better learn and engage in the discussions of their disciplines without the historical barriers of cultural difference being a hindrance.
C4. Supporting the Heart of Teaching–Creating a Culture of Caring
Dian Henderson, ESL Department
In this experiential workshop participants will be invited to explore what it means to educate the heart and how it is that we can support a culture of caring on our campus. David Levine says that a “culture of caring is a moment-by-moment practice of compassion for others, embodying a sense of reverence for life” (Levine 43). Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen adds that “through connection we can recover true compassion” (Glazer 34). With these notions in mind and using the practice of Way of Council, Dian Henderson will create the container where sharing and dialogue can occur in an effort to support the heart of teaching and in creating a culture of caring.
C5. Moodling Around: Sharing Our Experiences with Web-based Discussion Groups for Practicum Seminars
Margaret H. Patten & Connie Alger, Early Childhood Education (ECE) & Doug Baleshta, Centre for Teaching and Learning
For many years, the Early Childhood Education (ECE) practicum seminars were held in AE 300 in a traditional face-to-face delivery model. Due to scheduling issues, student feedback and faculty discussions, we decided to look for an innovative way to offer the seminars and found Moodle, a web-based discussion forum. For the past year, the ECE students and technology-challenged faculty having been using Moodle for our weekly community practicum seminar discussions. We have been impressed with the engagement and depth of reflection in student on-line responses. In this workshop we will share our experiences as well as advantages and disadvantages of using this technology for seminar discussions.
Concurrent Sessions D (1:35 – 2:20)
D1. Creating a Culture of Undergraduate Student Research: The Academic Conference as Experiential Laboratory
Anne Gagnon, History
Student Co-Presenters: Alizée Bilbey, Chantal Macdonald, Erica Huber, & Megan Neilans
This collaborative workshop is a case study of the academic conference as an experiential laboratory for students. Under my supervision, and that of Ginny Ratsoy and Ila Crawford, four Service and Research Learning students had the opportunity not only to attend their first academic conference—“The ‘Last, Best West,’ or Just Like the Rest?” the international multidisciplinary conference held on the TRU campus in September 2007—but also to experience that conference from the inside. Deep student engagement in conference organization enhances intellectual and social development and fosters a culture of student research, we contend, supporting the claims of educational theorists John Dewey and L.S. Vytgotsky about the efficacy of experiential learning.
Megan Neilans analyzes her experiences researching and contacting publishers nationwide in her role as book display coordinator; that work, she writes, was beneficial to her “academic and personal growth” so that she is “now confident enough [to] present a paper” at a student conference and has engaged in subsequent research assistant positions. Alizée Bilbee shares her experiences as assistant conference program organizer. Chantal Macdonald and Erica Huber discuss their roles as co-curatorial assistants of the student art show, Rhizomes, and as participants in the conference roundtable on the art show— engagements that “enabled student researchers, faculty, and the public to exchange ideas and experiences” and also led to further research projects.
Participants will receive practical, innovative examples of how to engage students in faculty conferences and to participate in a dialogue designed to enhance the culture of student research at TRU.
D2. 100+ and Still Connecting
Val Collins, Department of Biological Sciences
Confronting a large class for the first time can be daunting for students and faculty alike. Students may feel intimidated and lost in the crowd, while faculty are overwhelmed with a sea of unfamiliar faces. This workshop will explore strategies for engaging students from the first day of class and for generating an environment that promotes interaction and a sense of community.
D3. Reading-to-Learn: Creating the Knowledge Worker for 21st Century Work
Penny Heaslip Coordinator Centre for Teaching and Learning
Peter Drucker coined the term the “knowledge worker” to characterize a new type of employee—one who can think critically and creatively while navigating in a rapidly changing world driven by globalization of work. The 21st Century employee will need to be skilled in extracting and utilizing data in meaningful ways. To be able to cope in a world driven by increasingly complex ideas and diverse and ever increasing amounts of information, students must be skilled learners. They must develop skills in comprehending increasing difficult textual materials, and have the ability to define, summarize, retrieve, serialize, analyze, synthesize and reflect critically on written material forming reasoned judgements regarding what information is applicable to the situation at hand. The ability to learn from textual materials is essential to success in university and eventually to success in life as a worker and citizen. Competent readers understand how to apply reading-to-learn strategies that are appropriate to the domain or discipline in which they are learning, and they must be capable of adapting their read-to-learn skills to the reading tasks that they encounter. This session explores reading strategies that students must master if they are to be successful learners and workers in the 21st Century.
D4. Using Blogs and Wikis for (Inter)Active Learning
Gary A. Hunt, Natural Resource Sciences
Co-authors (not presenting): Norman Friesen, Canada Research Chair in E-learning Practices & Linda Stollings, Student Development
The literature on undergraduate education documents the benefits of cooperative learning techniques. It has been shown that students learn from each other when working towards a common set of objectives. Blogs, allowing individuals to create public "logs" or journals, and wikis, enabling the collaborative composition of documents, are interactive Web technologies that can be used to facilitate active and cooperative learning. They are also relatively adaptable, providing opportunities for innovations in teaching scholarship, practice and research, and are accessible at no cost. Their "open" and "public" status, moreover, enables new possibilities for student and teacher self-presentation, and authentic connections with events and research in the public sphere.
In this session, I will describe the ways in which I have adapted blogs and wikis for assignments in dendrology, a first year course about trees. I will provide an overview of blog and wiki technologies and their educational applications. Handouts will summarize how to create blogs and wikis. In small groups, participants will discuss the possible ways that these Web technologies can be used in their own educational environments.
2007 Sessions
Click on the link to see the session abstracts.
2006 Committee Members
Annette Dominik, Committee Chair (English & Modern Languages)
Janine Chan (Applied Health Technology)
Donna Daines (Nursing)
Karen Densky (ESL)
Joi Freed-Garrod (Education)
Sonja Hot (Math & Statistics)
Gary Hunt (Natural Resource Sciences)
Jennifer Jones (Canadian Studies Service Learning Student)
Lisa Longo (Canadian Studies Service Learning Student)
Kathy Mitchell (College Prep)
Jeanette Robertson (School of Social Work & Human Service)
Cindy Ross (Biological Sciences)
2006 Program (Session Abstracts)
Joi Freed-Garrod, Education
Oxygen in Action: Brain Boosters for Optimum Learning
Wake up your brain with rhythm, chant and movement. Put fun and renewed energy into classes with short, easy-to-learn body and brain boosters.
Recent brain research indicates that movement as well as the rhythm and rhyme of songs or chants reinforce memory and help refresh the mind for maximum engagement and ability to think critically and creatively.
Participants in this workshop will learn classroom-tested boosters suitable for both adults and children that they can use immediately for their own students:
Lynne Wiltse, School of Education
“Tea Party”/Word Sort
The tea party is an interactive learning strategy that can be used with either literature or nonfiction text. The term tea party refers to the social component of the strategy. Instructors can use “tea party” to introduce main ideas and key vocabulary to be taught or review important concepts in content-area textbooks. Conversely, “tea party” can be used with literature to summarize events in literature or focus on elements of story structure.
Participants attending the session will take part in a mini-version of a “tea party” which will serve the purpose of modeling the technique. A sample text will be used, and participants will move about the room, sharing their excerpts with each other. Following this, the word sort component of the activity will be modeled. Strategy steps will then be outlined and various applications of the strategy discussed. Participants will be encouraged to consider how the strategy could be applied in their teaching context.
Revitalizing Writing Assignments by Crossing Boundary Disciplines
Ila Crawford, VPA & Ginny Ratsoy, EML
We propose to present a case study of a fourth-year English assignment (easily transferable to other disciplines and years) that moved students out of their comfort zones by requiring them to give a visual response – accompanied by a written statement of the process leading up to that visual response – to a collection of short stories. The assignment, designed to engage students in a literary text in unconventional ways and to encourage them to reflect upon the process of making meaning, called for them to examine themes that emerge from that text by producing five artist trading cards (in book or poster form) with exhibition in mind.
Colloquium participants can expect to come away from our presentation, which will include a hands-on introduction to the particular form of the artist trading card, with a clear sense of how to develop an assignment that requires diverse responses and crosses disciplinary boundaries. We will propose that you do not need to be an artist in order to enhance learning by using images.
Ginny Ratsoy, EML, Kelly Ann Maddox, EML, and Daniel Brendle-Moczuk, TRU Library
Integrating Diverse Research Methods and Teaching Practices in University Courses: Weaning Students from Webpage Reliance
We propose to present our findings on a pilot project that reflects diversity on four levels: student populations, research resources, research skills and teaching practices.
Having observed during standard 50 minute first-year introductory TRU Library sessions that our diverse students come to university with a different understanding of the various resources available and varying research skills (including sometimes a simplistic sense of what research entails), we decided they needed more. To that end, we developed a series of sequential research workshops for second and third-year literature students. These workshops were integrated into the course curriculum and accompanied by assignments (graded by the librarian and the professor) designed not only to hone students’ ability to utilize TRU Library’s physical and on-line resources but also to assist students in the evaluation of materials from other on-line resources and provide the students with a more sophisticated understanding of the complexities of undergraduate research.
By the end of the session participants will have learned how to integrate various resources and research strategies into any course’s curriculum and thus persuade students to use diverse resources and expose them to the complexities of undergraduate research.
Melissa Jakubec, Instructional Designer, Instructional Development and Research Group
Tech it Up! Interactive Web Activities for the Classroom
Interactive web-based activities are not only suitable for on-line instruction but can enrich the traditional classroom environment, particularly by appealing to a range of learning styles and providing activities that support and reinforce in-class instruction. The use of educational technologies can also be intrinsically motivating for the student. I will introduce software such as Hot Potatoes, Survey Monkey, Quia, Studymate, Respondus, Rubistar, Skype and Project Gizmo. I will also demonstrate the use of MSWord for marking (insert comment, colour coding, etc.) Participants will consider how these programs could be used in their own teaching contexts.
Iris Rich McQuay – Division of Student Development, andDoug Knowles - Division of Student Development
Checking In: a ritual of awareness, analysis and articulation
The COPE/MECA program is an experiential, self-reflective program where the class coexists as a cohort for the duration of 14 weeks. In this educational environment the students, themselves, are integral instructional assets, thereby making the daily practice of checking in essential. This ritual is designed to foster the practices of accountability to self and others, active and attentive communication skills, critical thinking and analytical dialogue. By reserving a space for each student to authentically and confidently respond to a daily question and pertinent quote, checking in honours and encourages each student’s voice.
This practice promotes much more than shallow conversational responses. Each individual assumes the responsibility of assessing his or her emotional, intellectual, physical and spiritual condition at the beginning of each day and articulating that evaluation to the class as a whole. Through their responses to a pertinent discussion question and quotation, students develop confidence in their abilities to analyze, articulate and trust their own viewpoints as well as those of others.
As the course progresses, new concepts naturally incorporate themselves; students hone language use as a truly interactive social connection and trust of the group as a whole develops, as does trust of each individual’s authentic place in that group. Consequently, the class, itself, begins to shape the nature of learning based upon check-in disclosure.
Michelle Harrison, Instructional Designer, Instructional Development and Research Group
Developing online courses: Building community and making the online experience authentic
Online learning pedagogical practices need to be different than those used in a face-to-face classroom. Teachers or facilitators need to learn new techniques for facilitating online discussions and creating engaging activities. To develop some of these skills I will use a guide that I developed that helps instructional designers and teachers choose activities for online laboratory activities. This guide helps link objectives to specific innovative learning activities that will create a constructive virtual classroom.
Tom Waldichuk, Department of Geography
Interactive geography field trips – Examples from Japan and Chase Creek
Geographers like to go for drives in the city and countryside. Parents like to take their infants for drives to calm them down and help them sleep. Geography students, like infants, will sleep if a field trip is not made interactive. This happens when experts hog the soapbox. In this presentation I discuss techniques from Japan and Canada to make field trips more engaging and student-centred. One strategy that I have used to make the Geography 310 field trip to Chase Creek more interactive is to have students give presentations in the field – students like to hear each other talk. The goal of this demonstration is to provide a concrete strategy for interactive and student-centred field trips that also highlights the diverse interests of students. I demonstrate this strategy by having participants work in groups of four to prepare a short 2-3 minute presentation about a landscape – in this case their office, classroom or work environment. Each member of the group should each present one point of the presentation, and one person should present a concluding point. Diagrams are limited to sketches on 8.5 x 11” paper. The audience (the people not presenting) evaluates each group in terms of content, focus and clarity of explanation.
Panagiotis (Peter) Tsigaris, Economics
Classroom Experimental Games to Enhance Learning
Classroom experimental games have been used to enhance learning in economics. Classroom games are used to illustrate economic concepts such as market equilibrium, externalities (i.e., pollution problems) and property rights, the tragedy of the commons, fairness, free riders’ problem, the voting paradox, prisoners’ dilemma and many more issues. The technique involves student participation. The interactive activity planned is to illustrate one of the above mentioned games. For example, to illustrate the concept of fairness participants play the ultimatum game. In this game a proposed division of an amount of money is made by one person (the proposer) and a second person (the responder) either accepts or rejects the offer. The outcome of the game is compared to the dictator game whereby the responder cannot reject any offer made. The game illustrates that individuals are interested in more than monetary benefits. Responders tend to reject what are considered unfair offers and will accept those considered fair. Proposers are then constrained to make proposals considered fair by the responders. At the end of the session, participants will have learned that bargaining outcomes are not always consistent with pure self-interested decision making individuals. The ultimatum game predicts that individuals tend to reject offers which make them better off without hurting the other persons. Finally, participants will learn that they can design their own classroom games and apply them in order to enhance research and effectiveness in teaching.
Donna Petri, School of Nursing
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Is it the same as Scholarly Teaching?
Abstract In his book Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate’ Earnst Boyer (1990) challenged university teachers to take a critical look at how their institutions defined scholarship. Boyer also questioned the traditional definition of scholarship and proposed that multiple forms of scholarship existed on campuses. In the years following the Carnegie Foundation in the United States and others throughout the world embraced Boyer’s model of Scholarship. One of the multiple forms of scholarship that Boyer identified was the Scholarship of Teaching. This was later redefined and called the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Through small group work and sharing, participants will explore and discuss concepts related to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and Scholarly Teaching. Participants will be encouraged to look critically at what they do in their role as faculty at TRU. Small group work will challenge participants to understand, recognize and differentiate between Scholarly Teaching and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
Susan Purdy, Biological Sciences
The Great Fish Farm Debate
The Biology of the Environment course (Biol 104) that I developed this last year, and taught in the fall semester of 2005, involves both a lecture and lab component. During one of the lab periods the students are given a fictitious scenario involving the proposed development of a fish farm in the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii). They are given a few pages of background information about aquaculture in the world and in British Columbia specifically. They are then assigned roles of the various proponents in the issue that are meeting a local town hall to discuss whether the fish farm should be allowed to be developed. Proponents include the local MLA, Department of Fisheries and Oceans biologists, the owner of the proposed fish farm, local townspeople, local Haida First Nations people, and an environmental group. The lab period is three hours, which is sufficient time for the students to do the research and then conduct the debate. The students have one hour to do the research using the computers we have available in the lab, and an hour and a half to conduct the debate.
During the 30 minute interactive teaching session, I plan to give a brief outline of the above scenario, assign groups of people the same roles (take about 5minutes), give them the relevant background information on a sheet of paper which they can discuss amongst their group for 5 minutes, and then have a mini-debate lasting 10 minutes. Finally, I’d like the participants to help summarize the usefulness of this teaching technique to student learning.
Elizabeth Templeman, Supplemental Learning Coordinator
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Supplemental Learning
Supplemental Learning is a student support program new to TRU. In its second year, there are ten leaders and two mentors supporting students in some of our more challenging first year courses.
This is an opportunity to learn about the program—what it’s all about; who is involved; and how it works. We will present a brief overview of the program, followed by a panel of involved individuals (student, leader, mentor, faculty, and coordinator), each of whom will describe a particular role and perspective of SL. By the end of the session, participants will know something about SL, and know how to find out more.
Gary Hunt. Department of Natural Resource Sciences & Nancy Flood. Department of Biology
Learning Activity Preferences in First Year Biology Students
A survey on learning activity preferences was given to 240 first year biology students. They were asked to choose the three learning activities they perceived as most effective in learning the course content. Activities in the lecture and lab component were surveyed separately.
Participants will discuss the survey instrument and how it might be used in their subject area. I will present the survey results and we will conclude with a discussion of how learning activities preferred by students relate to teaching methods and learning styles. At the end of the session, participants will know the three most important activities these students chose as most effective in their learning. They will learn about an effective survey instrument that can be used for student input and will take away ideas of how teaching practices can take into account the student perspective of learning.
Emma Bourassa, ESL
Intercultural Intersections- Practical tips for understanding and communicating in a multicultural classroom:
Many times frustrations arise from miscommunication, particularly in multicultural classrooms. This session will provide vignettes and experiential practice working with a few concepts that can be used in the intercultural classroom right away. These are also tips that can be shared with students.