I spent most of yesterday starting to get my presentation together for the upcoming Opportunities and New Directions conference that will be held here, on campus, on Thursday, April 28th in Hagey Hall. This is the second year that UW will be hosting this one-day conference of research on teaching and learning. Dr Nicola Simmons, our CTE Research and Evaluation Consultant, is aiming to make this an annual event.
As I was contemplating what to include in my slides, I took a little break to see what the other presentations are going to be. It’s well worth having a look at the schedule to see the range of the topics for the presentations and posters. It’s a great line-up and participants will have a have a hard time deciding which of the concurrent sessions to attend. Transformative learning, Socratic teaching in the Liberal Arts and enhancing language awareness to teach second languages are all on the menu, as well a generous sprinkling of sessions that focus on teaching with technology.
Dr Catherine Wehlburg, who is also our 2010 President’s Colloquium keynote speaker on April 26th, will be sharing her insights into SoTL, in her keynote presentation at the OND conference entitled “Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: You’re Already Doing It!”. The plenary speaker is my previous boss, Dr Tom Carey, the former Director of the Centre for Learning and Teaching through Technology and Associate Vice President, Learning Resources and Innovation. Tom will talk to us about using SoTL work to show students how research-informed innovations add value to work practices and to help students understand the processes, challenges and risks of innovation. This topic certainly resonates for me as I help faculty try innovative blended strategies in their courses and assist them in gathering feedback from their students about which online resources and face-to-face and online activities are most helpful to them in their learning. Back to the slides …
Looking Forward to the OND – Jane Holbrook
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