Category: About the Centre

Connecting in Large Classes – Veronica Brown

When Mark Morton suggested this blog as a way to introduce myself, I struggled with what to write about. I considered telling you about myself (grew up in London, Ontario, have worked at UW since 1999, my favourite place in the world is my family’s cottage on an island in Georgian Bay, etc.). Then, I thought about telling you more about my teaching career (have taught introductory computer science and math courses, ranging in size from less than 20 to more than 500). To be honest, it all seemed a bit dry. So instead, I wanted to share with you a little bit about being connected to my students. Continue reading Connecting in Large Classes – Veronica Brown

Recent Developments in International Teaching Assistant (ITA) Training – Mareike Mueller

Launched in the spring term of 2008, the ITA program is currently heading into its third year of existence, and so it’s about time to have a closer look at some current developments within the program. My reflections will mainly refer to the fall and winter terms of 2009 and 2010 respectively, in which I have worked as an ITA Developer for this program. Continue reading Recent Developments in International Teaching Assistant (ITA) Training – Mareike Mueller

Two Endings, and Beyond (Worn Down But Happy) – Trevor Holmes

So I’m grading some of my 164 exams, 164 papers, 1600+ discussion board postings from Cultural Studies 101 (KS 101) over at that other place. My eyes are finally glazing over and I wish everyone could write exams on laptops. But it’s lovely — really lovely — to read the exams and final Intellectual Response Papers (IRPs). More students than ever took me up on the challenge to write IRPs on alternate field observations and / or use a different format (photo essay, video, zine, whatever). The portion of their exam that was take-home asks them to reflect (with evidence) on their 10 minijournal entries from the 12-week term. So many “aha” moments arise with that part of the exam. Continue reading Two Endings, and Beyond (Worn Down But Happy) – Trevor Holmes

The Process of Metamorphosis: From Our Little University Dream to Reality – Michael Chan, CTE Co-op Student

There is nothing more fundamental in the progress of life than the people you care about. Originally, my plan for the future was to study hard in school, get my degree, probably go on to get a masters, work for a company for 4-5 years, and then start my own business. A typical plan previous generations followed which has worked out pretty well for them. Continue reading The Process of Metamorphosis: From Our Little University Dream to Reality – Michael Chan, CTE Co-op Student

CTE’s Teaching Tip Sheets

Over many years, CTE  has developed almost a hundred evidence-based “tip sheets.”  Most of these tip sheets explore different ways of enhancing one’s teaching (such as “Activities for Large Classes”); a handful of others aim to provide guidance on career-related issues (such as, “The Academic Job Interview”); and a few others offer advice to students about strategies for effective learning (such as “Building Your Note-Taking and Study Skills”). I’ve pasted an alphabetical list of our tip sheets at the end of this blog entry, but you might find it more useful to look at the list on our website, where we present them in thematic categories. Our ongoing challenge Continue reading CTE’s Teaching Tip Sheets

A new version of the CTE home page

To my mind, the design of a website is as much an act of pedagogy as the design of a course: the goal, in both cases, is to present information,  encourage interaction, and foster an experience in a way that facilitates learning. Because of this, I tend to keep an eye open for web apps that can enhance the CTE website, and for layout ideas (from other university websites) that might further improve the navigation or presentation of our own site. I’ve cobbled together some of these potential enhancements in a version of our home page that can be previewed here, and which can be compared with our current home page here. As you’ll see, the “new” version makes use of a triple column “newspaper” layout, in an effort to succinctly display important information, and to maximize the real estate of the screen; as well, the RSS widget that appears below the three vertical columns now spans the entire width of the main content area. That RSS widget also now makes use of “tabs,” in order to pull in dynamic data from three (rather than one) sources: namely, the RSS of this very blog; the RSS of the CTE Diigo Group; and the RSS of a Twitter feed (which will pull in any “tweet” that contains “#uwcte” as a hash tag. If you have a moment, please compare the current home page with the potentially new one, and let me know what you think. You can do so via the comment feature of this blog posting, or by emailing me at mmorton@uwaterloo.ca.