Category: Teaching Strategies

Lessons learned by a first-time instructor – Alex Shum, CTE Graduate Instructional Developer

Using Online Videos (made by WACOM boards), along with iClickers and Presentation Slides as part of my first course as an instructor

 

I’m currently wrapping up my first course as an instructor. Some of the lessons I’ve personally learned will be covered in this post. I hope they might be useful for the reader, when they teach their first course. I’ll aim to make this post as general as possible so that they may be relevant to any first-time instructor. I should also mention that the CTE Website has a lot of useful teaching tips for first-time instructors and TAs. Continue reading Lessons learned by a first-time instructor – Alex Shum, CTE Graduate Instructional Developer

Trust in the classroom: is it something we really need? — Plinio Morita

On July 5th, we hosted a CTE graduate student workshop on the topic of Trust in the Classroom. My goal was to foster discussion around the topic of trust in a collegial and safe environment. Based on the feedback that I received from the participants, I decided to devote a blog posting to it as it was highlighted as an important, but unusual topic in teaching development workshops.

This observation is supported by the lack of literature about trust in the classroom in higher education. The literature on trust is extensive, ranging from engineering, to social sciences to business. When it comes to education, the focus has been on secondary and elementary education, as many authors discuss activities and techniques to develop trust and create a trust fostering environment. However, a post-secondary classroom is quite different. When looking for literature on trust in higher education, I was able to find only a handful of studies on this topic. Continue reading Trust in the classroom: is it something we really need? — Plinio Morita

iClick? iClick not. — Dan Gan, CTE Co-op Student

Over the years, teachers and professors alike are coming up with new, innovative ways for students to learn and retain information. One of the more recent additions to these gadgets is the iClicker, an electronic response device used in different schools across Ontario. Now, we must ask ourselves a simple question: Is the iClicker actually effective? Through my experience with this gadget, from pondering whether or not to take it out in class, punching in the classroom code, and trying my luck on the day’s set of problems, in no way did it appeal to me. Continue reading iClick? iClick not. — Dan Gan, CTE Co-op Student

Student Engagement Practice: An Engineering Experience — Samar Mohamed

What is Student engagement? Why is it important? And how is it achieved? These are questions that instructors think about all the time. Most instructors would like their students to be engaged with their course material because it will ultimately lead to students’ deeper learning of the course concepts.

A simple definition of student engagement states: “students make a psychological investment in learning” [1].

In a previous blog posting, Donna Ellis, our CTE director, described a model that is based on making connections between the instructor, the content, and the learner in which the learner and his learning experience are at the center of the learning process and how making these connections helps engage students in their learning. In another previous blog posting my colleague Katherine Lithgow talked about the pedagogical benefits of considering learning as a social activity and discussed how this can help students to engage with their course material. Continue reading Student Engagement Practice: An Engineering Experience — Samar Mohamed

Crossing Thresholds in Learning — Julie Timmermans

If you had to name the most important concept in your course – the concept without which learners couldn’t progress, what would it be?  Would it be a “threshold concept”?

First introduced by Meyer and Land in 2003, a threshold concept is defined in the following way:

“A threshold concept can be considered as akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. It represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress. As a consequence of comprehending a threshold concept there may thus be a transformed internal view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even world view. This transformation may be sudden or it may be protracted over a considerable period of time, with the transition to understanding proving troublesome. Such a transformed view or landscape may represent how people ‘think’ in a particular discipline, or how they perceive, apprehend, or experience particular phenomena within that discipline (or more generally).”  (Meyer & Land, 2003, p. 412). Continue reading Crossing Thresholds in Learning — Julie Timmermans

Post-Secondary Education: A Forecast — Marlene Griffith Wrubel

I recently attended a panel discussion on Imagining Canada’s Future at Congress 2012. The three speakers, Dan Gardner, Don Tapscott and Diana Carney talked about the difficulties of predicting future changes in Canada over the next twenty years. What is clear is that change will happen and technology seems to be an undeniable force behind these changes. Tapscott encouraged us to participate in the change through his words, “the future is to be achieved”. This panel discussion left me wondering about the future of post-secondary education. I want to share two scenarios. Continue reading Post-Secondary Education: A Forecast — Marlene Griffith Wrubel

“We Listen Better In the Dark” (Margaret Atwood) — Emily Deng

As a science student, I rarely get the chance to familiarize myself with the Humanities. Truthfully, during a school term, I seldom step foot past the Dana Porter Library (where most of the Arts buildings are located). That said, I am a fervent lover of the Arts and was thrilled when I heard about Congress 2012.

The Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences is the largest gathering of scholars, students, delegates and the like for the purpose of sharing ideas and broadening exploration. This year it is being co-hosted by Laurier University and The University of Waterloo. The theme for the 2012 conference is Crossroads: Scholarship for An Uncertain World. Continue reading “We Listen Better In the Dark” (Margaret Atwood) — Emily Deng