Teaching and Learning Innovations Conference 2021

1:00 – 3:00pm • Innovative Inclusion: Building Strategic Approaches to Anti-Oppression in the Classroom

Indira Naidoo-Harris • AVP Diversity, and Human Rights

Joseph Pazzano • Training, Education and Inclusion Officer

Inclusion is at the centre of critical thought. Anti-oppressive research tells us that students cannot reach their full potential in the classroom if the teaching and learning environment is not inclusive. Students are more likely to succeed academically, engage in complex intellectual problem solving, and understand difficult subject matter better if they feel like they belong in the classroom and that their instructor brings an equity lens to the subject matter.

This session will explore how to bring a comprehensive approach to inclusion in teaching and learning. In this webinar, Indira Naidoo-Harris and Joseph Pazzano from the Office of Diversity and Human Rights will lead a discussion on inclusive teaching and learning, share insights from UNIV*2010 – Anti-Discrimination & Anti-Oppression, and share strategies to embed inclusion and anti-oppression in curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. Participants will also have an opportunity to engage in a Q&A with the facilitators.

3:00 – 4:00pm • Innovative Inclusion: Breakout Disscussions

Indira Naidoo-Harris • AVP Diversity, and Human Rights

Joseph Pazzano • Training, Education and Inclusion Officer

In this session, participants will be provided with a workbook and an opportunity to engage in breakout discussions enabling instructors to embed these inclusion principles strategically in their own courses.

1:00 – 2:30pm • Graduate Programming Showcase

Janet Wolstenholme • Educational Developer, Office of Teaching and Learning

Madison Wright • Graduate Educational Developer, Office of Teaching and Learning

In this showcase, we will highlight the four main areas of Graduate programming at the University of Guelph. These are the University Teaching Foundations Program (known as “Foundations”), the annual Graduate Student University Teaching Day/s (GSUTD, a four-day developmental institute), a graduate course UNIV*6800 University Teaching: Theory and Practice (UTTP) and the Graduate Programming Team (3 Graduate Educational Developers and one Senior Graduate Educational Developer). Collectively, these four learning opportunities attract graduate students from all departments on campus to develop their pedagogical skill sets, expand their understanding of the theory of teaching and learning, and develop community among graduate students passionate about teaching and learning.

The Educational Developer responsible for the Graduate Portfolio, Janet Wolstenholme, and the Senior Graduate Educational Developer, Madison Wright, will co-facilitate this session, which will feature a panel of graduate students who will share their first-hand experiences engaging in our graduate programming. We will also be sharing some quantitative and qualitative data collected on these programs as part of our program evaluation to complement the experiences shared by our selected panel. At the end of the session, there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions to both the panelists and the session facilitators.

2:30 – 3:30pm • Reflect, Share, and Connect: Open Conversations about our Teaching Experiences in 2020-21

Facilitated by Sara Fulmer • Educational Developer, The Office of Teaching and Learningng

Join your colleagues to share and process your teaching experiences over the past year and to come together as a community to support each other. This session is a space for reflection about our successes, accomplishments, challenges, and frustrations over the past year, and an opportunity to think through what we’ve learned about teaching and learning from this experience.

9:00 – 10:30am • Dreaming Decolonization: Exploring Indigenous Ways of Learning

Cara Wehkamp • Special Advisor to the President on Indigenous Initiatives

Jess Notwell • Indigenous Graduate Educational Developer

Anna Johnson • Research Assistant, Indigenous Inititatives

On March 4, 2021, the University of Guelph launched its first Indigenous Initiatives Strategy, Bi-Naagwad | It Comes Into View. The Strategy was developed through the work of five working groups including Governance, Indigenous Student Support, Campus Environment and Cultural Safety, Research and Scholarship, and Pedagogy and Curriculum. This session will begin with a brief overview of the Pedagogy and Curriculum Working Group Report and then delve deeper into an exploration of pedagogy. Through an Indigenous pedagogical approach, this session aims to build a space of open hearts and open minds where we share and reflect on relationality and the decolonization of pedagogy. We look forward to learning together across worldviews and lived experiences!

To support our collective learning, prior to the session, we ask that you:

• Read “The Council of Pecans” from the book Braiding Sweetgrass (2015: 11-21) by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Kim Anderson, in A Recognition of Being (2000: 46), writes: “we exist because of and for the relationships we hold with everything around us. Knowledge is therefore of no use if it does not serve relationships.” Reflecting on this, come prepared with an image that helps you speak about good relations within teaching and learning.
• Optional: You are also invited to read the Pedagogy and Curriculum Working Group Report

1:00 – 3:30pm • Accessibility for Instructors

Barry Praamsma-Townshend • Manager, Accessibility Services

A video recording of this session is now available.

Individuals seeking disability-related academic accommodation has grown to roughly 13% of the student population at the University of Guelph. Accommodations can be challenging – there is extra work involved, the process can be confusing, and the implications for academic integrity are sometimes perplexing.

Through a series of videos, case studies and group discussions, Student Accessibility Services will help you with navigating accessibility in the learning environment. We will reflect on what we have learned about academic accessibility during the pandemic and explore how things might continue to evolve.

This content is designed to allow participants to pick and choose the elements that are of interest to them. Whether you are starting fresh or have a robust range of experiences with accessibility issues, there will be something that sparks an idea, a conversation, or an opportunity to look at things a little differently.

A description of the case studies that will be discussed can be found here.

Several short video primers have been created to orient you to the topics that will be covered during the session.

1:00 – 2:00pm • Inclusive Re-entry Programming for Intercultural and Employability Skill Development

Lynne Mitchell • Director, Centre for International Programs

Mike Lafleur • Education Abroad Advisor for Sciences and Engineering, Centre for International Programs

A video recording of this session is now available.

This session will provide an overview of an online re-entry course developed to reflect the experiences of underrepresented groups and assist students in recognizing and articulating their transferable skills for employability. Research findings based on interviews (n=20) and a survey (n=56) with students reflective of targeted underrepresented groups (BIPOC, disabilities, low-income, LGBTQ2S+ and first in the family to attend university) will be presented. The session will highlight design elements such as badging, micro-learning, and interactivity and review course content based on three modules: self-awareness, intercultural competence, and transferrable skills. The resulting course may be the first of its kind to tailor content to specific groups in order to acknowledge that a student’s experience abroad can be very different depending on their race, abilities, socio-economic status, gender identity or sexual orientation. The course also helps students create an inventory of their transferable employment skills acquired abroad and provides exercises aimed to help them articulate those skills to an employer. The course was created by the Centre for International Programs with research assistance from the Community Engaged Scholarship Institute (CESI) and course design support from the Open Learning and Educational Support Unit (OpenEd). This project is funded through the Government of Canada Outbound Student Mobility Pilot Project.

2:30 – 3:30pm • The Professional and Career Development Record

Elaine Fenner • Director, Experiential Learning

Daniel Poulin • Manager, Experiential Learning Development and Recognition, Experiential Learning Hub

A video recording of this session is now available.

The Professional and Career Development Record (PCDR) is a tool built into ExperienceGuelph.ca that formally recognizes a student’s involvement in on- and off- campus professional and career development activities, most notably experiential learning. This tool is designed to help a student reflect on their transferable skill development and encourages them to make connections between their experiences and their personal, academic, and career goals. It will also be beneficial for advisors/counsellors including Career Advisors, to use this tool when meeting with students to help plan their EL courses/activities as well as prepare them for interviews. The PCDR will be soft launched in May with a full launch in September. This presentation will showcase the current state of the tool with discussion on upcoming developments that will be ready for fall, including the timeline of launch activities.

9:00 – 10:30am • Provost’s Task Force: Promising Ideas - Alternate Forms of Assessment & Evaluation Working Group

Tina Hobbins • Graduate Student, Human Health & Nutritional Sciences

Barry Praamsma-Townshend • Manager, Accessibility Services

This working group is a part of the Provost's Task Force on Pedagogical Innovation, and this session will provide an opportunity to hear about some of the promising ideas that have been discussed as a part of our work. We have been thinking about strategies that support high quality teaching and learning, faithfully assess students' acquisition of skills and knowledge as described in the curriculum, and promote inclusion of students with diverse identities and lived experiences. Our goal is to engage participants in discussion that helps to advance innovative approaches in the future.

A video recording of this session is now available.

For more information on the Provost's Task on Pedagogical Innovation please see the Provost's website.

11:00am – 12:00pm • Reflect, Share, and Connect: Open Conversations about our Teaching Experiences in 2020-21

Facilitated by Sara Fulmer • Educational Developer, The Office of Teaching and Learning

Join your colleagues to share and process your teaching experiences over the past year and to come together as a community to support each other. This session is a space for reflection about our successes, accomplishments, challenges, and frustrations over the past year, and an opportunity to think through what we’ve learned about teaching and learning from this experience.

12:30 – 2:00pm • Provost’s Task Force: Cross-Disciplinary and Trans-Disciplinary Working Group

For more information on the Provost's Task on Pedagogical Innovation please see the Provost's website.

2:30 – 4:00pm • Provost’s Task Force: Experiential and Community-Engaged Teaching and Learning

Enriching Community Engaged Learning and Experiential Learning with Community Focused Learning skills and abilities

At this session we invite you to explore experiential learning (EL) in the context of community-focused learning (CFL) models. Community-focused learning allows students to develop foundational skills that are a necessary precursor for deep engagement and high impact experiential learning within a low-touch, low-intensity partnership model that is ideal for early-stage learners and those new to experiential education. We will present this model and ask you to identify and provide feedback on key disciplinary skills, abilities and competencies that might be unique or highlighted in your discipline. Participants will also explore and identify the opportunities and challenges associated with scaffolding key community-focused competencies for experiential and community-engaged learning within curriculum.

For more information on the Provost's Task on Pedagogical Innovation please see the Provost's website.