Instructor perspectives on undergraduate class size in Canada Invitation to participate (Français ŕ suivre) I am inviting instructors at Canadian universities to participate in a short research survey about how instructors define undergraduate class size. The purpose of this study is to better understand how instructors across Canada think about categories such as small, medium, […]
Tag: Teaching
Considerations for Podcasting as a Higher Education Assignment
This morning, I’m doing a quick scoping of the teaching and learning resources related to using Podcasts as an assessment tool in the Higher Education classroom. The intended outcome of this environmental scan is to see what the evidence suggests as best practice for designing and facilitating Podcasting assignments. My sources are varied, from Blog […]
How we scaffolded critical reflection
We ((And by we, I mean my co-instructor Dr. Erin Aspenlieder and I.)) made a significant change in the way we “taught” critical reflection in UNIV*6800: University Teaching, Theory and Practice in the fall of 2013. To measure the success of our change, we asked students rate their confidence in their ability to reflect critically on […]
“Teaching” Critical Reflection
Thinking about critical reflection has been “front of mind” over the past few days, primarily because Natasha and I are presenting a workshop at this year’s Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) annual conference focused on just that. More specifically, the workshop focuses on a “disorienting dilemma” we’ve faced as course instructors for UNIV*6800, […]
Five things a TA should do in their first lab, seminar, tutorial or class
1. Whatever approach you’re going to take in your classroom, model it. If you plan to use discussions, case studies or experimental work, model some component of it on your first day. You want students to understand that these approaches are important to their success in the course while also letting them know that they’ll […]
“Grade” expectations
cc image source With apologies to Dickens, in preparation for the upcoming Graduate Student University Teaching Conference, I’ve been editing the TA survival guide that we provide all conference participants. One specific section that I’ve updated is based on the most recent data collected from 2011 incoming undergraduate students.
Future Directions in Educational Development
As you may or may not know, I’m in the middle of looking for a job. One of those positions is an Educational Developer at the University of Guelph. In preparation for the interview, I was asked to prepare a 15 minute talk on “The Future of Educational Development in Higher Education” (a topic that […]
Reflections on my first use of Twitter in the classroom
Update (5-17-11): This post has turned into a book chapter, which, in turn became a presentation. Feel free to visit both. Inspired by others’ use of Twitter in higher ed, I decided to try and integrate Twitter into the course that I’ve developed and instructed while a PhD student in the Faculty of Environmental Studies […]