Festival of Teaching and Learning SESSION FORMATS

Spark Talk (20 min) Shares effective (or not effective) teaching or assessment strategies that can ignite ideas, critical inquiry and collaboration.

Interactive Paper (30 min) Shares highlights from a completed (or in-progress) teaching and learning-focused inquiry project, including an overview of the research/project design, methods, and findings.

Workshop (60 min) Targets the development of teaching praxis; focused on helping educators implement new ideas and skills. Include a high level of active participation and practical application with time for discussion/Q&A.

Panel Discussion (60 min) Focuses on a particular topic related to teaching and learning. Pre-assembled speakers (3-5 people) represent diverse perspectives and voices, and a moderator guides the discussion.

Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) (20 min) Nature of the session subject to the vision of the presenter(s).

The following schedule is subject to change.

Register for the Festival of Teaching and Learning

May 7 | In-Person
Edmonton Clinic Health Academy (ECHA)

May 8 | ONLINE

May 9 | ONLINE

May 10 | HYBRID: ONLINE and echa 2-131

Abstracts

Beyond Accessibility Checklists: Designing the Future

Joanne Weber, College of Social Sciences + Humanities
Drawing from personal experience as a deaf scholar and her research on the application of aesthetic pragmatism to pedagogy and curriculum, Dr. Joanne Weber, Canada Research Chair explores what might lie beyond the current preoccupation with disability-specific accommodations and checklists associated with teaching and learning. For instance, we tend to study disability specific to individuals, ensuring their access to a specific technology or space, even for a specific time or task. But we rarely consider how disabled people co-exist in the same teaching and learning space. The increasing inclusion of people with disability also increases the likelihood that people with a variety of access strategies will share the same space, time or technology (Hofman et al., 2020). Dr. Weber explores how we might design teaching and learning experiences that support accessibility as a shared space rather than meeting individual needs.

Creating and sustaining communities of practice

Laura Woodman, College of Natural + Applied Sciences
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to lead a class that was directed by the needs and experiences of learners? Communities of practice merge theoretical knowledge with practical experiences, creating transformative learning spaces. This session outlines my experiences facilitating a virtual community of practice to enhance professional development in the family childcare field. Communities of practice are widely recognized as effective tools to facilitate collaborative learning, gain new knowledge and skills, and transfer those to practice (Clarke et al., 2021). By drawing together groups of people with similar interests and goals, communities of practice support the development of rich, deep knowledge enabled by problem-solving, critical reflection, and sharing feedback in peer group settings (Ratner et al., 2022). Other forms of professional development, including workshops, conferences, and formal certification, can lack depth and practice-based knowledge (Johnson et al., 2019) and have been found largely ineffective in shifting teaching practices. In contrast, communities of practice require engaged learning and are centered on colleague interactions, enabling learners to construct and share knowledge over time (Kalogiannidou et al., 2019). This session explores the learning partnerships I experienced by facilitating an 8-month community of practice. The sessions were held virtually and biweekly, and offered participants the chance to draw on their lived experience, discuss their prior learning, and share their experiences navigating public policy and system complexities within the family childcare field. The collaborative and reciprocal nature of communities of practice enabled meaningful professional relationships to form, which impacted the teaching and learning abilities of myself as the facilitator and early childhood educators as participants. By sharing the lessons I learned about teaching along the way, I offer insight to others, considering the possibilities of creating and sustaining communities of practice both on and off campus as a strategy to support professional development and lifelong learning.

Adventures in experiential learning: Using AI to create interactive 'choose your own adventure' case studies

Jay Friesen, College of Social Sciences + Humanities
Experiential learning enhances outcomes by immersing students in real-world complexities (Burch et al., 2019), nurturing ethical and cultural awareness through engagement with diverse community values, power dynamics, and partnership equity (Kiely, 2005). In these experiential moments, students "are constantly encountering the dilemmas and ambiguities of living with and through the complexity of how life works" (Butin, 2005, p. 98). While addressing ambiguity and complex emotional nuance is vital to learning how to build trust in community partnerships, simulating these complexities in the classroom remains challenging. How, then, can educators bridge this gap between the inside/outside of the classroom?

I've utilized traditional case studies, but they, as predetermined texts, don't engage in dialogue. Once the case study concludes, it remains silent, unable to respond or adapt to the classroom ensuing class discussion. To address these limitations, I explored AI. Inspired by 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books, I developed responsive case studies with ChatGPT. Students engage with AI-driven scenarios that mirror real-world complexity, adapting to their choices and providing potential into the consequences of their decisions in ways traditional case studies won’t.

In this session, participants will explore the technology's adaptability and impact on narratives through real-time ChatGPT interaction. This classroom strategy prompts critical reflection on technology's rich scenarios versus its limits in capturing the nuance of human experience. Educators can guide AI exploration, integrating it with classroom dynamics to bridge gaps and enrich experiences. I provide immediate, in-the-moment feedback as I move around the room, directly engaging with each student and offering guidance tailored to their interaction with the scenario. Following this, we hold a group debrief to highlight the diversity of approaches and insights, further enriching the learning experience. To conclude, I'll share my strategies and general reflections on AI to prepare students for experiential learning.

Burch, G. F., Giambatista, R., Batchelor, J. H., Burch, J. J., Hoover, J. D., & Heller, N. A. (2019). A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship Between Experiential Learning and Learning Outcomes. Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, 17(3), 239–273. https://doi.org/10.1111/dsji.12188

Butin, D. W. (2005). Service-learning as postmodern pedagogy. In D. W. Butin (Ed.), Service-learning in higher education (pp. 89–104). Palgrave Macmillan.

Kiely, R. (2005). A transformative learning model for service-learning: A longitudinal case study. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 12(1), 5–22.

Student agency and perspectives in assignments for linguistics

Tim Mills, College of Social Sciences + Humanities
One danger in being an academic - an expert in my own narrow field - is the temptation to think that my perspective is the only perspective that is valuable in the courses I teach. It is also tempting, as the instructor, to focus only on my own agency in making decisions around how learning will happen. To combat this, I try to find ways to increase student agency and to bring student perspectives into the course. In this presentation, I talk about assignments from three linguistics courses - a first-year course, a second-year course, and a 3rd-year course. Each is set up to either draw out students’ own perspectives on the content, or enhance their agency around how and what they learn, or both.

I talk about the challenges in setting up and delivering these assessments, and the outcomes I have observed, both in direct student feedback and in the quality of work I’ve observed in these assignments.

I hope that these examples can spark discussion of other approaches attendees have used to the same end, and give us all ideas for how we can further support our students in feeling that they have a hand in their own education.

Equitable pathways to experiential learning: What gets in the way of students learning by doing?

Raymond Matthias, Office of the Provost & Vice-President Academic
Ishrath Khan (student), BSc (Hon) Psychology student (3rd year)
Ania Ulrich, College of Natural Sciences
Jo Sheppard, College of Health Sciences
David Peacock, College of Social Sciences + Humanities
Zhi Jones, University of Alberta International
This panel discussion will explore barriers impeding University of Alberta students from fully participating in experiential learning opportunities, especially those from equity-deserving groups. We will examine systemic challenges that limit access to opportunities and discuss the university's role in mitigating these barriers. By integrating diverse perspectives on the panel (Practicum and Experiential Lead, Director of Community Service Learning, Associate Director, Global Learning Services), the session aims to uncover proactive strategies for fostering inclusive and equitable learning environments.

It's how we ask: The power of powerful open questions

Lisa Lozanski, Human Resources, Health, Safety + Environment
At Universities, we are well-practiced in the art of asking questions. Questions not only frame research and provoke thought during lectures, they fundamentally shape the interactions that we have with students and the interactions that we have with one another. This session will review an approach to questioning taught and practiced in Leading Others (the University’s leadership program for supervisors), called Powerful Open Questions (POQs). Simple to explain but not always easy to use, POQs help us to (1) get curious about the (whole) person we are engaging with and not just the ideas at hand and (2) remain non-judgmental and exploratory so that we think with students. Participants will have the opportunity to experiment with this pragmatic tool in this session and will be better equipped to invite students into generative conversations.

Wellness in and out of the classroom through partnership

Tim Tang, Office of the Provost & Vice-President Academic
Ravina Sanghera, College of Health Sciences
Kevin Friese, Zac Young, Dean of Students Administration
Clint Galloway, Christine Cabildo, Heather Ritz, Student Services - Wellness Supports
In this session, the Dean of Students and their partners will facilitate discussions about supporting wellness in our classrooms. This workshop will raise awareness about the existing resources available to students and instructors. Workshop participants will also have an opportunity to think about how they can leverage these resources to promote wellness in their courses and programs.

Where we meet: How to frame and align expectations

Lisa Lozanski, Carrie Malloy, Human Resources, Health, Safety + Environment
Many educators co-create agreements with students to define expectations and establish norms and accountabilities. In this workshop, we introduce a way to structure such conversations. Absolute framing, or bookending, can help clarify expectations by encouraging each party to imagine a spectrum, with overwhelming success on one end and utter failure on the other. Instructor and student spectrums (or frames) can then be compared to identify common ground and/or tensions that need to be negotiated. Once aligned, frames can be used to gauge progress and redirect attention or energy where required.

This workshop will give participants the opportunity to practice absolute framing, first as a group and then as individuals, so that they are better prepared to experiment with it in their classrooms or on teams. Attendees may also wish to share the process with students who are engaged in group work and need to clarify the expectations of group members.

Absolute framing is a practical tool that acknowledges the unique perspectives that each party brings to a collaboration. It aims to build connection and understanding proactively and to minimize the conflict or frustration that often arises from unmet expectations.

William C. Wonders map collection engagement

Larry Laliberte, Bonnie Gallinger, Library and Museums
In revitalizing approaches to navigating an institutional collection of maps (and their containers) this in-person workshop connects participants to ways of beckoning maps through hauntology – a praxis that disrupts and dislocates the fabric of the normalized, operates in the fault lines of authorized histories, and speaks to those ‘who are no longer’ and those ‘who are not yet’. (1) Through tracing, collage and lettering, the workshop will position maps as apparitions — social locations that neither exist fully in the present nor are entirely absent. By sketching and shading (hachures), participants will collaboratively construct terrains that interrogate, counter and reckon with specters of settler cartographies inhabiting a spatial corpus of colonial history. A history that continues to confer power, and haunt the landscape. Situated within the map collection while engaged with tactile and aural ambience, and experiential movements through layers of curatorial practices, an assemblage of positionalities will engage collaboratively with spatial literacies through printed maps that capture the echoes of production techniques and cultural attitudes of the era in which they were created. Through tracing and transference, drawing words—writing maps, following the haunted contours of spatial artifacts, decolonial reflections on the changes in, and losses of, cultural and physical landscapes, will be crafted into a transformative teaching tool - a deep map. One that opens up multi-dimensional paths and connections beyond static cartographic elisions into topographic intuitions that cultivate restorative processions toward reconciliation, decolonization, equity, diversity, inclusivity, and accessibility.

1. Derrida, Jacques. (1994). Spectres of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International. Translated by Peggy Kamuf. London: Routledge.

What does great university teaching look like? Lessons from a pedagogical enhancement partnership between faculties

Kerry Rose, Gillian Robinson, Kristian Basaraba, College of Social Sciences + Humanities
Duncan Buchanan, Mahima Dua, Lisa White, College of Natural + Applied Sciences
Sarah Pelletier, Campus Saint-Jean
Over the past four years, cross-faculty collaborations between the Faculties of Education, Engineering, and Campus St. Jean at the University of Alberta have resulted in the development and implementation of discipline-specific programs to enhance post-secondary teaching and learning. Conceptualized, implemented and evaluated by CMASTE (Centre for Mathematics, Science and Technology Education), these programs have common themes that consider active, student-centered and evidence-based pedagogical topics such as the Nature of Learners and Learning, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Metacognition, Interactive and Problem/Team-based Learning, and Assessment, among others. The programs invite participants to think about their own identities as educators, including considering themselves as scholars of teaching and learning in addition to scholarship in their specialist areas. The programs encourage instructors and teaching assistants to implement their learning in their classrooms on an ongoing basis and to meet regularly with instructional coaches for classroom observations/collaborations and in communities of practice. In this panel discussion, the three instructional coaches who worked with professors, instructors and TAs and several participants from these programs, will describe the program and share their experiences, including their successes and challenges along the way. Join us for a conversation about what and how improvements can be made to the post-secondary learner experiences, and how those doing this work engage with each other and the content of the programs to enhance their teaching.

Reimagining your course for online

Kaila Simoneau, Online and Continuing Education
Alex Gainer, College of Social Sciences + Humanities
Reimagining for Online: Leveraging Universal Design and a Curation Mindset for Inclusive Engagement As online learning establishes itself as a permanent fixture in the higher education landscape, instructors shifting to online must reconceptualize conventional in-person approaches to engage and motivate a wide range of students of diverse backgrounds and experiences. This undertaking can be daunting, as it requires us to navigate our rapidly evolving informational and technological landscapes to rethink how we curate, present, and position ideas and information. How might we leverage technological progress to dismantle systemic barriers, improve accessibility and flexibility, and support greater equity, diversity and inclusivity? How does the presence of popular online platforms, such as YouTube, TikTok, or Netflix, change how we engage with and consume informational content? What multi-modal tools, tips, and strategies can we borrow to overcome distraction, inspire motivation, and facilitate engagement among learners with diverse needs, social locations, goals and experiences?

For the past year, Alex Gainer, Teaching Professor in the Department of Economics, has grappled with these questions. With the support of Senior Instructional designer Kaila Simoneau and the Online Learning and Continuing Education team, Alex has embraced a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) approach to not only reimagine Economics 101 and 102 into paced, asynchronous online offerings but also empower students of all backgrounds to ask questions and engage meaningfully with the economic world around them. In this presentation, Alex and Kaila share what they’ve learned when it comes to applying UDL to create engaging, multimodal course content and discuss how cultivating a “curation mindset” has the potential to disrupt traditional classroom power dynamics, support multiple modes of engagement, and incorporate a plurality of voices and perspectives. Along the way, Alex and Kaila will explore some simple strategies and areas for improvement when setting out to create impactful, inclusive online learning content.

Evaluating engagement, learning and teaching in the hybrid classroom environment

Mauricio Rivera-Quijano, Mary Beckie, Breanne Aylward, Rebecca Gokiert, School of Public Health
We report on an evaluation of a synchronous hybrid (online, in-person) learning pilot initiated during 2022-2023 for core courses of the Master of Arts in Community Engagement (MACE), School of Public Health. Our presentation consists of results from a cross-sectional survey of students (n=16) participating in the hybrid classrooms, as well as findings from a sharing circle with associated instructors (n=4). The survey instrument, designed by an interdisciplinary team from SPH with support from CTL, drew upon relevant studies in the literature and previous surveys that assessed hybrid and blended learning at UA. The survey and focus group covered four domains of inquiry: 1) students’ engagement and learning experiences, 2) the virtual and classroom learning environment, 3) overall satisfaction with hybrid learning and teaching, and, 4) suggested improvements. Students identified challenges in the hybrid classroom related to technology limitations, which impacted engagement between students online and in-person, as well as virtual students with the instructor. Despite this, the majority of students felt that course content and pedagogical tools used by instructors were suitable for the hybrid environment. Student satisfaction with a hybrid course was high due to the flexibility and accessibility it offered. Instructors were more critical of the current state of classroom technology, which made it awkward to manage simultaneous engagement with students online and in the classroom, in part due to inadequate sound volume from all parts of the classroom for virtual students. Use of the Owl was an improvement, but only in seminar rooms with a maximum of 20 students. Going forward, instructors need appropriate and reliable technology and specific training for effective hybrid teaching. We look forward to the discussion of these and other hybrid teaching experiences.

ChatGPT-proofing assessments

Matthew Guzdial, College of Natural + Applied Sciences
ChatGPT and other Large Language Models (LLMs) have seen rapid adoption among students in the past year. This makes online, asynchronous assessments potentially less reliable, but reducing these assessments could make a course less accessible. This talk will focus on the speaker's simple strategies, informed by his research, to ensure that students cannot successfully employ these tools in online and/or asynchronous assessments. While the examples will draw from the instructors classes in Computing Science, the strategies are designed to be department/course topic agnostic.

Collaborative Generative AI Maker-Space: Past and Future Trajectories

Brad Ambury, Dalbir Sehmby, Centre for Teaching and Learning
Join us as we share insights from CTL’s Collaborative Generative AI Makerspace programming. Designed to aid instructors adapting to a higher educational landscape altered by generative AI, like ChatGPT, the makerspace initiative sought to inform and equip instructors with the tools and strategies needed to assess the risk and potential these new technologies present for teaching and learning. The Makerspace functioned as a collaborative community for educators to come, discuss, and explore AI integration into their teaching.

Our presentation will discuss Makerspace highlights, including resource-sharing and brainstorming solutions to AI challenges. Makerspace participants led AI-enhanced teaching demos and showcased practical examples to help build an AI-Aware community. In this presentation, we’ll also briefly explain our plans for continued Makerspace programming in the upcoming Fall term 2024 as well as another planned CTL-hosted offering, an online Generative AI Teaching Repository.

Fostering east-west engagement: Integrating the Dao De Jing and Macbeth into an intercultural curriculum

Qian Ye, Jian Wang, College of Social Sciences + Humanities
This hermeneutic research delves into the reading experience of Chinese educators with Macbeth informed by the wisdom of the Dao De Jing. Grounded in the hermeneutic curricular theory, and particularly drawing from David Smith’s (2014 & 2020) advocacy for a wisdom- guided curriculum and David Jardine’s (1998 & 2006) proposition for an integrated curriculum, 2 this study explores the implications that an intercultural reading experience has for an intercultural curriculum. Within this envisioned intercultural curriculum, educators and students collectively navigate the meaning of Daoist philosophy (specifically the Dao De Jing in this study) and Shakespeare’s plays (specifically Macbeth in this study) and connect these meanings with their lived experiences within the hermeneutic classroom.

The theoretical framework of this study lies in intercultural hermeneutics, which encompasses analogous structures, hermeneutics of cultural difference, and cultural commensurabilities. This paper delves into paradoxical language, the ideology of survival in Daoism as a contrast to psychological empathy in Macbeth, and cultural commensurabilities embodied in the dialectical relationship between Wei (为) and Wu Wei (无为), the Yin-Yang equilibrium, and poetic justice within both texts. The data analyses yield significant implications for the intercultural curriculum, including nurturing aesthetic receptions of the Realm with Self and the Realm without Self, promoting a non-anthropocentric worldview, and encouraging self- reflection, among other implications.

The paper aligns with the theme of the Festival of Teaching and Learning, “Transforming Teaching and Learning Through Intersectional Equality and Connection.” It underscores the importance of fostering mutual understanding and illumination in East-West engagement, challenging the notion of irreconcilable differences and oppositions. Research findings are transferable, enabling other instructors to incorporate the wisdom of Chinese Daoism into the teaching of Macbeth and to facilitate hermeneutic pedagogy in Shakespeare classes. Moreover, we include an interactive component that encourages discussions delving into new dimensions of meaning within texts and individual attunement to the unconcealed meanings within an inclusive intercultural curriculum.

Jardine, D. W. (1998). To dwell with a boundless heart. Peter Lang.

Jardine, D. W. (2006). “The fecundity of the individual case”: Considerations of the pedagogic heart of interpretive work. In D. W. Jardine, S. Friesen, & P. Clifford (Eds.), Curriculum in Abundance (pp. 151-168). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Smith, D. G. (2014). Teaching as the practice of wisdom. Bloomsbury.

Smith, D. G. (2020). Confluences: Intercultural journeying in research and teaching: From Hermeneutics to a changing world order. Information and Publishing, Inc.

Exploring “Native Speakerness” ideologies and EDIA through instructors’ lived experiences

Kerry Sluchinski, Richard Feddersen, Yvonne Lam, College of Social Sciences + Humanities
Meike Wernicke, University of British Columbia
Simmee Chung, Concordia University of Edmonton
Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (EDIA) best practices and what they mean for the students in our classrooms have increasingly become a forefront item on many institutional agendas; however, what about EDIA best practices for students towards instructors? Resonating with the theme of Transforming Teaching and Learning Through Intersectional Equity and Connection, the catalyst for this panel discussion draws on my intersectional identity and lived experience narrative as a non-native speaker (NNS) Chinese language teacher and invites panellists and attendees to explore and discuss pain-points as well as potential best practices that could help promote EDIA practices from students towards instructors. In my own narratives of harmful experiences, I focus on ethnicity and age, as these two aspects are most relevant in how I am treated and perceived by students in the teaching and learning environment. Together with invited panelists of diverse backgrounds and disciplines, as well as attendees, I hope to explore possible solutions or implementational best practices to help normalize the idea of NNS teachers, especially in under-represented languages such as Asian languages, and mitigate student bias towards instructors based on ethnicity. Of course, ethnicity is not the only factor on which students may show disregard for EDIA practices towards their instructors, and perspectives discussing other aspects of EDIA, such as age, gender, and disability, are also anticipated to be explored throughout the panel discussion as we come together and share our stories.

Report from the frontlines: Generative AI in our Writing Studies classrooms

Nancy Bray, Shahin Moghaddasi Sarabi, Anna Chilewska, College of Social Sciences + Humanities
As writing instructors, our teaching has been deeply affected by the release of Generative AI (Gen AI) tools that can produce cohesive and grammatically correct writing within seconds. This set of new writing tools has forced us to ask important questions: How can we preserve unique and diverse human voices and experiences in writing? What skills must we cultivate in the Age of Gen AI to remain creative and critical thinkers? How can we use Gen AI productively, responsibly and ethically as writers while navigating known biases and unequal access to these tools?

In this presentation, we will briefly discuss how the lure of efficiency threatens the inherent diversity and complexity of human writing and how we encourage critical engagement with these tools in our classrooms to help develop critical AI literacy. We will share three strategies we have used to address the presence of Gen AI in our classrooms. First, we will discuss how we support students from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds in developing their writing voices and judgment. Second, we will talk about the types of assignments that encourage independent and creative thinking and promote diverse types of learning while using AI responsibly and critically. Finally, we will discuss a process-oriented approach to writing with Gen AI that addresses the needs of students with diverse learning styles and gives them the flexibility they require to succeed.

Interactive exploration of EDI and UDL

Barbara Edmondson, Zuzana Buchanan, College of Social Sciences + Humanities
The English Language School (ELS) recently had the unique opportunity to create a new course developed to meet the needs of international students on campus. Designing a course from scratch allowed for a detailed needs assessment and the incorporation of the U of A’s EDI, Indigenous and International Students strategic plans. Throughout the curriculum, lessons and assessment, the ELS was able to weave principles of UDL, EDI and Indigenous content while maintaining the goal of strengthening students’ intersectional equity and connection to the community. The course allows students to build skills, embrace cultural diversity and engage with content in a meaningful way. Few courses on campus can be reimagined to weave in content to such extent; however, our goal is to give instructors tangible tips to explicitly and implicitly integrate more EDI and UDL in their classes. We created an interactive Google Site that mimics a chapter of our course textbook. Explore in your own time our practical examples of how you can apply EDI and UDL into your curriculum, instruction, assessment and student support. Learn at your convenience how we integrated these key concepts, and share with us your experiences of integrating EDI into your course. Choose how you would like to meaningfully engage with our materials, and join our virtual discussion. Don’t be shy! Session prework

The field of rabbit holes: Teaching and learning with ADHD

Nancy Bray, College of Social Sciences + Humanities
Three months before I finished my PhD at the age of 48, I was diagnosed with ADHD. This diagnosis changed how I understood my own learning, and it has transformed my teaching practices. In my 20-30 minute presentation, I will explore the following questions:

What does it feel like to process information in atypical ways?

• What do brain differences like ADHD mean for teaching and learning?
• How can we build learning experiences that love and respect brain differences?

The presentation will be structured like a Choose Your Own Adventure story. At the end of each section, the audience will choose which path the presentation will follow. I have chosen this format because it represents the constant dilemmas of the ADHD brain: Where do I go next? Have I missed something important? OOOH, shiny new exciting thing over there!!! Now, how do I get my brain (this presentation) back on track?

Because the audience will choose which elements I will present, I cannot predetermine what learning outcomes or content I will cover. (This uncertainty is also part of living with an ADHD brain.) However, I will prepare the following rabbit holes for us to potentially fall into:

• My personal experience as a student and instructor with ADHD • Current psychological understandings of ADHD
• Fictional anecdotes depicting the dilemmas of students and instructors with ADHD
• Concrete suggestions on how to love and leverage the ADHD brains in your classroom.

I hope that spending 20-30 minutes in the thrall of an ADHD brain will leave the audience with a better understanding of life with an atypical brain. I hope we will laugh about these wondrous differences and take another step towards appreciating the diversity of our community.

Interdisciplinary learning for pedagogical change and equity praxis

Gillian Robinson, College of Social Sciences + Humanities
Sedami Gnidehou, College of Health Sciences
Natacha Louis, Charlie MBalla, Asma M'barek, Mourad Ferdaoussi, Pierre Rousseau, Campus Saint-Jean
To enable student-centered and evidence-based pedagogical practices, we developed a two-year professional learning program for post-secondary educators at our university. Adapted from our engineering education program grounded in signature pedagogies (Shulman, 2005), we created two disciplinary streams for a liberal arts faculty: Natural & Applied Sciences and Social Sciences & Humanities. Each of the 12 modules in the program includes online content, application of learning to in-progress courses, and an in-person community of practice discussion. Importantly, at Campus Saint-Jean, the communities of practice are made up of multi-disciplinary cohorts.

This presentation is grounded theoretically in the wisdom of Dr. Jessica Vandenberghe (2022) and centres her thinking around the importance of humility (one of Seven Sacred Anishinaabe Teachings) in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. We also draw on theory from Dr. Dustin Louie’s ethical spaces framework (2017), which combines Horkheimer’s critical theory (1937) and Little Bear’s cyclical knowledge renewal (2012). With these understandings, we believe that multi-disciplinary cohorts allow us as educators to reflect deeply on teaching philosophies that enhance equity for our students in ways that discipline-specific groupings might not.

This panel will draw out the cohort member’s individual experiences with how the model of an interdisciplinary community of practice enhances the potential of pedagogical change in the academy. The presenters will share how the interdisciplinary cohort model for pedagogical improvement fosters deep discussion and eagerness to learn from each other. Each participant will share concrete ways in which their teaching practice has become more inclusive and equitable due to their community of practice discussions. Attendees will also be invited to reflect on their own praxis with interdisciplinary learning.

Whiteboard animation for dental education

Nazlee Sharmin, Ava K Chow, College of Health Sciences
Teaching complex scientific concepts in an engaging way is one of the major challenges that educators face [1]. Whiteboard animation is a specific style of animated videos where the content appears to be hand-drawn on a school whiteboard and narrated in a storytelling manner. This type of animation has all the benefits of traditional animations, illustrating an abstract idea, simplicity, and engagement. However, the feature that makes whiteboard animations stand out as an educational tool is their ability to combine visual thinking and storytelling [2]. Storytelling is a multimodal teaching approach that simultaneously engages listeners’ thinking, emotions, and imagination [3]. Storytelling has been identified as an effective teaching method and an alternative scaffold for medical students [4]. However, this powerful tool is underutilized in science education [5]. Whiteboard animations, powered by storytelling, have been successfully applied to explain complex health-related topics for medical and pharmacology students [6]. We used traditional PowerPoint and hand-drawn digital images to create whiteboard animation explaining topics for dental education. The built-in animations of PowerPoint were used to animate the images and supporting text. We aim to create a series of whiteboard animations for dental students. Cognitive Load Theory supports the use of animated videos as a teaching tool [7]. Whiteboard animations offer an alternative learning scaffold, therefore expected to reduce the extrinsic load of understanding complex concepts. Incorporating whiteboard animation with visual storytelling can introduce a new method of teaching science in dental education. Whiteboard animations can reduce cognitive load and make learning enjoyable. 

References [1]. Liu, C., & Elms, P. (2019). Animating student engagement: The impacts of cartoon instructional videos on learning experience. Research in Learning Technology, 27. https://doi.org/10.25304/rlt.v27.2124

[2]. Adams, C., Yin, Y., Francisco Vargas Madriz, L., & Mullen, C., S. (2014) A phenomenology of learning large: the tutorial sphere of xMOOC video lectures. Distance Education, 35:2, 202-216. https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2014.917701

[3]. Crocetti, G., & Barr, B. (2020). Teaching science concepts through story: Scientific literacy is more about the journey than the destination. Literacy Learning: The Middle Years, 28(3), 44+. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A637715101/AONE?u=anon~f1140624&sid=googleScholar&xid=77afd917

[4]. Encisco, E. M., Gerardo, R. G., Tombash, E., Levy, B. E., & Ponsky, T. A. (2022). Storytelling for pediatric surgical education and beyond. Journal of pediatric surgery, 57(12), 1036. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpedsurg.2022.06.012

[5]. Krupa, J. J. (2014). Scientific method & evolutionary theory elucidated by the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker story. The American Biology Teacher 76 (3): 160–170. https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2014.76.3.3

[6]. Larnard, J., Zucker, J., & Gordon, R. (2020). The Stairway to Antibiotic Heaven: A Scaffolded Video Series on Empiric Antibiotic Selection for Fourth-Year Medical Students. MedEdPORTAL: the journal of teaching and learning resources, 16, 11036. https://doi.org/10.15766/mep_2374-8265.11036

[7]. Sweller, J. (2020). Cognitive load theory and educational technology. Education Tech Research Dev; 68(1):1-16.

Intersectionally-marginalized and invisibilized students: Sustaining collaborations

John C. H. Hu, College of Health Sciences
This student session builds upon practitioner experience working with indigenous youth, drawing upon theoretical frameworks from Paulo Freire, Iris Marion Young, and bell hooks. Key inquiries include 1) whether students living with multiple simultaneous statuses of marginalization can achieve equitable legitimacy in learning environments, as well as 2) how experiences of structural inequalities can inform decolonizing education which leads to Freirean liberation. The festival theme of decolonization is central, as Western approaches in education have not been able to help meet essential needs of indigenous students in Canada. Second, highlighting the experiences of indigenous students who also live with disabilities, are gender minorities or experience homelessness will help ground discussion in Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility toward identifying solutions which promote healing. The interactive session seeks to build connections between participants, with the end objective of identifying concrete, tangible advocacy and/or research collaborations. How a festival as such can foster grassroots partnerships for future, sustained action will be central to the collective query, in which participants can active share personal perspectives and theories which may have previously not found apt platform. 

Student user experience: Are we doing it wrong?

Corey Stroeder, College of Health Sciences
Building course sites can be challenging for the most seasoned instructor. Regardless of ample documentation, support structures and training, online course sites typically struggle with concepts like user experience (UX), accessibility and basic design strategies.

Get a fresh new perspective and view eLearning from the lens of a former multimedia/web developer turned eLearning/Technology Specialist for the Faculty of Nursing. Corey will guide eLearning professionals through basic content centric web concepts that can be implemented into their own eLearning course sites helping to create consistent and effective learning experiences for all students regardless of their capabilities.

Course quality checklist: A simple, self-guided tool to elevate your online course

Monica Lucarini, Shereen Seoudi, Online and Continuing Education
The impact online course instructors have on learners is often overlooked, yet they have the power to influence the learning experience significantly. While their primary focus is content delivery, they have the potential to cater to a variety of learner needs and preferences. In this session, we present a comprehensive, learner-centred approach to the course quality review process, drawing upon evidence-based standards from Quality Matters and the Online Learning Consortium (OLC). Through exploring the course quality checklist, we aim to equip faculty and course creators with the necessary tools and knowledge to assess their course's quality and inclusivity of learning experience. The checklist will touch on various aspects of course design and development, including engagement, accessibility, cognitive load, and Universal Design for Learning principles. By engaging in this adventure, you will not only enhance the quality of your courses but also elevate the learning experience. We invite faculty to join us in this initiative as we strive to uphold the highest standards of excellence in online education at the University of Alberta. 

Radical Love and Decolonial Dreaming through a Pedagogy of Peace

Lindsay Brant
Lindsay (Kawennenhá:wi) Brant will share stories about how her developed critical pedagogical framework Pedagogy of Peace was born and became central to her teaching and learning praxis. She will share the ways it is being used by herself and other peaceful pedagogues to transform the educational landscape through love, care, connection, peace, and relationality. She will invite us on a journey of imagining decolonial futures and the possibilities and hope that Indigenous ontologies, pedagogies, and methodologies can hold for transformation in places and spaces of learning and educational leadership.

Creating Cultures of Care and Connection: Lessons from Indigenizing Climate Change Education

Sara Mai Chitty, Beth Hundey, Western University
We co-developed Connecting for Climate Change Action (C4CCA), an award-winning blended course offered at Western University and as a free online on Coursera. C4CCA moves climate change literacy beyond simply teaching the data to encourage learners to deepen their connections to the land and community through story, visiting, reflection, and implementing action. We share learnings from our course development process that weaves key threads in the Festival of Teaching and Learning. Through sharing our experiences, we touch on engaging holistic Indigenous pedagogy to make space for learners’ emotional and mental well-being as they explore stressful topics such as the impacts of climate change. In our hybrid delivery, we designed assignments and discussions to cultivate cultures of care and connection in an online learning environment and inspire solutions based on collaborative thinking and dialogue. Student positionality is essential to their learning – we invite them to consider how they each have unique gifts to offer climate action and the capacity to influence change in their lives and beyond the classroom. Participants will have the opportunity to sample some course activities and discuss the pedagogical approaches offered.

Facilitating Messy or Disruptive Conversations in the Classroom

Mandy Penney, Anita Parker, Centre for Teaching and Learning
This workshop, facilitated by the Centre for Teaching and Learning, is being offered as a part of the Universities in Times of Crisis – Conversations Across Differences series from the Office of the Vice-Provost, EDI. In this session, participants will be invited to reflect on their experiences navigating and facilitating challenging or disruptive conversations in the classroom. Together, the facilitators and participants will unpack some of the challenges and complexities in our current classrooms, as well as the “external” conditions that contribute to these challenges. Finally, the facilitators will offer a series of concrete proactive and reactive strategies that can support relational, accountable, and critically-engaged classroom conversations.

Canvas LMS Learning Opportunities

In partnership with the Ticket to Launch team, the Centre for Teaching and Learning is managing the registration for the Canvas LMS Learning Opportunities offered in-person May 7–9. Session descriptions are on the Ticket to Launch website.

• May 7 | Edmonton Clinic Health Academy (ECHA) 2-137
• May 8 | Central Academic Building (CAB) 281
• May 9 | Edmonton Clinic Health Academy (ECHA) 2-150

Register for Canvas LMS Learning Opportunities

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