Blog - Teaching and Learning Services

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Blog: Teaching: Who has the power?

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science I’m getting ready to start a new term teaching a particularly controversial topic — the politics of Israel-Palestine. When I share with colleagues my trepidation, they sometimes like to remind me that, however difficult the task may be, it is the instructor, after all, who... More

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Blog: How can we get students to do the readings?

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science We often like to think that students value the readings we assign out of a sheer love of learning. But, like us, students have many competing demands on their time, and course requirements inevitably get prioritized according to incentives. For any given student, studying for... More

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Blog: What’s an A+?

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics About 10 years ago during a lunch conversation that drifted into a discussion on student grades, a colleague asked, “What is an A+?” The question was of course rhetorical. My colleague simply used it to point out the deficiency of the letter-grade system when... More

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Blog: Dealing with sudden, significant events and sensitive topics in class

By Maristela Petrovic-Dzerdz, Instructional Design Coordinator, EDC Research tells us that one of the most important factors influencing motivation for learning and succeeding in an academic environment is relevance. If students cannot see a connection between what they are learning in class and the outside world, their own lives or their future... More

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Blog: Does a narratives approach mean presenting two “equal” sides?

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science One thing I’ve struggled with over the years while teaching Israeli-Palestinian relations, particularly as the hope of Oslo leading to an actual peace agreement came and went, is the practice of teaching a “narratives” approach. Stories that groups tell about themselves... More

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Blog: The 2017 Horizon Report – Higher Education

By: Elspeth McCulloch, EDC Educational Technology Development Coordinator Discover how experts rank educational technology trends, challenges and developments for the next year…or three years…or more. When it comes to describing trends and discussing common strengths, opportunities and threats, the New Media Consortium (NMC) team of experts... More

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Blog: How do we avoid saying the wrong thing?

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science I generally find teaching stimulating, invigorating and frequently fun, on one hand, and often emotionally draining, on the other. Part of this is my tendency to obsess and self-doubt, which sit atop my general confidence and assertiveness. Thinking about the skill set required... More

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Blog: The cost of free

 By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics Recently, UC Berkeley started removing roughly 20,000 free videos from public access. One reason given for the action was the prohibitive cost of retroactively making the videos comply with accessibility laws in the U.S. The action by Berkeley ignited a firestorm of... More

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Blog: The 2017 Horizon Report – Higher Education

By: Elspeth McCulloch, EDC Educational Technology Development Coordinator Discover how experts rank educational technology trends, challenges and developments for the next year…or three years…or more. When it comes to describing trends and discussing common strengths, opportunities and threats, the New Media Consortium (NMC) team of experts... More

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Blog: How do we avoid saying the wrong thing?

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science I generally find teaching stimulating, invigorating and frequently fun, on one hand, and often emotionally draining, on the other. Part of this is my tendency to obsess and self-doubt, which sit atop my general confidence and assertiveness. Thinking about the skill set required... More

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Blog: The cost of free

 By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics Recently, UC Berkeley started removing roughly 20,000 free videos from public access. One reason given for the action was the prohibitive cost of retroactively making the videos comply with accessibility laws in the U.S. The action by Berkeley ignited a firestorm of... More

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Blog: How can we get students to do the readings?

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science We often like to think that students value the readings we assign out of a sheer love of learning. But, like us, students have many competing demands on their time, and course requirements inevitably get prioritized according to incentives. For any given student, studying for... More

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Blog: What’s an A+?

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics About 10 years ago during a lunch conversation that drifted into a discussion on student grades, a colleague asked, "What is an A+?" The question was of course rhetorical. My colleague simply used it to point out the deficiency of the letter-grade system when it... More

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Blog: Dealing with sudden, significant events and sensitive topics in class

By Maristela Petrovic-Dzerdz, Instructional Design Coordinator, EDC Research tells us that one of the most important factors influencing motivation for learning and succeeding in an academic environment is relevance. If students cannot see a connection between what they are learning in class and the outside world, their own lives or their future... More

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Blog: Does a narratives approach mean presenting two “equal” sides?

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science One thing I’ve struggled with over the years while teaching Israeli-Palestinian relations, particularly as the hope of Oslo leading to an actual peace agreement came and went, is the practice of teaching a “narratives” approach. Stories that groups tell about themselves... More

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Blog: ePortfolio – The nail in the coffin of ‘the dog ate my homework’ (and other merits)

By Julie Lepine, Contract Instructor, School of Linguistics and Language Studies Okay, so maybe the excuses of your university students are not as juvenile as ‘the dog ate my homework’ (or maybe they are!), but I’m sure you’ve all witnessed the slightly panicked, slightly defiant face of a student who has ‘forgotten’ to bring... More

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Blog: ePortfolio – The nail in the coffin of ‘the dog ate my homework’ (and other merits)

By Julie Lepine, Contract Instructor, School of Linguistics and Language Studies Okay, so maybe the excuses of your university students are not as juvenile as ‘the dog ate my homework’ (or maybe they are!), but I’m sure you’ve all witnessed the slightly panicked, slightly defiant face of a student who has ‘forgotten’ to bring... More

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Blog: Data-driven course improvement

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics As I start to become more familiar with cuLearn, I realize that there is a lot of course data that can be useful for improving the learning environment for my students. Without a doubt, the ability to perform complex queries in cuLearn is limited.... More

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Blog: Teaching: Who has the power?

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science I’m getting ready to start a new term teaching a particularly controversial topic — the politics of Israel-Palestine. When I share with colleagues my trepidation, they sometimes like to remind me that, however difficult the task may be, it is the instructor, after all, who... More

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Blog: The authentic teacher

By Kim Hellemans, Undergraduate Chair, Department of Neuroscience My first experience teaching university students was in the first year of my PhD in 1999. I had been chosen to take over teaching labs for a third-year neuroscience course (Introduction to Behavioural Neuroscience) from a senior PhD student who was graduating. After one semester... More

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Blog: Who is teaching whom?

By Claudia Buttera, Lab Coordinator, Department of Biology In the nearly 29 years that I’ve been a lab coordinator in the biology department, more than 6,000 students have sat, worked and learned in my labs. I have learned everyone’s name, gotten to know most of them, and for many years afterward, can even remember... More

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Blog: Educators outside of the classroom

By Stephanie Vennard, Residence Manager – Russell, Grenville, and Prescott Houses When we think about educators, most people automatically think about teachers or professors - people who do formal classroom teaching. They impart academic knowledge onto our students and help them achieve their career aspirations. That being said, we often forget... More

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Blog: End-of-term cuLearn checklist

By Tamara Vaughan, Educational Technology Assistant, EDC The end of the term is always busy: you’re calculating, finalizing and submitting grades, meeting with your TAs one last time and making grade changes when necessary. After the course ends, however, what happens to your course on cuLearn? From a technological perspective, how do you... More

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Blog: Professors and mental health: An untapped resource

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science With general increasing awareness around mental health issues, professors may have more of a role to play than they realize. While we may not be therapists or physicians, we may be well positioned to support our students not only intellectually, but emotionally too. Since the... More

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Blog: Stupid is as stupid does – Critically considering tests of intelligence on reality television is a pedagogical win

By Rebecca Bromwich, Instructor, Department of Law and Legal Studies No, I’m not “Canada’s Smartest Person,” as measured by the tests offered on reality TV, and the demonstration of that on national network television offers a wonderful teachable moment. This fall, I was nominated to go on CBC’s reality TV gameshow Canada’s Smartest... More

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Blog: Stupid is as stupid does – Critically considering tests of intelligence on reality television is a pedagogical win

By Rebecca Bromwich, Instructor, Department of Law and Legal Studies No, I’m not “Canada’s Smartest Person,” as measured by the tests offered on reality TV, and the demonstration of that on national network television offers a wonderful teachable moment. This fall, I was nominated to go on CBC’s reality TV gameshow Canada’s Smartest... More

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Blog: To lecture is to inspire

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics These days, “lecturing” has been receiving a bad rap; a lecturer who lectures in the traditional sense is often referred to as a “sage on the stage.” The standard argument against the traditional lecture is that it is an outdated mode for information transfer.... More

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Blog: Using BigBlueButton to engage your students is easier and more powerful than ever

By Elspeth McCulloch, EDC Educational Technology Development Coordinator Have you thought about incorporating BigBlueButton (BBB) into your course? BigBlueButton is a synchronous web conferencing tool that allows instructors and TAs to host live online presentations, seminars, office hours and meetings from cuLearn. The technology is feature... More

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Blog: The month of “Novemblah”

By Claudia Buttera, Lab Coordinator, Department of Biology November can be a tough month to get through. It is dark when I get up in the morning, and it’s getting darker and darker when I leave campus to head home. I look out my window to see that strong northerly winds and drenching rains... More

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Blog: How to get students to spot their “academic discipline” around every corner

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science An exciting byproduct of my fourth-year seminar on political opinion writing has been the phenomenon of students discovering politics — the “home discipline” of the course — around every corner. The class, which I developed this year as a special topics course, is... More

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Blog: Teaching a blended course: Trial and error

By Mira Sucharov, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science With the university’s push towards incorporating more online teaching, “blended” courses (courses in which some classroom time is replaced by online material) have appeared. In my faculty (Public Affairs), the blended model was rolled out as a half-and-half model (with... More

Monday, October 3, 2016

Blog: Residential curriculum

By Natalie Allan, Assistant Director, Residence Life Services In our residence community, we are focused on the learning that takes place outside of the classroom. We wonder what should students learn as result of living in residence? What strategies should we use to promote this learning? And how will we know if they learned... More

Monday, October 3, 2016

Blog: Residential curriculum

By Natalie Allan, Assistant Director, Residence Life Services In our residence community, we are focused on the learning that takes place outside of the classroom. We wonder what should students learn as result of living in residence? What strategies should we use to promote this learning? And how will we know if they learned... More

Friday, September 30, 2016

Blog: Labyrinths and their benefits

By Maristela Petrovic-Dzerdz, Instructional Design Coordinator, EDC Have you noticed the walking labyrinth in the quad recently? We live in a very busy world where we are overwhelmed with distractions every minute. Technology enables us to be connected all the time, inducing anxiety caused by the fear that we might miss out on some... More

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Blog: Learning, attention, silence and rest

By: Rebecca Bromwich, Instructor, Department of Law and Legal Studies On preparing for a new teaching term as the summer of 2016 turns into fall, I have a new challenge. Perhaps it’s a good problem to have: I’m teaching things I have taught before. This gives me some breathing space to reflect on, and... More