Archives: Blog

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

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Blog: From choosing a math textbook to writing one

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics Some people regard math as a black-and-white subject. Such a sentiment has a certain degree of truth. Calculus two centuries ago is still calculus today. Theorems that have been rigorously established will not become untrue in the future unless our logical foundations... More

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Blog: From choosing a math textbook to writing one

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics Some people regard math as a black-and-white subject. Such a sentiment has a certain degree of truth. Calculus two centuries ago is still calculus today. Theorems that have been rigorously established will not become untrue in the future unless our logical foundations... More

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Blog: Flexible evaluation

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics As a new academic year is about to begin, many instructors are in the process of drafting course outlines. When I was a student, I always went straight to the evaluation scheme as soon as I received a course outline. I suspect that many... More

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Blog: Can we take anything from the success of PokémonGo into teaching and learning?

By Claudia Buttera, Lab Coordinator, Department of Biology If you haven’t already heard of the absolute craze that is PokémonGo, here’s a brief overview from a non-gamer. The first Pokémon games launched in 1996 and were designed for Nintendo handhelds. The game is based on capturing, training, battling and trading virtual fictional... More

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