Are you interested in graduate student professional development and teaching assistant support? Whether you are an instructor, a graduate student, or work in educational development, please join this special session facilitated by the executive committee of the Teaching Assistant and Graduate Student Advancement (TAGSA) Special Interest Group (SIG) of STLHE. Join a strong network of like-minded people, who will work in this session to build on the ideas established in the past seven years (since the SIG’s inception) to discuss “where does TAGSA go from here?” The session will begin with a brief history of the SIG and what has been accomplished before moving onto lively discussion in facilitated groups to talk about the needs and wishes of graduate students and the people who work in this area.
Thomas Edison famously failed to make a lightbulb 1000 times before he was successful. James Dyson made 5,126 prototypes of his bagless vacuum cleaner before the one that worked. Harry Potter author Joanne Rowling was rejected by twelve publishers before her manuscript was accepted. The lessons from this for students in higher education are clear; to engage effectively with the learning processes in higher education, take responsibility for their academic attainment, and become the innovators of the future, students need the underpinning ‘grit’ and resilience to actively engage with the ‘failures’ they will inevitably experience during their studies.
This workshop provides a theoretical framework (Carol Dweck’s Mindset theory [Dweck, 2006]) and practical activities to enable you to encourage and develop your students’ effort, tenacity, and ‘confidence in failure’; and to develop a culture of learning resilience in an environment where the stakes are high and costly, and the student goal is the academic outcome, not the learning process itself.
In this workshop you will explore ways to support your students to develop more 'Growth-Mindset' approaches such as determination and robustness, through the use of 'planned points of failure' which are supported by the use of formative assessment and effective feedback practices.
Please bring with you, or be able to access, assessment materials for ONE module or course you teach on, as you will be working with these in the session (e.g. learning outcomes, summative tasks, grading matrices or criteria, formative assessment opportunities).
By the end of this workshop you should be able to:
The breathtaking rise, decline and reprise of Massive Open Online Courses has provided many lessons on the use of technology-enabled learning. On its own, learning technology is not a panacea. Rather, courses must thoughtfully integrate technology with quality face-to-face instruction time to create a blended learning model that provides students with the knowledge, skills and motivation to meet academic goals. We will discuss how blending learning technology with teaching raises the stakes for both instructors and students.
Northern Illinois University Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center (2012) http://www.niu.edu/facdev/resources/guide/strategies/instructional_scaffolding_to_improve_learning.pdf
Slavich, G. M., & Zimbardo, P. G. (2012). Transformational teaching: Theoretical underpinnings, basic principles, and core methods. Educ Psychol Rev, 24(4), 569-608. doi:10.1007/s10648-012-9199-6
Jennings, D. (2012) The Use of Concept Maps for Assessment http://www.ucd.ie/t4cms/UCDTLA0040.pdf
Spaulding Prezi, pt 1 of the presentation:
https://prezi.com/kfo8j50ql3uj/reflective-course-map-mapping-your-meta-cognition-part-1/
Smith Prezi, pt 2 of presentation:
https://prezi.com/ioeimit-vnvd/reflective-course-map-mapping-your-meta-cognition-pt2/
This session will explore the slipperiness of institutional change – specifically, the factors that make it difficult to introduce, implement, and sustain educational initiatives. As Fullan and Scott (2009) put it, many institutions of higher education are “change averse” in that their structures, processes, and predispositions discourage experimentation and innovation. Even the most change capable of institutions may find certain kinds of projects more difficult to enact, particularly those involving activities that impact people in different roles, at multiple levels, and with conflicting interests.
In research published across Australia and the United Kingdom, post-secondary institutions are beginning to be understood as complex systems within which change is enormously difficult despite mounting and conflicting pressures to become more nimble (Flinn & Mowles, 2014). Evidence suggests that increased awareness of systems, their interdependent networks of individuals, and the dynamic nature of leadership within those networks can enhance the chances of successful change (Mårtensson, Roxå, & Stensaker, 2014; Sterman, 2006). In particular, this approach helps to elucidate how information moves and pools within systems and how this impacts the capacity for change.
Based on institutional and international research on leadership, this interactive session will examine how leaders can create traction for their initiatives through self-reflection, project assessment, and an exploration of institutional context and processes (Bolden, Petrov, & Gosling, 2008; Flinn & Mowles, 2014; Trowler, Saunders, & Knight, 2003; Wright et al., 2014). This exploration of leadership will help participants to better analyze change initiatives, identifying factors making it difficult to introduce, implement, and sustain them, and identify potential next steps in improving the traction of their projects based on that analysis.
A space for students. Join some of the 3M National Student Fellows to discuss higher education — teaching, learning, student life — from the student perspective. Participants will have opportunity to brainstorm the themes, topics and questions for discussion, and will be challenged to brainstorm a vision for the future of higher education.
Content generated will be worked into the Fellows’ presentation at STLHE2016 later in the week.
Steelcase researchers spent months digging through secondary research on the topic of attention and the understanding we are gaining by research on the brain. They integrated these discoveries with their own ongoing investigations into student behavior and learning. The resulting convergence of findings has inspired new perspectives and new ideas for how environments, when thoughtfully designed, can be a hard working and effective tool to help students better manage their attention.
Pod 1: Sandi Spaulding (Occupational Therapy)
Everyone who uses a computer and sits at a desk needs to be cognizant of seated posture and how best to circumvent muscle fatigue. In this pod we will demonstrate how to incorporate two attributes of WALS, the overhead camera and the whiteboard, to facilitate assessment of posture and movement. Student group project output in the form of websites will also be showcased.
Pod 2: Sarah McLean (Medical Sciences)
Flipped classrooms are a buzzword in post-secondary education. Come learn about simple high-tech and low-tech options to create an active learning atmosphere in your classroom. Topics include: getting buy-in on the first day of class, in-class activities and perspectives from teaching assistants and former students. Take a walk through this pod to learn about the active side of flipped classrooms!
Pod 3: Graham Smith (Geography)
Appreciating the value of constructive mayhem and the conscious design of the unexpected. Active learning requires a different teaching lens, one that embraces play and discovery. Our pod will engage in whiteboard activities that focus on acquiring knowledge through the discovery of constructs.
Pod 4: Rob Corless (Experimental Mathematics)
“Experimental Mathematics”, also known as “Computational Discovery”, is the art of exploring the vast mathematical universe using modern mathematics (of all kinds) and is an ideal subject for active learning. In this unit we’ll sketch out one successful activity, and touch on others. Come for the amazing pictures, stay for the conceptual depths they afford!
Pod 5: Angela Borchert (Modern Languages and Literatures)
Storytelling: Collaborate, create, curate! Follow the urge to tell stories, and bridge informal and formal learning outside and inside the classroom. From the larger project of digital storytelling in community engaged learning curated in OMEKA to the social media storytelling curated in Storify, our pod will showcase WALS as a space for student-driven, creation-driven, multimedia-driven approaches to listening, thinking, telling and sharing.
Pod 6: Aaron Price (Engineering)
+1 Knowledge: Fostering Engagement Through Gamification
Gamification in education introduces elements of game design such as points, achievements, and leaderboards into the classroom setting to foster deeper learning. Our pod will demonstrate technology platforms employed by WALS instructors to increase students’ intrinsic motivation leading to higher overall engagement.
Pod 7: Aleksandra Zecevic (Health Studies)
Do you think you are an ageist? Check it out. Join this simulation of what it feels like to be older, and reflect on your own perceptions about older adults. We will demonstrate how WALS supports active, meaningful, collaborative, embedded and connected learning of Gerontology.
How do we define empowered learners? Who are empowered learners? What are the actions of empowered learners? How can higher education support empowered learners, their learning, advocacy and work? How does higher education re/create barriers for empowered learners? How does higher education suppress empowered learners? How are faculty called to action to advocate for and support empowered learners? ...... These are some of the possible questions participants will have the opportunity to discuss.
This session will have a balance of participant discussion (prompted by guiding questions such as above), and students presenting their perspectives on student power in action.
Content generated by students, and presented by students. Facilitated by the 2015 3M National Student Fellowship cohort, this session is based on their collaborative projects which include (1) the development of a 3M NSF facilitated blogging website for student voice in higher education across Canada, (2) discussions about how higher education is broken through the eyes of students, and (3) student visions for changing higher education. Student voices (from within and outside the 3M NSF) are intended to be integrated throughout the interactive workshop.
Empowering learners and effecting change are themes that underpin this submission. What if wellness and student learning were to benefit from one initiative? In addition to many traditionally understood benefits of exercise; reduction of sedentary lifestyle consequences: heart disease, stroke and metabolic diseases, the nervous system also reaps a benefit (Ferris, Williams & Shen, 2007; Erickson et al., 2011; Soga, Shishido & Nagatomi, 2015). Review of literature to date demonstrates a gap in research comparing exercise-based learning to quiet study when assessing recently learned information. Investigation of a dose-response comparison between exercise while studying and quiet study was conducted. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects that moderate exercise (Audiffren, Tomporowski & Zagrodnik, 2009) has on the ability of undergraduate students to learn memory-based material compared to traditional quiet study. Participants were placed into 2 groups: study (S) or no study (NS). Through randomization, group S was further divided into quiet study (QS) or exercise study (ES). QS and ES interventions involved one-hour protocol (two separate sessions of thirty minutes weekly), dedicated to the study of identical course-based material, either in a quiet atmosphere or while riding an adapted stationary bike. Pre and post measures were used to compare QS, ES and NS for memory retention. In addition, four assessment categories: weekly tests, midterm exam, post-intervention assessments and final exam were utilized to compare intervention protocols of QS and ES across a 10-week time frame. Two-way ANOVA analysis with repeated measures revealed a significant effect (p<0.0001) when analyzing pre/post-test scores supporting the effect of study; with a further increase of 9% in mean score for study done while exercising. Analysis of scores from weekly quizzes as well as midterm and final examinations revealed a trend of higher mean scores for the ES group as compared to QS group. However, statistical analysis did not reach a significant level within 95% confidence interval. Further studies are warranted to examine the full effect of exercise while studying using a larger sample size from diverse populations, however, collectively these results indicate that ES improves a student’s ability to learn and retain memory-based information. Discussions around the implication of these findings in curriculum design will be facilitated.
Banquet Cocktail Hour: Western University Jazz Combo
Banquet Dance: The Doug Varty Band (http://www.dougvarty.com/) with Denise Pelley (http://www.denisepelley.com/home.htm)
Please note: This year, banquet tickets are not included in the cost of the conference. If you would like to add a ticket to your registration, please go to http://stlhesapes.wildapricot.org/event-2264916 or contact Gayle McIntyre <gmcinty3@uwo.ca>.
The Northwest Aboriginal Canadian Entrepreneurs (NW-ACE) program is a collaborative effort between Aboriginal Communities served by Tribal Resource Investment Corporation (TRICORP), regional and provincial governments and the University of Victoria’s Gustavson School of Business to bring first class entrepreneurial learning to the Aboriginal people of Northwest British Columbia. The primary aim of the program is to enhance the self-sufficiency and full economic participation of Aboriginal people in the many exciting projects underway in their traditional territories by helping prospective entrepreneurs start and grow their own businesses.
The success of the NW-ACE Program is only possible through extensive collaboration that spans regions, communities, institutions and faculties, including:
Out of 91 graduates from the first 6 cohorts of the NW-ACE program, 21 have started new businesses. Four additional cohorts with a total of 63 participants will graduate ready to launch their businesses in the Fall 2016.
The philosophy guiding the collaboration innovation is founded on the belief that perhaps the NW-ACE program can – in some small way – reverse the damage done to First Nation communities through colonization. NW-ACE used this philosophy to guide the following three implementation strategies:
(1) To ensure that the Aboriginal communities served through TRICORP own and control the program, the intellectual property and the trademarks for the NW-ACE program. If the university were to own the curriculum for the program, it would just be another example of colonialism.
(2) To take the university to the Aboriginal community rather than expect the Aboriginal participants to travel to the university. The parents of many of the participants in the NW-ACE program are from the generation of Aboriginal Canadians who were taken from their communities and shipped off to residential schools. This program should not be associated with the deep pain inflicted by a colonial approach of residential schooling, but should rather attempt to reverse it.
(3) To enable Aboriginal people in the Northwest to become full peer-to-peer partners in the Canadian economy as business owners rather than just employees. The ideal prospective Aboriginal participant would already have a skillset that can be leveraged to start a business that would ultimately become a supplier to one or more of the various corporations driving the development projects in Northwestern BC.
Consistently, [NW-ACE] graduating students have offered deep appreciation for the learning opportunity provided by Gustavson and TRICORP and further express gratitude for a new way of envisioning and taking advantage of opportunities in Northern BC. The program has truly changed lives.
- Cory Stephens, Program Manager and NW-ACE Learning Enhancement Officer