2026 SPARK Symposium Presentations
April 29th, 2026
10:45 – 11:30
OER at The University of Lethbridge: Current Context and Opportunities
Sean Fitzpatrick, Kimoya Edwards, Rumi Graham, and Bill Forster
Short Presentation and Panel Discussion
This team presentation will cover a short history about OER (Open Educational Resources - resources available at no or very low cost to students for use in their studies in place of commercial text and software resources) at UofL and in Alberta/Canada, perspective sharing on the value of OER (e.g. student, instructor, library) and sharing of current OER options and practices used at the University of Lethbridge. The session will then transition into a panel-based discussion with session attendees on how to support academic staff in choosing OER, implementing OER solutions for their classes, supporting development of OER at the University of Lethbridge, and where the University of Lethbridge could and should go next with OER.
Meaningful by Design: Student Experiences in Cooperative SoTL Research
Taiah Krivoshein, Makita Mikuliak, and Jeff Meadows
Presentation
The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is a framework of systematic inquiry into teaching and learning practices aimed at improving educational outcomes. Our presentation specifically highlights the impact of bringing student researchers into the SoTL process.
We argue that collaborative student involvement in SoTL research not only constitutes a methodological approach but also a pedagogical choice. Involving undergraduate students in SoTL—in a way which intentionally positions students and faculty researchers as collaborators—produces outcomes that extend far beyond standard, quantifiable findings. We draw on survey data, semi-structured interviews, and academic staff reflections—gathered at the University of Lethbridge—to examine what project characteristics cultivate meaningful outcomes for student researchers, and how undergraduate perspectives enrich the SoTL research process.
We contend that cooperative SoTL research is a promising and underutilized vehicle for undergraduate development and institutional culture-building, and one that challenges prevailing assumptions about who participates in the production of knowledge. If universities believe in providing meaningful education, they must also believe in the value of undergraduate experience and student voice.
Coulees, Corridors, and Community: Reimagining Graduate Mentorship Together
Megan Hebert and Supriya
Presentation - with storytelling through the experience of one of the first Graduate Peer Mentors.
Graduate school at ULethbridge is an adventure shaped by coulees, crosswinds, and the mysterious acoustics of UHall’s endless hallway, where footsteps echo long enough to question your thesis topic twice. To support students navigating this sometimes isolating, always wind swept terrain, we co designed the Graduate Peer Mentor Program with graduate students as authentic Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) partners, weaving their lived experiences directly into the program’s design. Grounded in the ULethbridge Graduate Student Experience Medicine Wheel, the program honours learners’ physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well being, much like pausing halfway up the Fine Arts stairs to spiritually reconsider your life choices.
Rather than dividing academic and non academic growth, the program blends both, because at ULethbridge, breakthroughs happen during research conversations, wellness check ins, and yes, while bracing yourself against the wind on the bridge. Students helped build a mentorship model as grounded as the coulees and as resilient as anyone who has ever tried to carry a poster tube through a Chinook.
Join us, adventure awaits.
It isn’t about AI - It's About Assessment
Richelle Marynowski
Workshop/collaborative conversation
The whole of society is grappling with the use of AI and implications for their work. In instructional spaces, student use of AI to complete assignments has implications for assessment design, types of assessments, timing of assessments, and more. There was a similar assessment conversation when the Internet of Things became widely accessible to society. This session will be discussion and collaboratively focussed on suggestions and responding to the questions "What do I want my students to get out of my course?" and "How am I going to know what they are taking away from the course?"
11:45-12:30
What Could the University of Lethbridge Be? Undergraduate Student Perspectives About University Education in 2026
Miranda Leibel and Students from LBED 4000 (Capstone Seminar in Liberal Education)
Presentation
This session, co-facilitated with students from the Winter 2026 offering of LBED 4000, will discuss the process and findings of a collaboratively designed research project. The study is unique, in that it has been co-designed and collaboratively executed with 15 upper-year undergraduate students in the Winter 2026 offering of LBED 4000 (Capstone in Liberal Education) at the University of Lethbridge. The questions asked were derived as part of in-class discussions, and it is the students themselves who have argued that collecting the perspectives of their peers will be valuable not only to our institution (University of Lethbridge), but to a broader set of questions about public universities in the age of the polycrisis. The study focuses on four main themes: (1) academic life, (2) campus culture and belonging, (3) services and support, and (4) liberal education. Together, we will share perspectives on what it was like to develop a shared research vision for our class (including challenges related to assessment and syllabus redesign). Students will also share the findings of their research and what that means for teaching and learning at our undergraduate-focused institution.
Two-Stage Exams - Research and Experiences from Computer Science
John Anvik
Presentation
A two-stage exam (TSE), or collaborative exam, is an exam format in which students first complete an exam individually before completing the same (or a similar) exam collaboratively with peers. The first stage of the exam allows students to demonstrate their understanding of the course material, and the second stage requires them to engage in collaborative problem-solving with peers.
This presentation provides an overview of two-stage exams and highlights best practices found from a multi-institution study of TSE use in computer science courses, as well as my own experiences implementing TSE in second- and third-year computer science courses. Collectively, this presentation will provide instructors with practical guidance for implementing TSE in courses that blend theoretical knowledge and applied skills.
Critical Making in the Classroom Or: How I Learned to Stop Reading AI and Love Teaching
Natasha Rebry
Presentation
My session will discuss my experiments with critical making in my Speculative Fiction and Theory class from Fall 2025. Critical making is a form of critical design that transforms the imagination and invites reflexivity. Critical making links critical thinking with material work, enriching understandings of a chosen text through processes of and reflections on hands-on making. Objects are created to make stories and concepts more tangible, to draw on personal experiences, and to connect concepts and materials, bodies and minds, ideas and experience, self and community. Created objects are not only used to illuminate, illustrate, communicate and exchange ideas with others but also as a means for personal exploration and remembering.
Throughout the semester, students engaged in critical making classes, culminating in a pop-up exhibit featuring student creations. Exhibiting and sharing created objects encouraged students to develop skills in outward-facing public projects and activities. My session will explain the theory and praxis of critical making, outline the assignments I created and their strengths and weaknesses, and share the joy of the exhibition. We will also engage in a brief critical making activity.
Pop Culture Themed Classes: An Example of Teaching Mental Health Through Comic Books
Chris Dabbs
As universities continue to diversify, and instructors attempt to adapt to changing student needs, popular culture theming (PCT) of course work — in which academic material is integrated with media — is becoming increasingly popular. Undergraduate psychopathology (abnormal psychology) courses traditionally emphasize case vignettes of individuals with psychiatric disorders to illustrate etiology, nosology, and treatment. While pedagogically useful, these depictions can inadvertently provoke distress in students, potentially impeding engagement and learning. To address this dilemma while continuing to center the same learning outcomes, I formulated a course structure which embedded some course topics in superhero-related material with the express intent to create psychological distance between potentially distressing topics and the learners themselves. This presentation provides general background for PCT, alongside examples of PCT courses across disciplines. Of primary focus is a discussion of the evidenced-based rationale for specific pedagogical choices in my course — Pow, Bam, Snikt: Comic Books and Mental Health — alongside material recommendations and discussion of the iterative course development process.
1:45-2:30
The Map of Learning Assignment: Make Reflective Learning Personal, Visible, and Enjoyable
Katelyn Scott and Devan McNeill
Presentation and discussion with visual examples of the Map of Learning assessment
The root of the word reflection comes from the Latin reflectere, meaning “to bend back,” capturing both distance from experience and a meaningful return to it. In education, reflection is often treated as a written task rather than a transformative learning process. This presentation explores the Map of Learning assignment designed to position reflection as an integrative, creative, and critically engaged pedagogical practice. Throughout the term, students engage in ongoing reflective practices—journaling, dialogue, creative expression, and peer conversation—to examine their evolving understanding of course concepts, professional identity, and personal assumptions. The culminating Map of Learning invites students to synthesize these reflections into a visual, symbolic, or tactile representation of their learning journey. Rather than recounting content, students articulate what has shifted most for them, what questions remain, and how course readings and discussions intersect with their future research, professional practice, and lived experience. Grounded in reflective learning theory (Wade & Yarbrough, 1996), the assignment emphasizes depth of insight, openness to challenging assumptions, and the application of theory to contemporary issues. Student-created maps (ranging from Lego designs, baking recipes, board games, art and other media, constructed landscapes, etc.) demonstrate how creativity can make learning visible while honouring diverse ways of knowing. This session will highlight the pedagogical design of the assignment, assessment criteria, and observed outcomes, including increased student engagement, and deeper critical reflection. Participants will leave with a practical, adaptable assignment for using creative reflection to support meaningful learning across post-secondary programs.
My Quizzes Bring all the Students to the Class: Standards-based Testing as Scalable Alternative Grading
Sean Fitzpatrick
Presentation
Traditional points-based grading is flawed and subjective, and discourages student reflection on their mistakes. We stick with it because most alternative modes of assessment do not scale well to the 150-250 student classes we typically teach at the University of Lethbridge.
For Winter 2026 I am experimenting with standards-based testing, which offers a middle ground between traditional grading and standards/mastery based grading. In standards-based testing, quizzes and tests are organized by learning outcome, and graded on a simple proficiency scale, with revisions allowed for student work that demonstrates understanding without meeting expectations.
I'll explain my implementation of standards-based grading, and talk about whether or not it was successful. (This is to be determined!)
Integrating Peer Review Into a Research Methods Course
Richard Larouche and Letitia Koen
Presentation with time for discussion and exchange with the audience
Peer review is a cornerstone of science that can uphold the quality of publications and their usefulness for knowledge users. Research methods courses represent an ideal setting to raise awareness about the importance of peer review. In his undergraduate Research in Health Sciences course, Dr. Larouche has included a peer review activity as part of a larger assignment in which students are required to develop a questionnaire on a health-related topic. Although questionnaires are commonly used by researchers and health practitioners alike, there are many pitfalls in developing a good questionnaire. Peer review can help overcome them while promoting learning, critical thinking, and communication skills. For this assignment, students are first asked to submit a draft of their questionnaire, which is sent to two peers for review prior to final assignment submission. Reviewers are invited to provide constructive feedback on the questionnaire items and the background sections that cover the purpose of the questionnaire, the context in which students would administer it, and instructions for participants. Peer reviews are assessed for participation marks and generally help improve the quality of final assignments. Challenges and lessons learned from using this assignment in multiple offerings of the Research in Health Sciences course will be discussed. After Dr. Larouche’s presentation, Ms. Letitia Koen, a Master’s student in health sciences, will share her experience from engaging in this activity during her undergraduate studies. The session will finish by a discussion with the audience about the role of peer review in student learning.
"How to Be a Student: A Needs Assessment of First-Year University Students at the University of Lethbridge"
Nicholas Dunn and Justin Cleland
Presentation
Students entering university in 2025 have grown up in an era of rapid technological change, from the rise of generative AI to the lingering disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The traditional model of higher education—the one that faculty were trained in—is fading. Today’s students arrive with unprecedented access to information but often struggle with the fundamental skills of being a student: deep focus, careful reading, and thoughtful discussion. In our classrooms, we encounter: shortened attention spans and an inability to engage in deep work; overreliance on technology coupled with a lack of digital literacy; discomfort with face-to-face interactions; a shift from genuine reflection to passive information consumption and reproduction.
In this talk, we present our findings from IDST 1850: How to Be a Student (And Actually Learn) during the Winter 2026 term. Our research project, which ran concurrently with the course, is an exploratory needs assessment study that aims to understand what first-year students at the University of Lethbridge need in order to succeed in their university career.
2:45-3:30
AI in Post-secondary Education: Downsides and Upsides
Marc Roussel, Nicholas Dunn, Sidney Shapiro, Daniela Sirbu, and David Slomp
Panel discussion
Current students are dipping their toes into the world of AI, but cohorts soon to arrive in our halls will come to university having made use of AI, in ways both good and bad, through most or all of their secondary educations. AI, and most particularly the large-language models (LLMs) that are now widely available, is already being integrated into many day-to-day tools. The University of Lethbridge makes an LLM available to every staff member and student via its subscription to the Microsoft office suite. So what should we teach students about responsible, ethical and effective use of AI tools or, for that matter, about the social and environmental costs of the data centres that power LLMs? Given the wide availability of these tools, how do we create meaningful assignments that stimulate thinking and the development of the intellectual skills that we have always hoped to nurture in students? But also, what are the opportunities to tackle complex issues created by the availability of AI tools, whether they are the specialized tools appropriate to our disciplines, or the general-purpose tools that have been dominating the headlines? This panel, which includes faculty members from a range of disciplines, will discuss the challenges created by these technologies as well as the new horizons they allow us to envision in post-secondary education.
Gaming Democracy? Student Reflections on Game Based Learning in Comparative Politics
Stephanie Kerr, Aliya Jansen, David Forestell, and Trajan Bowen
Presentation
In the context of persistent reports of democratic backsliding & decreased trust in democratic institutions both domestically and internationally, undertaking a class on Democracy and Authoritarian Challenges can be potentially quite daunting for students. At the same time, political science courses are particularly well suited to active learning pedagogies. This is because active learning takes place not simply by practising a new task, idea or concept - but by building linkages between learned material and the learner's own experiences. As citizens and persons embedded in social and political structures, students in the above-mentioned class are necessarily impacted by the phenomena under study. However, the complexity, and at times remoteness of the processes under study can make it overwhelming to grasp just how these processes play out around us. Drawing on the literature of the potential for active learning to facilitate mastery of course content and the development of critical thinking skills, students in a small third year comparative politics class had an assessment option to eschew a traditional research essay for a game-based learning activity. This project represents an assessment of the use of the board game 'Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory' as a tool of active learning. Through a comparison of the reflexive ethnographies of the four players (three students and the instructor as the fourth player), this article assesses the impact of the integration of game based active learning on both mastery of course content (formal summative assessment) well as its impact on student learning practices.
Designing Asynchronous Moodle Labs for Japanese: Pedagogical Design Decisions and Practical Constraints
Abigail McMeekin
Presentation
Blended and hybrid instructional models, in which online components replace a portion of face-to-face instructional time, have become increasingly common in higher education and have been shown to be comparable in effectiveness to in-person instruction (Müller & Mildenberger, 2021). This presentation describes the development and ongoing refinement of asynchronous, Moodle-based learning labs used as supplementary instructional material in a Japanese language program.
Each lab consists of three components: a structured review of recently covered material, a short tutorial introducing content to be practiced in the following week, and a listening activity. The labs are completed independently outside of class and are designed to reinforce accuracy, preview upcoming structures, and provide guided practice without increasing in-class instructional time. Rather than serving as high-stakes assessments, the Moodle quizzes are formative, low-stakes learning opportunities that support student learning and self-monitoring.
The discussion addresses challenges that emerged during implementation including ongoing design revisions (based on student feedback across multiple courses), and the limitations of Moodle quiz tools for providing clear feedback on complex sentence-level answers. While the focus is on Japanese language instruction, questions about the pedagogical value of Moodle quizzes and related issues of question format, feedback visibility, scoring transparency, and instructor workload are relevant across disciplines. By discussing both effective strategies and less successful solutions, this talk offers practical insights into using Moodle quizzes as supplementary instructional tools that are pedagogically sound, learner-centered, and feasible within typical instructional constraints.
Stepping Off the Drama Triangle: Strategies to Strengthen Emotional Intelligence and Psychological Safety in Educational Settings
Dawn McBride
Presentation with experiential components
Post secondary classrooms and teaching environments often involve heightened stress, strong emotions, and complex relational dynamics. During moments of tension or conflict, instructors and students may respond in habitual ways that are intended to be helpful or protective but can unintentionally escalate distress, limit problem-solving, and reduce psychological safety. This session introduces the Drama Triangle as a practical framework for understanding common stress based interaction patterns that may emerge in post secondary teaching contexts.
Participants will explore how roles such as rescuing, criticizing, or withdrawing can show up in classroom interactions, faculty student relationships, and collegial exchanges. While these responses often arise from care or frustration, they may undermine emotional intelligence, shared responsibility, and opportunities for repair. Through applied examples drawn from post secondary settings, the session focuses on recognizing these patterns in real time and intentionally stepping out of them.
Emphasis is placed on practical strategies that support emotional regulation, boundary setting, curiosity, and respectful accountability, without relying on blame, control, or rigid scripts. This compassionate approach highlights relational awareness and flexible application that instructors can adapt to diverse classrooms, disciplines, and teaching roles.
This 30 minute presentation, followed by a 15 minute facilitated discussion, is designed for post secondary instructors and teaching staff seeking concrete, relationship centred strategies to reduce tension, foster psychological safety, and support emotionally intelligent learning environments.
April 30th, 2026
9:00 - 9:45
The Pedagogical and the Personal: Teaching With and About Queer Identities
Erin Kardolus, A.J. Lowik, and Tara Beaton
Panel Presentation
Teaching queer inclusive content in Alberta’s current politically adversarial climate is challenging. This panel explores standing at the front of a classroom teaching material that is increasingly framed as “controversial,” while embodying often-scrutinized queer and trans identities. There are emotional, pedagogical, and professional tensions that arise when our lived experiences intersect directly with course content, and when our presence alone is politicized before a single lesson begins. We consider how shifts in public discourse shape student expectations, institutional pressures, and our own sense of safety and responsibility. In addition, we discuss navigating potential student resistance and balancing authenticity with self protection. We also highlight the transformative potential of teaching while queer—the ways vulnerability, embodiment, and critical dialogue can open space for deeper learning and connection.
Erin Kardolus is an Instructor II in Addictions and Mental Health Counselling. They lead with authenticity as a queer non-binary teacher. Safe, contained, and reflexive active-learning environments are at the heart of their pedagogy.
Dr. A.J. Lowik is an Assistant Professor of Sociology. As a queer and trans scholar teaching in Alberta, they are committed to a reflexive, unapologetic pedagogy that centers lived experience, critical inquiry, and intellectual courage in the face of ongoing anti-2SLGBTQ+ misinformation and legislative efforts.
Tara Beaton is a Population Studies in Health PhD student. Informed by their own experiences of ‘not-quite-fitting-in,’ their pedagogical approach stresses aspects of gender and sexuality, with specific emphasis on values, desires, practices, identities, and/or individuals that cannot be contained by existing gender/sexuality frameworks.
Beyond the Syllabus: Responding to Student Mental Health and Life Challenges
Callista Mason
presentation
How do you respond when a student shares something deeply personal or distressing? Where is the line between being supportive and taking on the role of a counselor? And how can you ensure you take care of your own mental health and well-being when supporting students dealing with non-academic concerns?
Faculty members are often the first point of contact for students who are struggling, yet many faculty are not prepared to effectively respond in these situations and/or aren’t informed of services and supports to refer students to when needed. Additionally, these experiences can be personally taxing for faculty members who are already balancing heavy workloads with the demands of their own personal lives.
This brief presentation will address these challenges by providing faculty with practical tools to support students while maintaining appropriate professional boundaries and personal well-being. In this session, we will discuss how to respond thoughtfully to student disclosures of distress, navigate referral pathways and campus resources, maintain healthy boundaries in the faculty role, and support your own well-being through debriefing and self-reflection.
Critiquing AI in the Classroom
Dana Cooley
presentation
We’re all grappling with how to deal with AI. In some fields, the concerns centre on automation and academic integrity; in others, on data, authorship, bias, or intellectual property. Even within a single department, approaches can vary widely depending on whether a course is studio-based, technical, or theoretical. Yet beneath these differences lie shared, fundamental questions. What does AI mean for education and learning? How do we assess understanding in a moment when generative systems can produce competent (sometimes compelling) outputs in seconds? What happens to jobs, not only in industry but in the cultural and creative sectors? What are the environmental costs of large-scale computation? And perhaps most importantly: what becomes of creativity, authorship, and critical thinking in an AI-saturated world?
In this presentation, I will share reflections and lessons learned from teaching two AI literacy courses (one at a 1000-level and the other at a 4000/5000-level). These courses were not designed simply to train students in prompt engineering, but to cultivate critical, ethical, and reflective engagement. Students examined AI as a tool, as an infrastructure, and as a colonial force. They experimented with generative systems, analyzed bias, environmental impact, the perpetuation of colonial power, and reflected on their own positionality in relation to this proliferating technology. What emerged was not a single answer about how to “handle” AI, but a framework for approaching it with curiosity, skepticism, responsibility, and care.
From Conversation to Assessment: Embedding Oral Methodologies in Community-Based Work-Integrated Learning (WIL)
Erin Kennett
Presentation. There is potential for a City of Lethbridge representative to also attend.
How can community conversation move beyond an “activity” to become central to course assessment? This session shares insights from CIRP 3989: Community & Change, a Career Bridge course offered through the School of Liberal Education and delivered in partnership with the City of Lethbridge. In Fall 2025, structured community interviews were piloted as part of three major assessments—a research-based annotated bibliography, a presentation articulating findings, and a final intervention proposal—to explore how oral methodologies might support career readiness, professional skill development, and student learning through authentic community engagement.
Rather than treating oral methodologies as an end in themselves, this session examines how conversational engagement was scaffolded, integrated, and evaluated within a work-integrated learning (WIL) framework. Attention will be given to assessment design, ethical considerations, and the challenges of aligning community-based, interpersonal learning with academic rigour. Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on how structured community conversation might be adapted in their own courses.
This session will be of interest to instructors exploring experiential learning, authentic assessment, and community-engaged course design, with insights from community partners to illustrate real-world impact.
10:00 - 10:45
Beyond the Tool: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Ethical GenAI Integration in Academic Practice
Adriana Monteiro-Lima, Olga Klymenko, Jaspreet Kaur, and Frank Onuh, Diana Letts
Rounds Table Discussion
Round-table Discussion Panel:
Adriana Monteiro-Lima, Instructor (Calgary Campus) Academic Writing Program
Olga Klymenko, Instructor, Linguistics and Academic Writing
Jaspreet Kaur, Instructor (Calgary Campus) Mathematics & Computer Science
Frank Onuh, Instructor, Academic Writing Program
This round-table discussion will bring together faculty and the university community to explore the evolving intersection of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and academic practice. Drawing from recent collaborative experiences across academic writing and computer science courses, participants will examine how GenAI tools are being integrated into curricula, the benefits and challenges this presents, and the ethical concerns that arise for educators and students. Key topics include the imperative of critical AI literacy among both educators and students, the need to preserve authentic voice in the age of generated text, and strategies for fostering critical thinking while leveraging GenAI’s capabilities. The discussion will address issues of bias, copyright, and privacy, emphasizing the importance of transparency and human responsibility in GenAI-assisted tasks. Examples of GenAI-supported in-class activities and assignments will highlight new approaches to assessment, emphasizing reflective analysis over rote correctness. The round-table discussion will also cover institutional responses, including the development of critical AI literacy guidelines, policy harmonization, and the creation of collaborative resources. This round-table aims to share best practices among peers, identify ongoing challenges, and set an agenda for ethical, effective, and responsible GenAI integration in academic writing and assessment that supports learning outcomes.
Managing Teamwork: Tools, Tactics, and Teaching Tips
Dana Abeuova
Round Table session
This round table session offers an interactive, practice-focused space for instructors to exchange strategies for designing and managing effective team assignments. Rather than a formal presentation, the session is structured as a collaborative dialogue where participants share what has worked in their own classrooms and learn from colleagues across disciplines. The goal is to surface practical approaches that make team-based learning more manageable, equitable, and engaging for both students and instructors.
Discussion will center on key implementation challenges, including tracking team attendance, clarifying roles and responsibilities, assessing individual and group contributions, and developing fair grading practices. Participants will also explore methods for reporting team effort, fostering accountability, encouraging productive competition, and sustaining student engagement throughout team projects.
By the end of the session, attendees will leave with a collection of adaptable best practices, concrete tools, and peer-tested ideas that can be applied in diverse teaching contexts. This session is ideal for instructors seeking to refine their team assignment design, address common pain points, and build a supportive community around collaborative learning practices.
Three Minutes to Transformation: Reimagining Graduate Support Through SoTL
Megan Hebert
The session format will be a workshop, with hands-on practical application to participants' specific challenges through the SoTL lens. Participants will be provided with a worksheet and activities to supplement their learning.
What happens when the School of Graduate Studies begins to view its work, from onboarding to professional development, from 3MT to mentoring, through a lens of curiosity, reflection, and continuous learning? This session shares how adopting a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) mindset, grounded in students as partners principles, helped us redesign graduate student engagement in practical and inclusive ways.
Instead of creating more programs, we asked: What do graduate students truly need to succeed? How do they learn best outside the classroom? Which experiences build confidence, skills, identity, and career readiness? Using evidence and iterative design, we reframed 3MT preparation as a reflective, skill building learning experience; redesigned the Graduate Peer Mentor Program as an experiential, career development space; and refreshed onboarding and professional development to better reflect real student needs.
Whether new to SoTL or experienced, participants will leave with approachable tools and strategies for enhancing (graduate) student learning, no matter where their “classroom” is.
When Access Meets Excellence: Accommodations, Universal Design, and Teaching in Post Secondary Education.
Jackie Fletcher
It is clear that today's learners are more diverse then ever before - how do we ensure their learning needs are met while maintaining the integrity and rigor of our class content and expectations? This session will begin with a review of the 'who, what, where, when, why, and how' of accommodations in university. Then, we will explore universal design and practical instruction tips to help create equitable and inclusive learning experiences for all.
11:00 - 11:45
Learning With the Head, Hands, and Heart: The 3H Model for Revisiting Learning Outcomes
Stephanie Leite
In this interactive workshop, we will revisit the three learning domains of Bloom's Taxonomy as a basis for writing learning outcomes that cross cognitive, affective, and psychomotor learning. The presenter will provide a 20-minute presentation, and then participants will have the remainder of the session to collaboratively revisit the learning outcomes for one of their courses.
Preparing students to confront the complexities of our interconnected world calls for learning that moves beyond a sole focus on cognitive, knowledge-based learning. The head, hands, heart (3H) model is a holistic framework that balances cognitive learning with affective (emotional), and psychomotor (action-based) learning in order to help students develop the knowledge, skills, and behaviors needed in today’s uncertain world. While already used widely in sustainability education, the 3H model is applicable to all subjects and disciplines. This workshop will begin by revisiting Bloom’s Taxonomy, which is commonly used to determine educational objectives that describe the ways in which students are expected to be changed by a learning experience — specifically, how the experience will change their thinking, feelings, and actions. After this short introduction to the Taxonomy, attendees will be guided through an activity that invites them to revisit the learning outcomes from one of their courses and draft revised outcomes based on the 3H model. By the end of the workshop, participants will have written 3-5 learning outcomes that will help engage students’ thinking, feelings, and actions.
First year courses: More to Love? Update on Year 1, looking ahead to Year 2
Aaron Stout and Sheila McManus
We will begin this workshop with a brief update from our collaborative community. Over the year we heard instructors express the importance of developing thinking communities, built around the values of belonging and engagement. We would like to invite participants to help us brainstorm for year 2. We will seek input for three strategies: first, how can we reach out to and support new and sessional instructors with their first-year courses; second, how can we address the structural constraints; third, what’s the easiest way for people to access resources for their first-year courses?
Interactive Presentation Platforms: The Good, the Bad, and the Gamified
Emily Villanueva and Romany Craig
Presentation
Interactive presentation platforms have become invaluable educational tools for enhancing engagement and interactivity, and bringing “fun” to the classroom. Features that allow live audience interaction and gamification are largely to thank for that, leading to presentations that are engaging for instructors and students alike. But what can this software actually do? And when should it be used?
Informed by constructivist learning theory, this presentation will demonstrate that instructors and students both play an active role in the learning experience. To that end, the features, strengths, and limitations of interactive presentation platforms will be explored through guided hands-on experience accompanied by descriptive overviews. Examples of interactive presentation platforms to be explored include AhaSlides, WooClap, Mentimeter, and Poll Everywhere, to name a few. Specific use cases for interactive and gamified instruction to improve classroom learning and engagement will be discussed, as well as advice on which platforms are best suited for different goals and scenarios—whether it’s to infuse active learning in a content-heavy lecture or a graded multiple-choice quiz delivered in class. By the end of this session, attendees will understand the benefits and limitations of popular interactive presentation platforms, and how to select and incorporate them into their teaching toolkit.
Building a Custom Course-Focused AI to Support Teaching and Learning
Sidney Shapiro and Josh Lindermann
Presentation with examples and discussion
This session introduces a pilot project at the Dhillon School of Business exploring how a school-managed AI system can support teaching and learning in practical, low-risk ways. The project focuses on simple, course-specific, custom AI helpers that answer questions using only instructor-approved materials, support “check your understanding” activities, and reduce repetitive questions that commonly appear in email and learning management systems. The session explains why the work is being done on internal infrastructure rather than using public AI tools, including concerns about privacy, control over course content, and faculty trust in how their materials are used. It also outlines what the pilot is designed to help us learn, such as how students actually engage with these tools, whether they improve access to timely help, and what level of technology is realistically needed to support a small number of courses. The goal is to share lessons from moving AI experimentation into a structured, education-first pilot that others can adapt to their own teaching contexts.