BOG Teaching Chair

I enjoyed and benefited from every minute of my time as the Board of Governors' Chair in Teaching. My experiences included working on the teaching environment at the U of L to the wonderful opportunity to read and study new areas, design and teach new courses, and carry out research on the subject of teaching and learning.
http://www.cs.uleth.ca/~wismaths/pandppage/

As Board of Governors' Teaching Chair (2010-2012), my focus was on highlighting exemplary teaching practices throughout our campus! I feel very fortunate to have been involved in helping to institute The Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW) program at the University of Lethbridge-a peer-based model providing participants to fous on learning styles, collaborative learning, feedback models and facilitation skills. Five members of the Teaching Centre Board, including myself, volunteered for the Facilitator Development Workshop (FDW), a five-day 40-hour workshop held at the University of Lethbridge. These workshops provide recognition through an international certificate valued at Canadian and international post-secondary institutions. Since my tenure as Teaching Chair, the ISW has been offered three times on campus assisting instructors to develop their teaching skills in a variety of disciplines, and The Teaching Centre looks forward to providing the workshop every August to new and experienced faculty!

What I will remember most about my time as Board of Governors' Teaching Chair and as an active part of the Teaching Centre was how the work gave me a new ]perspective on the campus as a whole.  My project was the development and piloting of a first-year experience course (Liberal Education 2850).  This course was designed as part of the campus-wide Recruitment and Retention Project, and its goals included producing a student cohort, introducing liberal education and highlighting services to support academic success.  Dan Kazakoff (Dhillon School of Business) and I successfully applied for Teaching Development Fund support for the class. Planning and organizing the course included focus group meetings with staff and faculty members from across the campus.  I learned so much about the campus and the people who work here, including many who receive little or no recognition for their support of our core mission.  The focus of the course is mapping as a metaphor for exploring and coming to be an active citizen of the campus community.  I know that having the opportunity to organize and offer the course in spring 2013 made me a better citizen as I came to know and participate in the campus more fully.  More than 15 instructors from across faculties at the University of Lethbridge contributed lectures, and staff from Facilities, Counseling Services, the Health Centre, the Cash Office, Scholarship and Finance, the USLU, the Learning Strategist, Advising, the Applied and Coop Offices all helped too.  I couldn’t have taught this course without Tyler Heaton and Brad Reamsbottom and the support of the entire Teaching Centre.

It was a great privilege to serve as the Board of Governors Teaching Chair (BOGTC) for 2 years (2019-2021). I learnt many lessons from my interactions with staff and friends of the Teaching Centre over this period. When COVID-19 hit in the early part of the Spring 2020, the University of Lethbridge was forced to transition from an in-person to an online mode of course delivery. The Teaching Centre took up the challenge to train faculty and staff on the use of technology to deliver successful online lectures using asynchronous, synchronous, or blended formats. The pandemic also served as the catalyst for my pre-existing intention to create more flexibility for learning activities in a conducive & supportive environment, as well as flexibility in teaching approaches, such as the Blended & Flipped Classroom methods. This gave more responsibility and opportunities for students to take ownership of their learning at the UofL. We were able to complete my BOGTC research project