My Favourite Lesson Season 2! (A Teaching and Learning Podcast Series)

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We know many of you tuned in last year when Season One of My Favourite Lesson was first released. Season One featured experienced faculty from all schools at the college engaging in conversation with Teaching and Learning Consultant Dr. Lauren Spring about their favourite lessons to teach. Lauren discussed with guests how these lessons have evolved over the years, how student needs and concerns have shifted, and which strategies faculty members employ to keep students engaged and to ensure learning “sticks”. Season Two is slightly different.

In Season 2, Lauren is joined by her colleague, Teaching and Learning Consultant Dr Sara Kafashan. The two co-hosts shift their focus to talking with faculty members who teach emotionally difficult content in their courses and who often bring aspects of their own identities and complex lived experiences into the classroom. Some of the key topics covered are: the risks and rewards associated with bringing so much of one’s self into the room; how taxing it can be to open up and relate to the content being shared on a personal level; how sharing in these ways also often allows students to open up and hence takes learning and connection to the next level. We also discuss strategies that these faculty-guests have developed over the years to keep themselves and students safe when exploring emotionally difficult content in disciplines ranging from Indigenous Studies to Social Service work, from Policing to Career Development and Business. This podcast series is also part of an ongoing research project Sara and Lauren have embarked upon which you’ll all, no doubt, be hearing more about soon!

You can find all episodes from Season One and Season Two of the Podcast series on Both Spotify and YouTube.

Lauren Spring

Lauren Spring, PhD, has been a post-secondary educator since 2012. Before joining Conestoga as a Teaching and Learning Consultant, Lauren taught at Wilfrid Laurier, Brock, Ryerson, York, and the University of Toronto where she also completed her PhD in Adult Education and Community Development. She has also led workshops for students and faculty at colleges and universities across the country. Lauren holds an MA in International Development and has expertise in critical disability and mad studies, trauma work, research-based theatre, role-play simulations, and feminist and arts-based approaches to adult education and community engagement. Lauren has also worked as an educator at the Art Gallery of Ontario since 2008 where she designs and delivers art tours and workshops for elementary and high school students and diverse groups of adult learners.