From Workshop to Classroom: Putting Your ISW Learning into Practice
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You’ve completed the immersive, three-day Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW) . Hopefully, you found this to be a rewarding experience that offered valuable insights into your teaching practice, and you feel energized with your teaching. Now, maybe you are wondering: how can I bring these ideas to life in my own classroom?
This hub post will guide you through strategies for reflecting on your ISW experience and offer practical approaches to help you meaningfully integrate what you’ve learned into your everyday lesson planning and teaching.
Reflecting on your ISW Experience
Let’s start with taking a moment to reflect on your Instructional Skills Workshop. What moments stood out to you? Consider the specific teaching strategies that resonated with you as a learner, whether they emerged during the themed sessions facilitated by the Teaching and Learning Consultants or the 10-minute peer-led lessons. Which instructional approaches or activities felt most engaging, authentic, or innovative to you? Which best aligns with your own teaching style or discipline?
Now, let’s turn your attention to the comments you received from your learners during feedback circles following lessons you taught. Was there anything that surprised you or affirmed your current practices? For example, did your peers share that your lesson was too long? Did they feel engaged or disengaged as a learner? Reflect especially on feedback that inspired you to consider areas like participation, clarity of instruction, or lesson structure.
From this reflection, identify two key takeaways you’d like to explore further. Then, think about how you might apply those insights to a course you’re currently teaching or preparing to teach.
Applying in Practice
The ISW provides teachers with structured, low-stakes opportunities to practice and develop effective approaches to lesson delivery. The mini-lessons, in particular, are intentionally designed not to mirror actual classroom teaching, but to support skill development. What might it look like to apply your developed skills in higher-stakes, real-classroom environments, where lessons are longer, learners are more diverse, and the dynamics are far less predictable?
For example, if one recurring piece of feedback from your peers was that your lesson lacked a post-assessment, consider how you might incorporate simple comprehension checks that align directly with learning outcomes. Translating this into the classroom doesn’t have to be complex; post-assessments come in many formats. They might consist of a poll, a written reflection in response to a quote or statistic, or a class discussion/ debrief about a case study. They might last just 2-3 minutes or be longer and more robust, depending on what you’re assessing. Check out the post on Comprehension Checks.
Applying the BOPPPS Model in Practice
As you may recall, the BOPPPS teaching model is a core framework introduced during the Instructional Skills Workshop and is designed to support student-centred lesson planning and delivery. Many ISW participants find that they can confidently apply the entire framework or selectively integrate specific elements into their own teaching (Dawson et al., 2014). When you step back and look at each stage of BOPPPS (Bridge-In, Objective, Pre-assessment, Participatory Learning, Post-assessment, and Summary), which step do you find particularly challenging to implement? Which ones feel especially exciting or natural to you? Use this reflection to consider how you might enhance or adapt your existing lesson plans to target those areas. Also, consider how these might translate to the other modalities you teach. Check out the post on Implementing BOPPPS Framework in the Hybrid Classroom for ideas.
Applying in Practice
As you think about applying your ISW experience to your own teaching, take a moment to reflect on how your classroom context differs from the 10-minute lesson you delivered to peers. For example, does your actual teaching space or typical level of student engagement differ from what you experienced during the ISW? How might you still apply what you learned to a different space or group of students?
Even with those differences in mind, identify two specific elements from your ISW lesson planning or delivery that you’d like to continue developing. Consider how small, intentional adjustments, such as refining your bridge-in or incorporating more participatory learning, can support stronger engagement and more meaningful learning in your own classroom setting.
Additional Resources
Designing the Core Activities in Your Lesson Aligning with the Outcomes and Assessments
Revisit the Themed Sessions
Another cornerstone of the ISW experience is the Theme Sessions, which are facilitated by a Teaching and Learning Consultant. These sessions offer Faculty a chance to explore key pedagogical topics beyond the mini-lesson structure. They are designed to deepen your understanding of teaching and learning while encouraging reflection on your own practices.
Think back to your ISW experience; were there any standout moments or topics that resonated with you? Was there a discussion or a new theory introduced that challenged your assumptions or sparked new ideas? Now, consider how one of those themes might translate into your classroom. What concept or strategy are you inspired to apply?.
Applying in Practice
For example, during a theme session on creating inclusive learning environments, you may have recognized that much of your course material was heavily text-based and might not fully support the diverse learning needs of your students. Reflecting on this, you can begin to incorporate a variety of content delivery methods into your course, which include short videos, visual summaries, and real-time polling tools. These strategies are a meaningful step toward making your lessons more accessible, engaging, and inclusive for all learners.
Sustaining Peer Collaboration
A common reflection from past ISW participants is the sense of belonging to a teaching community that emerges from the experience. One of the goals of the ISW training is to build a strong sense of community among educators (Instructional Skills Workshop Network, 2025). Think back to your own ISW. Did you form any meaningful connections with colleagues? Did you experience a sense of collaboration, team-building, and shared growth that extended beyond the workshop?
Applying in Practice
Applying in Practice
You are encouraged to nurture and continue building those relationships. Consider forming informal learning communities where you can share ideas and reflect on challenges together. Sometimes, it’s as simple as meeting for coffee (in person or online) or sending a quick term update to your ISW cohort to check in on how everyone’s teaching is going. These small gestures can sustain a valuable network of ongoing support and professional growth.
Carrying the ISW Forward
This reflection on meaningful ways to reconnect and apply your ISW experience is a reminder the journey from novice to expert teacher takes time and reflexivity, and often years of creative trial and error. It can also feel lonely to try to bring your ISW learnings into your classroom on your own, without peers in the room to provide immediate feedback and support you. Please remember that those in your ISW cohort would likely be willing to be a sounding board for your new ideas, and that Conestoga’s Teaching and Learning consultants are always happy to sit down with you and looks at specific lesson ideas and offer suggestions, or even come in and provide an observation of teaching if you’d find that helpful.
Another way to enhance the skills you have developed in ISW is to enroll in the ISW 2.0, an additional 3-day in-person opportunity to strengthen your classroom facilitation and feedback skills while critically reflecting on the impact and effective use of educational technology in your teaching. Sign up for ISW 2.0 (EDEV0019) through the Student Portal.
Finally, you can learn more about the ISW Network for more information on resources, the ISW newsletter, and the ISW list-serv.
References
Dawson, D., Borin, P., Meadows, K., Britnell, J., Olsen, K. & McIntryre, G. (2014). The Impact of the Instructional Skills Workshop on Faculty Approaches to Teaching. Toronto ON: Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario.
Instructional Skills Workshop Network. (n.d.). About. https://www.iswnetwork.ca/about/
