Category: Inclusive Teaching

Enhance your teaching to support, inspire, and empower every student to pursue on their own learning goals.

Creating Sense of Belonging: From an International Student’s Perspective

Reading Time: 3 minutesBy Hiral Joshi, International Faculty Development Assistant, Teaching and Learning I am Hiral Joshi a full-time student for the Career Development Practitioner course at the Doon campus. I graduated Teaching English as a Second Language in April 2021 from Conestoga. I was born and brought up in the western part of India. I did my Masters in Linguistics and taught...

Building Truth and Reconciliation for Indigenous Peoples into Teaching

Reading Time: 6 minutesBy Elan Paulson and Sara Kafashan  Note: This post has been written from the perspective of two settlers in North America, incorporating research and voices from Indigenous Peoples. This post focuses on how faculty can reflect upon and respond to the Calls to Action as part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. We acknowledge that this is an iterative process, and offer this post as a...

Managing Unexpected and/or Emotional Incidents in Post-Secondary Teaching

Reading Time: 7 minutesDuring our careers as faculty, we may come across a few unexpected and/or emotional incidents in post-secondary teaching. How do we, for example, navigate a class discussion when students are visibly distraught after just hearing upsetting local or global news, such as the murder of a Muslim family in London, Ontario? Or, what do we say when a student discloses...

Trauma-Informed Teaching

Reading Time: 6 minutesAs we begin our teaching each semester, we welcome strangers into our class whose past experiences are unknown to us.  Over time, it sometimes becomes clear that a student is struggling with the impact of life experiences on the student’s ability to learn. This teaching tip will provide a research perspective and practical suggestions to help make your class a welcoming environment for students with trauma in their past (or present).

Tips for Teaching Out-of-Country International Students

Reading Time: 3 minutesDue to the current situation, many students are attending classes from their home country. Students attending the courses from outside of Canada require some unique supports from the Professors teaching them. This teaching tip offers some key issues to understand and consider while teaching out-of-country international students. Teaching international students can be supremely rewarding. Eventually, students will overcome the barriers,...

“Involve Me and I Learn”- The Connection Between Active Learning and How the Brain Learns

Reading Time: 3 minutesTell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. Benjamin Franklin Conestoga College endorses active learning to promote an engaging and positive learning experience for the students. Active learning is an approach to teaching and learning where teachers involve the students in the learning process by using various strategies. However, why do students learn...

Students from India: Effective Communication Strategies

Reading Time: 4 minutesBy Kathryn Brillinger, Laura Stoutenburg, & Nasreen Sultana, Teaching and Learning, Conestoga College A wide range of communication styles exist all around the world. We communicate the way we were taught, raised in a culture or influenced by our society. Thus, when we interact with students from different cultures, achieving effective communication becomes complex from both ends. This teaching tip...

Teaching for Social Good and Community Building

Reading Time: 2 minutesPaula Barrett teaches in Conestoga’s public relations programs. In the past three years, Paula has launched a student-run public relations agency, and engaged students in the Creative Day for Social Good, a two-day marathon where students produce creative work for 20+ charities. This past year has created new methods to teach and interact with students. Paula Barrett, professor and co-ordinator...

Reacting and Responding to Student Emails, Especially During End-of-Semester Stress

Reading Time: 5 minutesBy Sara Kafashan and Kathryn Brillinger Please email teachingandlearning@conestogac.on.ca with additional scenarios to add. The end of semester can be a particularly stressful and busy time for anyone in a post-secondary institution. With final exams and assignments for students, as well as marking and course wrap-up responsibilities for faculty, it’s common to feel (Zoom) fatigued and low on time, energy, and resources. One pertinent issue that tends...

10 (+1) Tips for Supporting International Students (and Everyone Else) While Teaching Online

Reading Time: 5 minutesKathryn Brillinger, Nasreen Sultana, and Laura Stoutenburg of Teaching and Learning, and Thomas Campbell and Kavya Adapala from Student Engagement.  Keep the Welcome Going Work on a big, warm welcome each class. Students will either be remote and trying to manage bandwidth and scheduling and new systems or in Ontario settling in or seeking housing, grocery stores, etc. Start your class right on time but expect some students to sometimes be late...

Breaks in the In-Person and Synchronous Online Classroom

Reading Time: 4 minutes“For each class, faculty will […] [e]nsure breaks occur during the lesson time to support student needs.” – Course Delivery Procedure (January 2021)  Breaks are time-bound periods in which students stop doing class work to rest and re-focus. Breaks should be given for students into all in-person and hybrid courses at least by the 1-hour mark of class, or more depending...