Workshops on Effective Teaching

Video and audio can help you break out of the box of traditional text-based assessment feedback. Using readily available tools, you will practice recording audio or video clips to provide supportive and impactful feedback for students. Leave the session with a tutorial to provide to students, showing them how to access this valuable feedback.

This teaching basics workshop includes a) a brief introduction to lesson planning and the variables that can impact delivery in-person, b) a chance to match and assess sample in-person lesson plans components and set up/exit requirements to align with learning outcomes, a chance to select and assess lesson plan components matched with set/up requirements and learning outcomes c) an opportunity to create a draft part of a lesson plan for your next class and get feedback from a peer, d) a debrief in which outstanding questions and suggestions for effective in-person classes are shared.

This teaching basics workshop includes a) a brief introduction to managing group work and the variables that can impact student success, b) a chance to match and assess effective group work components and requirements c) an opportunity to draft set of checkpoints for setting up a group assignment and discuss with a peer, d) a debrief in which outstanding questions and suggestions for effective group work practices are shared.​

Enhance teaching presence in your courses by including an effective welcome video. Practice using some of the functionality of video creation tools and practice creating a video. Learn how to change the permissions structure of the video, to allow it to be viewed in any course you post it to.

With Office365, you can support and track group-based assessments! This hands-on workshop will provide you with the skills and experience you need to have students creating and sharing documents, collaborating on projects, and actively co-constructing learning as they demonstrate it to you. We will experiment with how to use the OneDrive to plan group projects using shared documents and calendars. We will test out adding comments to provide feedback and tracking individual student contributions to group products. Finally, we will determine where students may encounter issues, and create strategies to help manage group work in the digital environment.

Are you interested in creating videos you can use and reuse in your courses? Conestoga has recently licensed Panopto, a full feature video service for exactly this! Create screenshares, role plays, equipment demonstrations, whiteboard diagram demonstrations and more. Use Panopto much like YouTube to create, edit, transcribe and share videos, but with the added benefit of unlimited storage and retention, and integration and analytics with your eConestoga courses. Work on a brief sample video, and gain some hands on experience building videos in Panopto. Learn some principles of educational video creation along side technical tips and leave with greater confidence in creating your own teaching and learning videos.

Facilitated by Elan Paulson and Ada Sharpe

This workshop invites participants to consider how key ideas about authorship in modern Western culture have changed along with technology’s ability to support writing tasks. Through this lens, we also will discuss how AI writing tools will continue to shift conceptions of authorship and the writing tasks we assign our students in the future.

Hypothesis is a product Conestoga currently licenses. This workshop is for faculty who are interested in using social annotation in their courses but aren’t sure how to guide students in initial use. The Hypothesis team will review ideas for annotation starter tasks and provide you with ready-to-use instructions for a variety of disciplines and modalities. It doesn’t matter if you’re teaching humanities, business, STEM, or the health professions, or if you’re teaching face-to-face or online — you’ll get strategies from this workshop that you can add immediately to an assignment in your course. Come away from this session with a clear idea about how to start incorporating collaborative annotation.

With the recent emergence of ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence software, many educators are asking questions about integrity and the impact these tools may have on assessment. Join us for a workshop that will begin to explore potential challenges of apps like ChatGPT, as well as proactive ways of thinking about future assessment and evaluation practices in our post-secondary classrooms.

In this hands-on workshop, you will be guided through the steps to create an Image Hotspot. These interactives are an excellent way to add in-depth information to a figure, chart, image, to demonstrate safety information in a shop or lab, or to introduce yourself to your students. Previous experience with H5P and/or completion of the Introducing the H5P Studio workshop is strongly encouraged.

Tired of typing up endless paragraphs of feedback? In this session, learn about some tools to bring variety, value and impact to the feedback you offer students. Test out peer-to-peer feedback tools as well as instructor feedback tools, and learn the best applications of each approach. Share and learn about suggested processes and types of comments when creating feedback, and take away some new tools to help close the feedback loop.

Facilitated by David MacLennan

Students come with a variety of learning preferences, needs and backgrounds. This workshop will explore information and practical strategies to help you reach the wide variety of students in your class.

As one semester wraps up and another begins, let’s take time to reflect on our teaching practices. In this workshop we’ll discuss a) why we might be hesitant to identify what goes well and what goes badly in our classrooms; b) the difference between reflecting “in” action and reflecting “on” action; and c) why these practices are beneficial for both students and faculty. You will receive formal frameworks for reflection and straightforward evidence-based tools you can make use of before, during, and after each semester.

In this session, we explore ways to deliver interactive lessons that engage students and support learning using some features of Zoom best suited for teaching and learning.  Learn tips and strategies for sharing Zoom links in eConestoga, pulling attendance lists, annotating and demonstrating on shared screens, supporting and monitoring breakout room, and recording your Zoom session.

As educators, we may inherit slide decks with a range of approaches surrounding the copywriting, slide layout, accessibility, and colour choices. This workshop focuses on technological tips and best-practices for revamping second-hand slides to suit your own teaching style and to comply with accessibility requirements.

In this workshop, participants will explore strategies for supporting student learning in high-stakes end of term assessments, including final exams and major summative assignments. We will focus on small but meaningful practices faculty can introduce in their courses in the final weeks of term to prepare students academically for end of term assessments, while mitigating learner anxiety and cultivating strong study skills.

What is generative AI, ChatGPT, and how did we get to this point with Artificial Intelligence (AI)? In this session, we’ll share insights on the tech behind the fastest growing innovation in recent history and explore its current strengths and limitations. We’ll consider some previous and emerging uses of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, and consider how industries, including education, are already using AI.

If you are familiar with the basic tools and features of Zoom, join this session to learn about and discuss some ways Zoom can be used when you meet your students for a class session.

Facilitated by Sara Kafashan and Lauren Spring

This workshop will explore some of the implications ChatGPT may have for faculty and on student learning and higher education. Together we will discuss our fears, hopes, and ways Teaching & Learning may be able to support you in this wild world of bots.