News

The Office of the Associate Vice President, Academic and the Centre for Teaching Excellence are pleased to announce the recipients of this term’s Learning Innovation and Teaching Enhancement (LITE) Full Grants.

• Assessing Student Problem-Solving Skills: A Comprehensive Study of Engineering Design Days, Ada Hurst, Chris Rennick, Carol Hulls, Sanjeev Bedi, and Samar Mohamed
• Promoting Meaningful Learning in Computer Science Courses by Leveraging Concreteness Fading, Edith Law and Sangho Suh
• Student Podcasting as Project-Based Learning in Science Communication, David Janzen

As of January 1, CTE is using a new training and development registration system called GoSignMeUp. The new system has many advantages over the old system, both for individuals signing up for workshops and for CTE's workshop administrators.

We are pleased to announce that funding for the LITE Seed Grants has increased from $5000 to $7500 as of January 2019.

Along with the increase in funding comes a new requirement - in order for your application to be considered, applicants are required to meet with Kyle Scholz or Kristin Brown within the first three weeks of the term in which they are applying. This meeting must occur, at the latest, one week prior to the submission deadline. At this meeting, we will discuss your project proposal and research plan, and suggest ways to enhance the quality and clarity of the application.

As a reminder, the next round of LITE Seed Grant applications are due February 1, 2019.

If you are interested in learning more about teaching and learning research, we encourage you to join us for the Designing Teaching and Learning Research (CTE 6759) workshop on Tuesday January 15, 2019 from 12-1:30pm.

Learn more about the LITE Seed Grant process and how to submit an application

The Call for Proposals for the 2019 University of Waterloo Teaching and Learning Conference is now open! 

Our 2019 conference theme is “Teaching and Designing for Diverse Learners”. We invite you to submit proposals for presentations, panel discussions, workshops, and poster presentations that share your practices and research related to inclusive education.

The deadline for proposals is January 23, 2019.

The Fall 2018 issue of The University of Waterloo Magazine includes an article on how views of learning are changing, and how teaching is changing in response.

The Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education has just announced that Donna Ellis, Director of Waterloo’s Centre for Teaching Excellence, has been selected as POD’s next President Elect. Donna’s three-year term, which will begin in March 2019, is a capstone to her long history of involvement with POD: since 1996, she has participated in 21 POD Annual Conferences, twice served on its Board of Directors, co-chaired its Annual Conference, served as a facilitator for POD-sponsored workshops for new educational developers, chaired the Finance Committee, and led awards committees for many years. Regarding this new role, Donna comments that she is “extremely excited about having this opportunity to serve a professional association that has been so influential and important to me for more than two decades.” CTE staff members are extremely proud that their Director has achieved this important role.

The POD Network has been advancing the research and practice of educational development in higher education since 1976. It is the largest and oldest educational development organization in the world. Its nearly 1400 members come from the United States, Canada, and 23 other countries. Donna is the second Canadian to serve at this level with the POD Network.

According to the June 2018 Canadian University Survey Consortium survey of graduating students, 22% of graduating students in Canada self-identify as having a disability. It is interesting to note that, among those with a disability, 36% require accommodation.

The Centre for Teaching Excellence is pleased to share its new resource: Accessibility in Teaching. Aligning with the University of Waterloo’s commitment to barrier-free accessibility for persons with disabilities, this webpage provides practical resources for designing and implementing accessible instruction. Accessible instructional practices aim to address the diverse needs of learners.

The Centre for Teaching Excellence is seeking applicants for two exciting job opportunities: Graduate Instructional Developer and TA Workshop Facilitator. These positions are open to senior graduate students at the University of Waterloo. Each position offers different responsibilities and time commitments. The positions run from January 2019 through December 2019, and you must be a registered graduate student at Waterloo through December 2019 to be eligible. Please see the job advertisements linked above for position details and application instructions. Applications are due Friday, October 26.

CTE has partnered with the Student Success Office to deliver Supporting Student Mental Health, a new workshop for teaching assistants that will discuss ways in which TAs can support student mental health and well-being. The workshop was jointly developed by CTE and SSO and  will be offered every term.

Chris Zaza (CTE's Faculty Liaison for AHS) and Amanda McKenzie (Director, Quality Assurance) have recently published an article in The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning entitled ​"Turnitin Use at a Canadian University."