News

Do you need dedicated time to start writing up your teaching and learning research? Would you benefit from discussing and getting feedback from your colleagues? Register for our Teaching and Learning Research Write-In on Tuesday, June 12 and get the time you need to focus on disseminating your teaching and learning research. Registration is required. 

On May 17, 2018, CTE held its annual PD Day. The day was a combination of fun team-building activities (a quasi Iron Chef competition at the Kitchener Market) followed by some bona fide learning sessions at the Kitchener Public Library! No fingers were lost during the kitchen challenge!

Each year, the Centre for Teaching Excellence and Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs recognize and celebrate the teaching development efforts of a Waterloo graduate student with the Certificate in University Teaching (CUT) Award. We’re excited to announce that the 2018 CUT Award has been awarded to Caitlin Scott from the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability. The award honours Caitlin's commitment to implementing feedback for the continuous improvement and development of her teaching, her thoughtful approach to assessing student learning, and the practice of reflection that she regularly brings to her work as an instructor. 

We sat down with Caitlin to get an inside look at her experience in the CUT program and into what she believes motivates meaningful teaching and learning. Caitlin is a PhD candidate in Social and Ecological Sustainability. Her research examines the role of corporate actors in governance at the intersection of health and the environment. As Caitlin discusses below, engaging students in the difficult and often disheartening subject of environmental politics is an important pedagogical challenge she must grapple with in her teaching.

The Office of the Associate Vice President, Academic and the Centre for Teaching Excellence are pleased to announce the recipients of the latest round of Learning Innovation and Teaching Enhancement (LITE) seed grants:

• Assessing Lifelong Learning in Work-Integrated Learning Reflections and Student Self-Assessments, Judene Pretti, Bob Sproule, and David Drewery
• Assessing the Learning that Occurs with Arts-Based Pedagogy: Learning About Social Justice, Trish Van Katwyk, Amir Al-Azraki, and Soheila Kolahdouz Asfahani
• ​Closing the Collaborative Skills Gap: Assessing the Effectiveness of a University-Wide Course Designed to Teach Students How to Collaborate in Diverse Groups, Kathryn Plaisance and Christine Logel
• Development and Assessment of Project-Based Laboratory in Chemical Engineering, Mingqian (John) Zhang, Cheryl Newton, Jason Grove, Mark Pritzker, and Marios Ioannidis
• ​Evaluating Comics as Pedagogical Tools in an Undergraduate Mathematics Course, Dan Wolczuk, Amanda Garcia, Joslin Goh, and Giuseppe Sellaroli
• ​Second Language Pronunciation Learning at a University Level, Svetlana Kaminskaïa and Dominique Louër
• ​Tackling Weight Bias in the Classroom: Developing Capacity for Weight-sensitive Instruction among Educators and Learners at the University of Waterloo, Rhona Hanning, Amanda Raffoul, Rachel Acton, Kirsten Lee, Katie Burns, and Katelyn Godin
• ​Teaching and Learning with Controversial Issues in Diverse Postsecondary  Classrooms, Christina Parker

Two rounds of seed grant funding are available each year, and the next annual deadline is fast approaching: June 1. 

Are you exploring a new teaching and learning research project? Bring your questions to our May 9 workshop: Designing Teaching and Learning Research, from 12:00-1:30 in LIB 329 (FlexLab). Experts from CTE, the Library, and the Office of Research Ethics will be available for one-on-one consultations. Registration is required. 

Join instructors from the Faculty of Engineering as they share the findings of their LITE-grant funded research in our next LITE Grant Lightning Research Talk on May 7, 12:00-1:00 in EV1 241. Rania Al-Hammoud and Carmen Che will present on on how online forums shape students' learning experiences in their discussion of Piazza, an online discussion forum that supports peer-to-peer learning in a monitored but anonymous environment, and Jason Grove will present a blended learning model developed for Chemistry for Engineers incorporating open-access modules.

CTE is very pleased to share the news that Tommy Mayberry (Instructional Developer for TA Training and Writing Support) and Sarah Ruffell (a Waterloo Alumna and graduate of the CTE Certificate in University Teaching program), have received the Innovation in Education Award from the University of Pittsburgh's Council on Instructional Excellence. Their winning submission is entitled "The Science Library Project," which their abstract describes as follows: 

With facilitators from CTE, Western, Laurier, and Niagara, CTE expert consultants, and 23 attendees, day two of the Waterloo Assessment Institute promises to be a productive final day for participants in this peer-feedback-driven assignment redesign process. Co-organizer Trevor Holmes, Senior Instructional Developer, explains the Institute's peer-feedback model and more in our Waterloo Assessment Institute backgrounder videos.

Are you a graduate student preparing to teach your first course? This Wednesday, April 11, three grad students who have successfully taught their first course at Waterloo will share common challenges and helpful strategies in a facilitated panel presentation: From TA to Course Instructor. Registration is required. 

The 2018 Teaching and Learning Conference program is now live, with 9 workshops and panels, 42 presentations, and 16 poster presentations on the agenda, plus the keynote talk by Joe Kim from McMaster University and the plenary Igniting our Practice session led by Waterloo's own Brian Forrest and Sarah Tolmie. The Conference is happening on Thursday, April 26, 8:30-6:00 in the Science Teaching Complex (STC).