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On the first day of class, Dr. Steffanie Scott introduces students to the course, activities, and assessments. Then, she invites their feedback. What do the students hope to gain from this course? Students were given a week to ponder this question and share their feedback. Dr. Scott embeds learner-centred pedagogy so that the course is not “fixed” when students first arrive. They co-create together and she meaningfully responds to their feedback. In this case, one clear message from students was to include field trips as part of their Sustainable Food: Regional Case Study course.

Steffanie was up to the challenge. Thanks to the community connections she had cultivated working with the Food System Roundtable of Waterloo Region over the past 15 years, Steffanie was able to quickly line up five field trips. This enabled students to connect with community members by visiting gardens, farms, and local organizations. To give back and deepen their reflections, students created public blog posts for each field trip. 

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The Call for Proposals for the 2023 University of Waterloo Teaching and Learning Conference is now closed. 

The conference will be taking place in-person on Thursday, May 4 at the University of Waterloo, in the Science Teaching Complex and Federation Hall. This year, we explore pedagogies of care and kindness in higher education to give us space to support one another in our teaching and learning journeys.  We also invite you to join us on Wednesday, May 3 for a day of online pre-conference workshops to share discussions of care and kindness with our post-secondary community beyond the University of Waterloo.

In November 2021, CTE hired Leslie Wexler as a Senior Educational Developer in Indigenous Knowledges and Anti-Racist (IKAR) pedagogies, followed some months later by Nahannee Schuitemaker, Madison Hill, and Jessica Rumboldt who work in more specific areas of IKAR. Having now settled into their individual positions and developed into a distinct five-person team, which includes Savannah Sloat, Manager of Indigenous Initiatives in the Faculty of Science, we asked each of them to share their role, current area of focus, and vision for the future of IKAR at Waterloo. 

In light of the message shared with the university community by Waterloo's Senior Admin on November 8, 2022, CTE has established the following protocol for our in-person workshops until further notice:

Although masks are not required, all participants and facilitators are strongly encouraged to wear masks when participating in CTE in-person events. Masks can be removed while speaking or presenting. 

If you have any questions, please contact Trevor Holmes, Associate Director

After years of remote learning, the transition back to in-person learning can be challenging for some students.

What is happening? The Evolving the EdTech Ecosystem project team is excited to announce the launch of the Educational Technology (EdTech) Hub, a new website that pulls together information on Waterloo’s centrally supported EdTech tools: digital technology tools used to deliver and facilitate learning, learning activities, and aid in the creation and dissemination of content.

Educational developers

CTE is pleased to announce the hiring of three new Educational Developers in Indigenous Knowledges and Anti-Racist Pedagogies. Details about these new staff members and their respective roles will be forthcoming in September. 

Graduate students

Welcome to our new graduate-student staff: TA Workshop Facilitators (TAWFs)  Carina Felice (Biology) and Keqi Shu (Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering). TAWFs support our graduate student programming by facilitating interdisciplinary and discipline-specific teaching workshops.

We'd like to thank and say goodbye to two TAWFs who have worked at CTE for the past several terms and contributed greatly to the Fundamentals of University Teaching program: Blessing Medon (Civil and Environmental Engineering) and Angeline Ram (Geography & Environmental Management).

Congratulations to the latest recipients of the LITE Seed grants! 28 University of Waterloo faculty and staff received funding for six grants, ranging from Placed-Based Learning to Pedagogies for the Anthropocene! 

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An article on Extended Reality (XR) technologies in higher education has just been published by staff from three different Waterloo units. Gillian Dabowski (Centre for Extended Learning), Amna Idrees (Systems Design Engineering), and Mark Morton (Centre for Teaching Excellence) published "Advancing Extended Reality Teaching and Learning Opportunities Across the Disciplines in Higher Education" in Xplore after presenting at the 2022 International Conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN). 

The Certificate in University Teaching (CUT) program provides a comprehensive teacher development experience that is open to PhD students at the University of Waterloo.