OND 2016 Session Descriptions

OND 2016 Session Descriptions

Session Descriptions

100s | 200s | 300s | 400s

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Session 100s: 10:30 - 11:30 am

Links to session descriptions: 101, 102, 103, 104a, 104b, 105a, 105b, 106a, 106b

Session 101 - WORKSHOP - Small stakes, big learning: Building Writing Centre practice into assignment design

Clare Bermingham, Writing Centre
Nadine Fladd, Writing Centre
Mandy Penney, Writing Centre

This interactive workshop will introduce participants to writing centre practices that instructors can adopt in their own classrooms to facilitate student-directed, process-oriented learning. Participants will discover how creative and iterative assignment design and key interventions in the writing process, including revision consultations and peer review, can lower the stakes of written assignments for students and encourage them to take risks in their writing and learning. Participants will have ample opportunity to design and discuss their own term-length scaffolded projects that embed writing centre pedagogy and process.

Writing Centre pedagogy emphasizes writing as a process rather than a finished product. By encountering an actual reader in a writing centre tutor, students are encouraged to re-view their work and to use their revision process as an opportunity to engage more deeply with their work, its rhetorical goals and strategies. The process is iterative, allowing students to get it wrong before they get right, but enabling them to do so in a no-stakes environment that encourages creativity and risk.

How can instructors re-create this productive relationship in the classroom, with and without the assistance of the Writing Centre as a course-integrated support? This workshop teaches methods for abstracting the writing centre session into critical components of assignment design and revision intervention: transparent goals and expectations; no-stakes and low-stakes writing elements; student-directed outcomes; scaffolded and iterative design; peer review; revision consultations; feedback integration; providing peer exemplars; and creating a real audience for student writing. The workshop will address disciplinary genres and how to adapt practices for large and small classrooms.

References

Corbett, Steven J. Beyond Dichotomy: Synergizing Writing Center and Classroom Pedagogies. Fort Collins: WAC Clearinghouse, 2015. Web.

Goldin, Ilya M. and Kevin D. Ashley. "Eliciting formative assessment in peer review." Journal of Writing Research 4.2 (2012): 203-237. Web.

Ryan, Holly and Danielle Kane. “Evaluating the Effectiveness of Writing Center Classroom Visits: An Evidence-Based Approach.” The Writing Center Journal 34.2 (2015): 145-172. Print.

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Session 102 - PANEL - Risk and resilience in an introductory Women’s Studies course

Trevor Holmes, Centre for Teaching Excellence
Katrina Ackerman, History
Jessica Blackwell, Library
Brianna Bennett, Science
Emily Lorentz, Arts
Meghan Voll, Arts
Tatianna Brierley, Environment

Introductory Women’s Studies can be challenging to teach and challenging to learn. Student resistance to new ideas and techniques can be compounded in a large class. Although some come from secondary school having already been introduced to feminism, many of the 150 learners are initially uncertain about its relevance. Resistance, however, is both necessary and welcome in the formation of critical thinking for social change (Lather, 1991). Our session presents design decisions, derived from the literature on motivation and critical reflection, that promoted risk and recovery from failure. Through grade schemes, reflective assessment (Schön, 1983), and personally-relevant experiential assignments (Svinicki, 2004; Kuh, 2008), students experienced the lows and highs of difficulty in learning. Participants will try one of the difficult tasks that motivated our learners to leave their comfort zones, see students demonstrate their own work, and hear from the instructor and librarian involved, all with the goal of considering how to adapt similar approaches.

References

Kuh, George D. (2008). High impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. AAC&U, Washington, D.C.

Lather, P. (1991). Getting Smart: Feminist Research and Pedagogy With/in the Postmodern. New York: Routledge.

Schön, D.A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: how professionals think in action. London: Temple Smith.

Svinicki, M.D. (2004). Learning and motivation in the postsecondary classroom.  San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.

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Session 103 - PANEL - Fellows for failure: Teaching Fellows’ reflections on failure, challenge, and change

Kelly Anthony, School of Public Health and Health Systems
Shannon Dea, Philosophy

"Failure isn't final, but failure to change might be".  

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Session 104a - PRESENTATION - Everything takes longer than you expect: Challenges designing, developing and deploying open educational resources

Tonya Elliott, Centre for Extended Learning

In February 2016, 14 months after launching our award-winning* cemc.courseware.uwaterloo.ca and open.math.uwaterloo.ca websites, we hit the one million page view mark. The resources on these sites are used in flipped classrooms, face-to-face classrooms, fully online courses, and as student review materials.  We consider our open educational resources (OERs) a resounding success; however, original hopes were that the one million page view milestone would be hit much sooner than it was. 

In this session, an overview of the design decisions we made about our OERs will be shared along with usage statistics and a summary of the development and deployment hurdles encountered and overcome along the way. A significant amount of time will also be allocated to Q&A with the audience. 

Examples of challenges that will be discussed are managing time and resources, maintaining motivation over several years, AODA legislation, producing quality work, and finding early adopters prior to 100% completion.  Some of our solutions to these challenges include having the buy-in and support of our administration, exploring new tools and partnerships with software companies, justifying time spent tracking progress and meeting with stakeholders, panicking early when things start to steer off course, revisiting and reframing expectations, and celebrating being a creative and dedicated team. 

Key Takeaways:

By the end of this session, attendees will be able to

- list the people, resources, and mindsets that may be required when implementing a large OER project;

- ask and answer questions about designing, developing, and deploying OERs; and

- access and share several courses worth of free, interactive, and reviewed/polished interactive online math and computer science resources.

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*2015 NSERC award for science promotion, 2015 CNIE excellence and innovation award

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Session 104b - PRESENTATION - Accessible STEM: What guidelines don’t tell us about making online STEM content accessible and what we can do about it

Tonya Elliott, Centre for Extended Learning

Although the province’s AODA guidelines and the world-wide web consortium (W3C) have brought much attention to the importance of online accessibility in recent years, some deficits exist in their helpfulness related to science, math, or other accessible and online STEM content. In this presentation, we will share our solutions to some of the questions our online design and development team hasn’t found formal answers to elsewhere. These questions include:

*What do you include in a 100-character alt-tag for an image of a complicated graph or diagram?

*How do you put together captioning files without complicated formatting when things like “(a + b)/2” and “a + b/2” are read identically, but mean different things?

*How do you capture details that matter - like line numbers, tabs and capitalization - when creating accessible versions of computer science code?

*What is the right mix of verbatim text and visual information in a descriptive text transcript, since they aren’t required solely for users with visual impairments?

References

W3C standards - https://www.w3.org/standards/webdesign/accessibility

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Session 105a - PRESENTATION - Third time’s the charm: Case study challenges in a first year Management Engineering course

Ken McKay, Management Sciences
Samar Mohamed, Centre for Teaching Excellence
Lyndia Stacey, Dean of Engineering Office

MSCI 100 is a first year concepts course in Management Sciences that introduces core principles and provides students with opportunities to practice teamwork, communication and project planning. This course is considered an essential foundation for MSCI students as they begin their undergraduate career. The redesign of MSCI 100 and its implementation in Fall 2015 was supported by a diverse team, including WCDE [1] and CTE [2].

One major addition to the course was including three full days focused on case studies, dubbed “case days”, which began at 8:30 am and ended at 4:00 pm. Students were given a case challenge in the morning and had to submit their solution by the end of the day. The same case was given all three days; however, the specific challenge increased in difficulty each time. Students took on these tasks in the same teams and were given an advisor who provided feedback and guidance. As another means to increase difficulty, the advisor’s role diminished over the three days.

Since the teams and case day structure were consistent, students were able to learn from their mistakes. Not only were they able to apply what they learned from one case day to the next, they could assess if their decisions lead to more positive outcomes. Through this repetition, students evaluated their failures and used management engineering tools with increased success.

The overall student response was positive. There were many comments that the chance to reassess skills and previous decisions was an important lesson to help them achieve effective teamwork. The feedback suggested that students exited the course with a solid grasp on the core concepts - efficiency and effectiveness. In this presentation, we will share the case days’ development and implementation strategies, our reflection on these activities and the feedback from students, advisors and instructors.

References

[1] Waterloo Cases in Design Engineering, “Engineering Cases” [Online]. University of Waterloo. Available: https://uwaterloo.ca/engineering-cases/ [Accessed January 14, 2016].

[2] Centre for Teaching Excellence, “Welcome” [Online]. University of Waterloo. Available: https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/

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Session 105b - PRESENTATION - Ideas Clinic series of teamwork workshops- Implementation and evaluation of two first-year workshops

Samar Mohamed, Centre for Teaching Excellence
Ada Hurst, Management Sciences
Erin Jobidon, Student Success Office
Andrea Prier, Student Success Office
Chris Rennick, Engineering Undergrad Office
Jason Grove, Chemical Engineering
Carol Hulls, Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering
Rania Al-Hammoud, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Teams are the default work structure in most organizations and it is imperative that our students develop the knowledge, skills and abilities to work effectively in teams. Teamwork is one of the designated attributes engineering graduates must possess [1]. Yet, teamwork skills are not often “taught” in engineering courses; students are instead expected to develop these skills via a sink-or-swim approach. Often, these experiences - combined with the lack of training and guided reflection - lead to students disliking team work and not becoming proficient in the associated skills.

In response to this weakness, a committee was formed from members of the Engineering IDEAs Clinic, the Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE) and the Student Success Office (SSO) to develop a series of six workshops to integrate in the 1A to 3B academic terms. The workshops are designed to provide students with opportunities to acquire knowledge and practice teamwork skills in a safe environment.

By the end of the first two workshops students should be able to characterize effective teams, develop strategies for effective teamwork, practice active communication skills, and develop confidence in their teamwork skills. The design of the workshops is based on literature, pilot-testing and revision, and the principle that teamwork skills are best learned by doing. Moreover, an ongoing assessment of the workshops’ effectiveness using Kirkpatrick’s Model [2] is performed. The first two workshops have been piloted and delivered to 1A and 1B students in a majority of engineering disciplines.

In this presentation we will highlight the overall plan for the six workshops , describe the first two workshops including failure-recovery cycles, share students’ feedback and facilitators’ observations, and  identify the potential impact of the overall workshop series. The workshops can be easily adapted to non-engineering programs, thus this presentation will be of interest to a broad audience.

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Session 106a - CANCELLED

PRESENTATION - How to succeed in class, while failing in the process: Teaching failure as a risk-taking tool in the classroom

Jennifer Vokoun, Humanities, Walsh University

Teaching how and why to fail in the classroom is a part of an iterative design thinking process that encourages failing through exploration, in order to learn how to adjust, adapt, and move forward towards stronger solutions. It is about removing opportunities for immediate success, in order to develop deep engagement with the learning process. Students’ fear of failure necessitates that teaching failure, as a risk-taking tool in the classroom, requires building trust and achieving buy-in from the students (Bledsoe and Baskin, 2014). It takes time. Students need to know they are not going to get an “F” when they “fail” as part of the iterative process. And for many students this is the biggest hurdle, as some students perseverate on what they need to do to get an “A” in a class, and struggle to understand how they are going to succeed, while “failing” in the process.

In this practice-based approach study, students in an active learning, “flipped” class, were encouraged to strengthen their academic risk-taking skills through a half-semester long project, specifically designed to emphasize the iterative process of design thinking and the role failing plays in the successful outcome of the project. The success of the students’ final projects, measured qualitatively through feedback forms from students, peers, and community members, was the direct result of multiple iterations, and failures, and students’ ability to work through the process without negative consequences. 

This presentation will explore the role of failure in successful design thinking processes and how this can foster creative confidence in students. A case study with the iterative results of student’s projects will be shared. Participants in the presentation will leave with practical strategies to address students’ fear of failure through academic risk-taking skills.

References

Bledsoe, T.S. & Baskin, J.J. (2014). Recognizing Student Fear: The Elephant in the Classroom. College Teaching, 62, 32-41.

Hulme, E., Thomas, B., and DeLaRosby, H. (2014). Developing Creativity Ecosystems: Preparing College Students for Tomorrow’s Innovation Challenge. About Campus, 19, 14-23.

Ingo, R., Köppen, E., Jobst, B., and Meinel, C. (2010). Design Thinking: An Educational Model towards Creative Confidence. Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Design Creativity. Kobe, Japan, 11, 2010.

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Session 106b - PRESENTATION - Persist, pivot, or punt: Teaching students to learn from setbacks through rapid iteration

David Goodwin, Drama and Speech Communication
Jill Tomasson Goodwin, Drama and Speech Communication

The words "lean," "agile," "sprint," and "scrum" show up in many different industry-focused fields: interface design, user experience design, software and product development, just to name a few. All these concepts point to, and proceed from, one simple idea: designers and their project teams need to test assumptions quickly, get meaningful feedback at every turn, and then persist with the project trajectory (if the feedback is positive), pivot (if mixed, positive and negative), or punt (if mostly negative). In short, “failure” and “success” are not opposites. Rather "failure" is the word we give to reality as it pushes back, complicates, and deepens our original set of expectations, even as it guides -- and in many cases, makes entirely possible -- our learning along the way.

In our current, multi-year research project, we have brought together many multi-disciplinary and cross-functional student teams. To do this successfully, we learned (from testing our own assumptions) that teams only succeed when we shifted them away from "student mode" into "designer mode," away from the assumption that their projects and goals are always feasible (can be done) and desirable (should be done) to the assumption that they constantly need to test, reframe, and then change directions, and that such changes are a mark of learning to be embraced and not a setback to be avoided.

In this presentation, we will explain how we borrowed industry concepts and practices in design  -- including research sprints, rapid prototyping of ideas, iterative assumption testing, path and goal reframing, and finally, cross-functional collaboration – to help our students double their successes, halve their time on task, and increase their confidence as they learned together.  We will also offer how these same ideas could be applied more broadly to a wide range of academic research and learning situations.

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Session 200s: 11:40 am - 12:35 pm

Link to session descriptions: 201, 202a, 202b, 203a, 203b, 204a, 204b, 205a, 205b, 206a, 206b

Session 201 - PANEL - Stories of teaching challenge and failure

Steve Furino, Mathematics
Judi Jewinski, Renison University College
Greta Kroeker, History
Bob Sproule, School of Accounting and Finance
David Wang, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Session moderator: Julie Timmermans, CTE

Can you tell us about a moment of teaching challenge or failure?  How did you handle it? What did you learn from it?  What did the challenge or failure feel like?  At the Centre for Teaching Excellence, we asked five University of Waterloo faculty members if they would be willing to share such stories with us.  Everyone we invited accepted.  Some people said, “Which story should I share?  There are so many.” 

Teaching is a very public act that instructors so often reflect on and process privately.  It is easy to share stories of success, but with whom to do we share the teaching stories that feel to us like deep challenges, even failures?  How do we process these episodes so that we learn from them, rather than become defined by them?

During this session, participants will watch short videos which capture the “stories of teaching challenge or failure” of our five contributors.  Participants and the session moderator will then have the opportunity to ask questions of the contributors, probing more deeply into their experience and insights.

The intent of the session is to encourage open discussion of difficult teaching moments, so that they ultimately become moments that serve to enhance teaching and learning.

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Session 202a - PRESENTATION - Problem-solving group work in an online Physics course

Felicia Pantazi, Centre for Extended Learning
Joe Sanderson, Physics and Astronomy
Robbie Henderson, Physics and Astronomy

Outcomes: after this presentation participants will be able to:

• Understand the importance of group problem-solving in Physics and STEM courses
• Appreciate the challenges of this approach
• Initiate efforts to implement group work using Learn, in STEM and potentially other fields

Research shows that the use of peer instruction activities in physics results in students’ better conceptual understanding and problem-solving skills (Mazur, 2015). The face-to-face version of this course is using group work as a form of peer instruction. During this activity students are given a set of context-rich problems and asked to discuss and solve them as a group.

Literature shows that the use of context-rich problems in teaching physics allows students to think beyond mathematical formulas and allows transfer of the knowledge to various real life situations (Foster, 2011). During the development of the online version of this course we explored the possibility of having context-rich problem-solving group work.

In this presentation we will discuss the implementation of group work in the online course in two consecutive offerings, the challenges and approach to continuous quality improvement, the efficacy of the group work strategies, as well as the future steps.

References

1. Eric Mazur, Mazur Group, http://mazur.harvard.edu/research/detailspage.php?ed=1&rowid=8 , Last accessed Nov 27, 2015
2. Foster in Promising Practices in Undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Education: Summary of Two Workshops. Natalie Nielsen, Rapporteur; Planning Committee on Evidence on Selected Innovations in Undergraduate, STEM Education; National Research Council. ISBN: 0-309-18724-9, (2011)

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Session 202b - PRESENTATION - Assessment challenges and innovations in technology-augmented instruction and learning

Ashley Kelly, English Language and Literature
Brad Mehlenbacher, North Carolina State University

Student learning and assessment is a well-studied area in educational research, and numerous approaches to assessment for education have been developed. Much of the research, however, focuses on individual learners and their psychomotor, cognitive, and affective domains. As we continue to move into technology-augmented instructional contexts, from the brick-and-mortar classroom to online instruction and the various hybrid spaces between, our instructional strategies, understandings of student learning, and our assessment tools must adapt. Examining one extreme of technology-augmented classrooms—the online classroom—we explore these changes through a review of literature on assessment and the implementation of dozens of online courses by the authors. We focus specifically on social dimensions of learning and how they intersect with individual psychomotor, cognitive, and affective dimensions. Adding social dimensions into the fold of learning domains complicates our notions of failure by adding complexity to the outcomes we attempt to measure. Bringing together research literature and professional practice, we offer suggestions for developing assessment strategies and tools in online classroom environments that attend to individual learners as socially-embedded beings and, further, discuss the idea and importance of "failure" in social dimensions of learning. Importantly, we discuss these in the context of online learning which, despite decades of development, continues to pose new challenges to instructional design and assessment. Turning upside-down the idea of "failure" as a negative concept as opposed to a crucial context of learning as social beings, we argue that rapid design and evaluation strategies acknowledge (and even embrace) instructional design failures, and understand that these failures should act as sites for instructional learning and innovation. We conclude with practical strategies for online instructional design, including blended or hybrid classrooms, that have application across the disciplines, from the humanities to STEM.

References

Dooley, K. E., Lindner, J. R., & Dooley, L. M. (2005). Writing instructional objectives. In K. E. Dooley, J. R. Lindner, & L. M. Dooley (Eds.), Advanced methods in distance education: Applications and practices for educators, administrators and learners (pp. 118–131). Hershey, PA: Information Science Processing.

Herron, J. F., & Wright, V. H. (2006). Assessment in online learning: Are students really learning? In V. H. Wright, C. S. Sunal, & E. K. Wilson (Eds.), Research on Enhancing the Interactivity of Online Learning (pp. 45–64). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Lockee, B. B., Burton, J. K., & Cross, L. H. (1999). No comparison: Distance education finds a new use for “No significant difference.” Educational Technology Research and Development, 47 (3), 33–42.

Mehlenbacher, B. (2010). Instruction and technology: Designs for everyday learning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Quellmalz, E. S., & Kozma, R. (2003). Designing assessments of learning with technology. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy, and Practice, 10 (3), 389–408.

Spurlin, J. E., Rajala, S. A., & Lavelle, J. P. (Eds.). (2008). Designing better engineering education through assessment: A practical resource for faculty and department chairs on using assessment and ABET criteria to improve student learning. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.

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Session 203a - PRESENTATION - WatPD’s Marker Training course: An effective solution for teaching teams of all sizes

Amy Fernandes, Waterloo Professional Development Program
Victoria Feth, Waterloo Professional Development Program

The Waterloo Professional Development Program (WatPD) provides online professional skills courses to all University of Waterloo students enrolled in co-op degree programs. We support thousands of students each term across all six faculties, which presents us with the challenge of providing high quality marking and feedback that is consistent across all of our courses.

Several terms ago, we began to notice that expectations for marking and feedback seemed to vary across our team. As our staff team had grown and our course offerings had increased we realized we needed to devote some time to ensure we were providing consistent and effective marking to all of our students. We recognized that devoting time and resources to quality checking and re-training meant lost opportunities for support elsewhere. 

We saw this challenge as an opportunity. We had to let go of ineffective practices, but this allowed us to take risks and innovate. We created a better way to prepare almost 200 part-time markers and TAs to grade over 168,000 assignments per year.

We married the best practices of what worked in our unique situation; we conducted a literature review and came together as a team to develop the WatPD Marker Training Course in LEARN. Since 2014, new markers and TAs, including undergraduates, graduates, co-op students, and non-students, not only complete our training course, but they complete an agreement which asks them to commit to our high standard of quality.

Other members of the university community will find this project valuable as we share how we:

• manage the logistics of hundreds of markers who mark assignments from students in all six faculties.
• ensure our students receive timely, consistent, and personalized feedback.
• use a challenge as an opportunity to design a training system that sets a high standard and consistent expectations across a department.

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Session 203b - PRESENTATION - How environmental context-dependent memory affects student performance during an examination

Amenda Chow, Math, Trent University

With growing classroom sizes, it is now common practice to divide students in the same class into various locations during an examination. Often times, one group of students writes their exam in their lecturing room, while the remaining students do not. It is well-known that the lecturing environment plays a significant role in student learning and memory recollection. Formally, this is known as environmental context-dependent memory. Consequently, the following question regarding academic integrity is raised: are students who are writing a test in their lecturing classroom at an advantage compared to their peers who are writing the same test but in a non-lecturing classroom? This question is explored via a case study of undergraduate engineering students enrolled in a mathematics course at the University of Waterloo.  Furthermore, a natural follow-up question is: should students be trained on approaches to trigger context-dependent memory as a mechanism for learning?

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Session 204a - PRESENTATION - Gamifying the classroom: A natural framework for risk taking, making mistakes, and continuous learning

Hadi Hosseini, David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science and Centre for Teaching Excellence
Maxwell Hartt, School of Planning

Active learning methodologies have been widely celebrated in recent years as pedagogical processes that engage students in a series of activities to excite cognitive abilities and promote deep learning. Experimental studies have shown the effectiveness of active learning methods over their traditional counterparts. Nevertheless, deploying such techniques do not necessarily guarantee intrinsic motivation for learning among the students. On the other hand, games and game-like activities entice such internal learning motivation by introducing various “joyful” elements in learning syllabi. Games provide natural frameworks for risk taking and learning from mistakes, encouraging students to embrace failures and improve up them. The current literature on gamification does not provide a concrete rationale and methodologies for deploying game-based techniques, and most gamification techniques rely on technologies such as computers, handheld devices, online applications, etc.

We focus on the use of games and gameplay in their most fundamental way. We studied student perceptions of the effectiveness of game-based techniques by identifying two lectures with similar pedagogical outcomes and teaching one using traditional lecture methods and the other using game-based techniques. Student perceptions were gauged using surveys and semi-structured interviews. Results show significant improvements in student perception of engagement, creativity, teamwork, relevance, and enjoyment. Furthermore, the deployment of games for in-class activities increased students’ risk taking and participation in discussions.

We will present quantitative results on the effectiveness of game-based learning in improving students’ engagement as well as qualitative findings on students’ willingness to embrace failures while engaged in gameplay.

References

D’Mello, Sidney, and Art Graesser. "Dynamics of affective states during complex learning." Learning and Instruction 22, no. 2 (2012): 145-157.

Lee, Joey J., and Jessica Hammer. "Gamification in education: What, how, why bother?." Academic Exchange Quarterly 15, no. 2 (2011): 146.

Richter, Ganit, Daphne R. Raban, and Sheizaf Rafaeli. "Studying Gamification: The Effect of Rewards and Incentives on Motivation." In Gamification in Education and Business, pp. 21-46. Springer International Publishing, 2015.

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Session 204b - What a Fiasco! Student resistance to failure – even in learning activities where spectacular failure was the main point

Vanessa Schweizer, Knowledge Integration
Luke Bayne

In this presentation, we share our experiences from a learning activity where spectacular failure was the main point. Through a collaborative and creative roleplaying game called Fiasco, we attempted to create conditions for students to safely and creatively fail. For most students, we succeeded in showing that interesting things can come from embracing failure (in other words, it’s not so bad to fail after all). Failure can even be fun. However, through student reflections, we were also surprised to find that a minority of students resisted failure – all the way to the bitter end of the learning activity. This shows that antipathy to failure can be a strong mindset for some students. The implications of this diversity in student mindsets towards failure will be explored for teaching and learning.

References

Creative Competitions, Inc. 2006. “Odyssey of the Mind: Why Odyssey of the Mind Is Good for Kids.” http://www.odysseyofthemind.com/learn_more.php.

Morningstar, Jason, and Steve Segedy. 2011. The Fiasco Companion. Edited by Steve Segedy and Amanda Valentine. Bully Pulpit Games

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Session 205a - PRESENTATION - What works the first time doesn’t always work the second- and that’s the beauty of the Engineering Ideas Clinic

Marc Aucoin, Chemical Engineering
Eline Boghaert, Engineering Undergraduate Office and Chemical Engineering
Bryan Tripp, Systems Design Engineering
Christine Moresoli, Chemical Engineering
Maud Gorbet, Systems Design Engineering

Over the past couple of years, the Faculty of Engineering has been developing didactic activities under the umbrella of the Engineering Ideas Clinics. The purpose of this initiative is to reduce the gap between theory and application, a recurring theme in education (Allsopp et al., 2006). In one instance, we have developed an activity for students to create 'bioplastics'. Using common household ingredients and cookware, students are asked to transform the ingredients into "plastic" materials. The goals of the exercise are: to give students the opportunity to make materials with differing properties; to develop methods to assess the differing properties; and to formulate relationships that can be used to predict the characteristics of a material given a certain set of inputs. Two initial offerings (in the same term - W2015) allowed us to refine the way the Bioplastics Clinic was conducted for different sized classes (and two different levels). However, upon trying the exercise in a subsequent term (S2015, ChE 161 - Engineering Biology), we were surprised by an unexpected environmental factor. On top of forming bioplastics, we successfully cultured two different species of mold. As a result, the materials created were unusable for material testing; however, it did result in an unintended teachable moment.  It also emphasized the nature of research and discovery (Kind and Kind, 2007; Hodson, 1996) that underpins engineering design considerations. This talk will discuss the Bioplastics activity, the different ways the Clinic was implemented, and how 'failure', because of taking a risk to do something new, is worth having in order to experience those rare unintended teachable moments. Although the case of the Bioplastics engineering clinic will be used, this talk will highlight the need for instructor flexibility and adaptability to unpredictable situations, turning a “failure” into a “highlightable” moment.

References

1. Allsopp DH, DeMarie D, Alvarez-McHatton P, Doone E (2006) Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice: Connecting Courses with Field Experiences. Teacher Education Quarterly Vol. 33, No. 1, Furthering Theory, Policy, and Practice, 19-35

2.  Kind PM, Kind V (2007) Creativity in Science Education: Perspectives and Challenges for Developing School Science, Studies in Science Education, 43:1, 1-37

3. Hodson D (1996) Laboratory work as scientific method: three decades of confusion and distortion. Journal of Curriculum Studies 28:2

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Session 205b - PRESENTATION - Much ado about 0.02%

Eline Boghaert, Engineering Undergraduate Office and Chemical Engineering
Jason Grove, Chemical Engineering

Chemistry for Engineers (ChE102) is a general chemistry course taken by approximately 1400 first-year engineering students. In the most recent course offering, online assignments were implemented using MapleTA. This presentation will discuss the student experience of these assignments as well as the effort involved and challenges from an instructor perspective.

Course assignments were previously submitted on paper and graded as complete or incomplete, thereby providing students with no meaningful feedback.  Students were expected to review the posted solutions; however, only approximately one out of every six students accessed these solutions.  The instructors’ and TAs’ perception was that students did not take these assignments seriously and sometimes collaborated excessively or resorted to consulting the textbook solution manual.

For the most recent offering, assignments were completed electronically using Maple TA.  These assignments were designed with randomized numbers, requiring each student to solve his or her individualized problem.  Students were given two attempts to correctly solve the problem before being led through a step-by-step procedure.  The two attempts provided immediate feedback and the step-by-step procedure a scaffold to aid students in recovering from their errors.

Implementing these assignments was much more time-consuming and challenging than anticipated, due to both the nature of developing and testing the questions as well as technical issues.  Students were surprisingly tolerant of these irritants.  Survey results (n = 970) showed overall positive feedback from students regarding attitude to the system and motivation.  Students found the immediate feedback and multiple attempts at each problem beneficial in learning from their mistakes.  Relatively few students utilized the step-by-step procedure; instead they preferred to seek help from TAs and instructors after an initial incorrect response. The survey shows that this is largely due to the associated 0.1 mark penalty, corresponding to just 0.02% of the final course grade.

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Session 206a - PRESENTATION - 206a – Using interactive activities and a case study to promote deeper learning in Statistics

Diana Skrzydlo, Statistics and Actuarial Science
Nam-Hwui Kim, Statistics and Actuarial Science

With the support of a LITE Seed Grant, I used several techniques in a third year statistics course to improve student motivation and learning.

The benefits of collaborative learning, mathematical problem-solving and communication ability are explained in detail by Jaisook (2013). Many papers also consider how to increase student motivation in mathematics, including Zimmerman (2002). I wanted to build on these ideas in STAT 334.

I chose this course because it is a Statistics course taken by non-Statistics majors. As such, students often have a lack of motivation for the material and may not feel it's relevant to their program. Also, having taught a similar course many times, I am familiar with some of the pitfalls of misunderstanding key threshold concepts which come up repeatedly.

To improve on my own and other past instructors of STAT 334’s failures, I used interactive tutorial activities, a case study competition, and individual oral exams.

It didn’t go perfectly the first time. I learned from my failures there and made some changes to the length of the activities, and outlined my expectations for the case study and oral exams more clearly. The second time I was extremely impressed with the students’ work.

In order to evaluate the success of these techniques, we collected feedback through pre-course and post-course questionnaires, reflection papers on the case study, and an anonymous post-course survey.

These techniques significantly improved student motivation and understanding. I learned a lot from the first time the course was offered, and have already passed along the materials to the next instructor so the change can be sustained for this course.

My talk will discuss the activities used, feedback received from students, measures of student improvement in this course, and how they performed in the follow-up course compared to students under the old course design.

References

Jaisook, S., Chitmongkol, S., & Thongthew, S. (2013). A mathematics instructional model by integrating problem-based learning and collaborative learning approaches. INTED2013 Proceedings, 3196-3204.

Zimmerman, B. J. (2002). Becoming a self-regulated learner: An overview. Theory into practice, 41(2), 64-70.

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Session 206b - PRESENTATION - Reflection and work-integrated learning: An opportunity to learn from failure

Judene Pretti, Centre for the Advancement of Co-operative Education
Anne Marie Fannon, Waterloo Professional Development Program

Students enrolled in post-secondary programs are accustomed to having their knowledge and performance assessed by an instructor who assigns grades and provides feedback.  However, students who participate in work-integrated learning programs quickly realize that the workplace is a very different type of learning environment (Tynjälä, 2008; Le Maistre & Paré, 2004 & Crebert, 1991).  Recent graduates crave frequent feedback from their managers, which may or may not match the style of their manager or organization (Thompson & Gregory, 2012). Instead of relying so heavily on external references for feedback and validation, it is critical that students develop the skills to self-assess. Reflection is a key component for students to successfully self-assess and learn from failure.

In this session, we will share research about the mindset shift that needs to take place for students who typically approach academic learning from a performance-based perspective, “will this be on the test?” to a mastery based mindset, “is there a better way to do this?” We will highlight the importance of reflection in developing capacity as a working professional (Kottcamp, 1990; Raelin et al, 2006; Schon, 1983) and in supporting the shift from classroom to workplace learning. 

While co-op students have the opportunity for this type of learning as they alternate between academic and work terms, non co-op students also participate in work experiences. In comparative studies, co-op students report engaging in reflection more often during work experiences which leads to a higher level of vocational self-concept (Drewery, Nevison, Pretti, 2016). We will share an overview of a new program, launching later this year, EDGE, an Experiential Education Certificate, which will support non co-op students in learning from work experiences through reflection.

References

Candy, P. C., & Crebert, R. G. (1991). Ivory Tower to Concrete Jungle: The Difficult Transition from the Academy to the Workplace as Learning Environments. The Journal of Higher Education, 62(5), 570–592.

Drewery, D., Nevison, C., & Pretti, T. J. (2016). The influence of cooperative education and reflection upon previous work experiences on university graduates' vocational self-concept. Education+ Training, 58(2).

Kottkamp, R.B. (1990).  Means for facilitating reflection.  Education and Urban Society 22(2), 182-203.

Le Maistre, C., & Paré, A. (2004). Learning in two communities: The challenge for universities and workplaces. Journal of Workplace Learning, 16, 44-52.

Peach, D., Ruinard, E. and F. Webb, F. (2014). Feedback on student performance in the workplace: The role of workplace supervisors. Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education. 15(3), 241-252.

Raelin, J.A., Glick, L.J, McLaughlin, K.E, Porter, R.D., & Stellar, J.R. (2008).  Reflection-in-Action on Co-op:  The Next Learning Breakthrough.   Journal of Co-operative Education and Internships, 42(2), 9-15.

Schön, D.A.  (1983). The reflective practitioner.  New York:  Basic Books.

Thompson, C., & Gregory, J. B. (2012). Managing Millennials: A framework for improving attraction, motivation, and retention. The Psychologist-Manager Journal, 15(4), 237-246.

Tynjälä, P. (2008). Perspectives into learning at the workplace. Educational Research Review, 3(2), 130-154.

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Session 300s: 2:50 - 3:50 pm

Links to session descriptions: 301, 302, 303, 304a, 304b, 305a, 305b, 306a, 306b

Session 301 - WORKSHOP - Hello my name is Stephanie and I am [not] an imposter: Dealing with Imposter Syndrome in academia

Stephanie Verkoeyen, Environment and Centre for Teaching Excellence

“I’m a fraud and everyone’s about to find out.” Many of us can empathize with this sentiment, particularly when it comes to teaching. Standing in front of a roomful of students as the proclaimed ‘expert’ can be intimidating to the most experienced instructor, let alone those new to the role. One of the most vexing things about experiencing this so-called ‘imposter syndrome’, however, is the accompanying feeling of isolation that come with measuring ourselves against the perceived standard of others. The purpose of this workshop is to explore why impostor syndrome is prevalent in academia and investigate the experience of imposter syndrome in emerging or early career academics involved in teaching. Workshop participants will have an opportunity to reflect on their own feelings of self-doubt and engage in discussions about strategies that can be used to manage this problem, both personally and at the institutional level. Participants should leave this session with an enhanced ability to recognize when they are experiencing imposter syndrome and strategies that can be used to overcome it.

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Session 302 - WORKSHOP - Fail fast: Entrepreneurship as a metaphor for learning

Colleen Sharen, Social Sciences, Management and Organizational Studies, Brescia University College, Western

Entrepreneurs approach new venture creation through “learning by doing,” evolving and iterating their ideas as they implement them. The Lean Start Up, pioneered by entrepreneur Eric Ries, involves “validated learning,” wherein entrepreneurs test their hypotheses about their business idea to reduce their risk and increase their likelihood of success. 

By gathering information about the customer entrepreneurs make then make adjustments to their idea (iterating) or make major changes (pivoting) to improve their chances of success. By learning what won’t work, the entrepreneur moves on to new ideas and approaches before investing significant resources into a weak idea.   Thus failure of an original idea becomes a platform for risk-taking, learning, and successful innovation. 

Instructors can adapt these entrepreneurial processes by approaching failure in a similar way.  By developing hypotheses about curriculum, assessment, and other aspects of teaching, and by prototyping and testing these hypotheses in the classroom, we can quickly learn whether an approach is working and make adjustments.

Following a brief introduction to the concepts of the Lean Start Up, small groups of participants will brainstorm ways they can incorporate Lean Start Up thinking into their teaching.  They will then present their ideas to the whole group.

At the end of this session, participants will be able to describe the lean start up method, and discuss how they might apply the lean start up method to course design or assessment.

References

Ries, E. (2011). The lean startup: how today’s entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create radically successful businesses (1st ed). New York: Crown Business.

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Session 303 - WORKSHOP - A fail-safe sorting algorithm for screening first and second draft writing assignments

Michele Bristow, Systems Design Engineering
Judi Jewinski, Renison University College
Graham Stonebridge, Systems Design Engineering

Faculty members eventually develop the ability to distinguish “acceptable” and “unacceptable” writing at a glance. Such expertise takes time to internalize. Meanwhile, inexperienced instructors have trouble predicting whether a preliminary draft will lead to a successful or unsuccessful final version. Rubrics provide a grading scheme, but only limited support for screening papers at the boundary of acceptability. When a grading scheme has been applied and the grade recorded, feedback tends to be “too late,” and opportunities for useful feedback lost. The requirement for outcomes-based assessment promotes the development of screening tools. For example, feedback gates can be erected through “Go, No-Go” screening. The objective is to provide both instructors and students a clear picture of what meets performance expectations and what does not. To address this need, we propose a two-dimensional feature set along with discrimination boundaries that act as criteria for acceptable submissions. This tool helps determine whether a first draft submission meets minimum standards. Additionally, it measures whether a second draft submission meets a grade-ability threshold in addressing the assignment question. Because the resulting information gives students feedback on whether their work is at grade level and grade-able, it should be coupled with the opportunity to revise and resubmit work within a reasonable time-frame. Ultimately, the process builds in a pause for new instructors to suspend judgement until students are given fair warning and fair opportunity to demonstrate their full potential.

The objective of this workshop is to learn how to screen writing assignments for acceptability. The process involves calibration followed by validation, and leads into erecting screening gates and developing a rubric. The intended takeaway is a checklist for implementing the proposed screening algorithm.

References

1. Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Committee on Assessment. “Writing Assessment: Position Statement,” Prepared November 2006 (revised March 2009, reaffirmed November 2014). http://www.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/writingassessment, date accessed: January 20, 2016.

2. R. R. Jackson. 2014. You can do this: Hope and Help for New Teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

3. S. Lewis. 2014. The Rise: Creativity, the gift of failure, and the search for mastery. New York: Simon & Schuster.

4. National Council of Teachers of English and the Council of Writing Program Administrators (NCTE-WPA). 2008. “White Paper on Writing Assessment in Colleges and Universities,” http://www.wpacouncil.org/whitepaper, date accessed: January 20, 2016.
5. T.L. Rhodes (editor). 2010. Assessing Outcomes and Improving Achievement: Tips and tools for Using Rubrics. Washington DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.

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Session 304a - PRESENTATION - Flipping an introductory Physics classroom: Challenges and lessons learned in light of student feedback

Firas Mansour, Physics and Astronomy
Mary Power, Centre for Teaching Excellence
Felicia Pantazi, Centre for Extended Learning
Samar Mohamed, Centre for Teaching Excellence
Jessica Fallone, Physics and Astronomy

Complete restructuring of a course and the teaching format increases uncertainty and the likelihood of failure, even when the changes are based on research evidence. It is challenging to work through the unsettling period of change in order to truly assess the value of any major redesign. In this presentation we will share our experiences with this challenge in the restructuring of Physics 112 and Physics 224 from a fully face-to-face to a flipped model, incorporating out of class content learning and in-class two-stage testing.

The online version of this course had recently be developed based on a variety of teaching and learning methods incorporating various types of media, such as narrated video animations and demonstration of physics phenomena, discussion boards, and conceptual questions interspersed throughout the lectures. The availability of these high quality resources provided the impetus to redesign the on campus course and the related course, Phys 224. The flipped classroom approach allowed the incorporation of both the videos and conceptual questions in an outside of classroom activity followed by in-class group work and two-staged testing (DeLauriers et al., 2011, Weiman et al., 2014). We will addressing the extensive feedback we received from the students as to what worked and what did not work for them, taking into consideration the demographic diversity within the course. We will be focusing on the elements that were not as successful, highlighting why some aspects of the approach fell short of yielding the desired outcomes. We will also explore the value of the student feedback in redesigning the in class and out of class activities in light of pedagogical best practices.

References

DesLauriers L, Schelew E, &  Wieman C (2011). Improved learning in a large-enrollment physics class. Science 332: 862-864.

C.Wieman, G.Rieger,& C.Heiner,(2014) Physics exams that promote collaborative learning, The Physics Teacher 52:51-53

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Session 304b - PRESENTATION - Interactive flipped classrooms: Successes and challenges

Rania Al-Hammoud, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Samar Mohamed, Centre for Teaching Excellence

Flipped classroom model is widely used as an effective method to change the interaction of students and instructors during lectures [1,2,3,4]. However, in large classes, students may tend to come to class unprepared and hence be passive during lectures, which defeats the purpose of flipped classrooms. Moreover, an assessment plan to gauge students’ achievement of learning outcomes of online modules needs to be devised.

In the proposed model, individually tailored pathways were designed for students to achieve the learning outcomes of the online modules. In each module, students would go through an online video followed by an online quiz. Students who failed the first quiz were guided through a second pathway including a more detailed video followed by a different online quiz. Students who did not pass the second quiz were taken through a set of four sequential video/sub-question series. This series allowed students to identify their misunderstandings and resolve them. After the students have completed the sub-question series, they were guided again to the main question with unlimited attempts until they got the correct answer.

The project discussed above was successfully implemented in fall 2015 in a second year fundamental engineering course consisting of about 120 students. Using low-stakes online quizzes as an integrated part of the flipped resource material, encouraged the students to go over the material before class.

The author conducted an online survey on the effectiveness of the model, and was able to collect successful strategies and challenges to work on. Furthermore, the course instructor observed an increase in students’ participation in classroom activities due to the use of the proposed model.

The author will share the whole experience including design, implementation, work-load, benefits and challenges of the model. In a facilitated discussion, the author will seek feedback from participants on how to improve the model. 

References

[1] Richard Pierce, Jeremy Fox (2012). Vodcasts and Active-Learning Exercises in a “Flipped Classroom” Model of a Renal Pharmacotherapy Module. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education. Dec. 12, 76(10): 196. Doi: 10.5688/ajpe7610196

[2] Jacob L. Bishop, Matthew A. Verleger (2013). The Flipped Classroom: A Survey of Research. 120th American Society for Engineering Education Conference & Exposition, June 23-26. Paper ID #6219.

[3] G.S. Mason, T. R. Shuman, K. E. Cook. (2013). Comparing the Effectiveness of an Inverted Classroom to a Traditional Classroom in an Upper-Division Engineering Course. IEEE Education Society, March 18, volume:56, Issue:4

[4] Adam Butt, (2014). Student Views on the Use of a Flipped Classroom Approach: Evidence From Australia. Business Education & Accreditation. Volume 6, Number 1.

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Session 305a - PRESENTATION - Risks and regressions: International development and the Holy Grail

Julie Kate Seirlis, St. Paul’s and School of Environment, Enterprise and Development

Last term, elements in two international development courses failed as spectacularly as they had succeeded twice before: 1) third years chose their own essay topic – with disastrously polarized results; 2) Masters students responded competently to sophisticated in-class readings before immediately requesting reassuring templates - in a course all about the dangers of templates. It felt uncannily like this scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975):

King: Guards! Make sure the prince doesn’t leave the room until I come and get him.

Guard: Not to leave the room even if you come and get him.

King: Until. Until I come and get him.

Guard: Until you come and get him, we are not to enter the room.

King: No, no. You stay in the room and make sure he doesn’t leave.

Guard: …and you’ll come and get ‘im.

…and so on until both guards follow the king out when he leaves the room.

This presentation explores the frequently surreal and Pythonesque risks and failures involved when one embraces radical pedagogies such as Shor’s critical literacy (1996, 1999) and Rizvi’s cosmopolitanism (2006, 2009). It offers some ideas about why and what to do when students seem to panic, regress or retreat. While that panic appears particularly intense in international development, a degree constitutively about leaving one’s comfort zone, my reflections on what went wrong resonate with the practice of teaching itself because the classroom is effectively a “local site of radical encounter” (Stubbs 2007: 15; Levinas 1999).

Drawing from Perry (1971) and Stubbs (2007), this presentation explores what failed. It outlines my thinking behind how I taught these two courses. It proposes some techniques (modified instructions; adjusted deadlines; incorporating student resistance, retreat and regression into the session and overall course; taking even greater risks) for next time around.

References

Levinas, E 1999 “The Proximity of the Other” in Alterity and Transcendence, New York: Columbia University Press

Perry, W G 1970 Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years: A Scheme, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston

Rizvi, F 2006 “Epistemic Virtues and Cosmopolitan Learning”, Radford Lecture Adelaide

Rizvi, F 2009 “Towards Cosmopolitan Learning”, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 30 (3)

Shor, I 1999 “What is Critical Literacy?” Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism and Practice 1(4)

Shor, I 1996 When Students have Power: Negotiating Authority in a Critical Pedagogy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Stubb, A (ed) Rhetoric, Uncertainty and the University as Text: How Students Construct the Academic Experience, Regina: University of Regina

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Session 305b - PRESENTATION - System Failure

James Skidmore, Germanic and Slavic Studies
Christina Kraenzle, Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, York University

Innovation in higher education is all well and good, but what if it hinders the career progression of the educator? Is it then a success or a failure?

This presentation examines the systemic hurdles facing kultur360, a knowledge transfer project in German Studies that went live in Fall 2015 and is very much a work in progress. kultur360.com is an independent webspace producing original content and analysis about contemporary society and culture in German-speaking Europe. University academics are invited to produce essays, reviews, and interviews accessible beyond the ivory tower. All content is available in an open access format that can be used and/or adapted by anyone. kultur360 answers the call issued by agencies such as SSHRC to “ensure that all citizens benefit from publicly funded research” (http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/society-societe/community-communite/index-eng.aspx) while at the same time providing authentic materials for teaching contemporary German studies.

The success or failure of kultur360 is influenced by various factors, not the least of which is its newness. There are few comparable examples of open resource sites that erase the distinction between research and teaching. As a result, scholars have been reluctant to contribute to kultur360 for two main reasons:  they lack confidence in their ability to communicate knowledge in this new way, and they lack the incentive to create work that falls outside the usual academic peer review paradigm and rewards structure. Academics are reluctant to devote the time to learn a new method of knowledge dissemination, a problem compounded by the low regard in which such dissemination is held by tenure and promotion committees. The failure here is the inability of academe to encourage new forms of communication and research/teaching practice that focus on broadening the reach of scholarship. We will analyze these difficulties in detail and offer reasons for pursuing this project despite these hurdles.

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Session 306a - PRESENTATION - Challenges in designing an online continuing education program for health professionals

Feng Chang, School of Pharmacy
Tejal Patel, School of Pharmacy
Rosemary Killeen, School of Pharmacy
Agnes Kluz, School of Pharmacy
Felicia Pantazi, Centre for Extended Learning

Outcomes: after this presentation participants will be able to:

• Understand the importance of recognizing the educational needs of the course target audience

• Understand the challenges of designing an online continuing education program and how to overcome them

Developing continuing education programs for healthcare professionals can be challenging. Limitations related to time and availability of the participants as well as their differing healthcare backgrounds have to be carefully considered and addressed though appropriate activities and assessments.

While designing the Opioid program - an online collaborative education program for physicians, pharmacists, students and trainees aiming to disseminate knowledge and promote the appropriate use of opioids (narcotic pain medications) - we faced various challenges such as depth and breadth of content, assessments, and level, type and amount of interaction between the participants.

In order to improve attention, retention and application, and engagement, a variety of teaching methods (e.g., pre- and post-lecture self-assessments, case -based problem solving) are used through various media (e.g., animation, simulation, podcasting, infographics) which aim to allow participants to apply the tools and strategies provided in this program in their daily practice. The modules provide opportunities to tailor the breadth of learning to the learner’s previous knowledge and experience through embedded refresher content.

In this presentation we will expose participants to the design and development of such programs, discuss the challenges and how we addressed them.

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Session 306b  - PRESENTATION - 2nd year midpoint assessment to identify PharmD students for remediation

Cynthia Richard, School of Pharmacy
Alana Rigby, School of Pharmacy
Andrea Edginton, School of Pharmacy

Each year, a few PharmD students reaching the resource-intensive experiential component of the program’s 4th year lacked some of the knowledge and skills for successful completion. To mitigate remediation in the 4th year, the School implemented a Midpoint Assessment (MA). This required assessment is delivered at the end of the students’ 2nd year in the program and is intended to identify students who struggle with foundational material.

The MA comprises of a 100 question multiple choice question test (MCQ) and a 5 station Objective Standard Clinical Examination (OSCE). The MCQ contained foundational material taught in the first two years and ensured proportional representation of the six major Association of Faculties of Pharmacy of Canada (AFPC) outcomes (care provider, communicator, collaborator, manager, advocate, scholar) to which all course objectives are mapped. All instructors participated in providing questions that were then reviewed by a panel prior to inclusion in a database. The OSCE component was devised to align particularly with skills and knowledge gained in Professional Practice and Professional Communication courses. The MA is a minimal competency exam and standard setting was completed for each component by expert panels using a Modified Angoff method. Students scoring below the minimal competency standard in either component are identified as needing additional support and are not re-tested. Their progress through the program is not affected; however, they must meet with an assessment team to discuss results and design an individualized education plan collaboratively. August 2015 was the first offering of the MA. Three of 120 students were identified as needing remediation that will take place in Winter 2016.

Early remediation aids in preventing students from falling behind their peers and allows time for skill development. A rigorously developed and standardized assessment will serve as a consistent benchmark for student performance over the coming years.

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Session 400s: 4:05 - 5:05 pm

Links to session descriptions: 401, 402, 403, 404a, 404b, 405a, 405b

Session 401 - PANEL - How can instructors support student mental health?

Kristin Brown, Public Health and Health Systems and Centre for Teaching Excellence
Stephanie Lu, Public Health and Health Systems
Michele Anderson, AccessAbility Services
Tom Ruttan, Counselling Services

Recent reports suggest that many students in Canadian post-secondary institutions are experiencing a spectrum of mental health concerns, including overwhelming anxiety and depression (1, 2). Mental health problems are associated with negative academic outcomes, including lower GPAs and an increased chance of withdrawal from academic programs (3, 4). Instructors are often first to observe negative academic outcomes yet there is uncertainty regarding instructors’ roles in supporting student mental health (5). Several sources have advocated for a campus-wide approach to mental health, which posits that all members of post-secondary institutions (e.g., administrators, faculty, and staff) should play a role (6, 7, 8).

This session will explore how instructors can provide classroom support for student mental health and provide an overview of resources available on campus. By the end of the session, participants will be able to:

i) Recognize ways instructors can identify and support students with their mental health; and,

ii) Identify available mental health support services and resources.

The panel will include representatives from Counselling Services and AccessAbility Services, as well as a faculty member, graduate student, and undergraduate student. Panelists will share their experiences and perspectives regarding the following questions:

a) What role can instructors play in identifying and supporting students regarding their mental health?

b) How can instructors provide opportunities for students to build resilience?

c) What strategies can instructors use to support students’ mental health?

d) What resources are available to instructors to support students’ mental health?

We invite participants to share their experiences and questions and look forward to engaging in a fruitful discussion!

References

(1) American College Health Association. (2013). National College Health Assessment II, Ontario Province Reference Group Executive Summary, Spring 2013. Retrieved from http://www.oucha.ca/pdf/2013_Reference_Group_Exec_Summary.pdf

(2) American College Health Association. (2013). National College Health Assessment II Canadian Reference Group Executive Summary, Spring 2013. Retrieved from http://www.acha-ncha.org/docs/ACHA-NCHA-II_CANADIAN_ReferenceGroup_ExecutiveSummary_Spring2013.pdf

(3) Eisenberg, D., Golberstein, E., & Hunt, J. B. (2009). Mental health and academic success in college. The BE Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 9(1)

(4) Hysenbegasi, A., Hass, S. L., & Rowland, C. R. (2005). The impact of depression on the academic productivity of university students. Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics, 8(3), 145.

(5) Margrove, K. L., Gustowska, M., & Grove, L. S. (2014). Provision of support for psychological distress by university staff, and receptiveness to mental health training. Journal of Further and Higher Education: 38(1): 90-106.

(6) Jodoin, E. C., & Robertson, J. (2013). The public health approach to campus suicide prevention. New Directions for Student Services: 141: 15-25. doi: 10.1002/ss.20037

(7) Kitzrow, M. A. (2003). The mental health needs of today’s college students: Challenges and recommendations. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice: 41(1): 167-181. doi: 10.2202/1949-6605.1310

(8) University of Waterloo. (n.d.). Select recommendations | Mental Health and Wellness. Retrieved from https://uwaterloo.ca/mental-health-wellness/select-recommendations

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Session 402 - ALTERNATIVE- Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW) - A tool to support learning from challenges and failures

Bob Sproule, School of Accounting and Finance
Andrew Milne, Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering
Monica Vesely, Centre for Teaching Excellence
Gordon Stubley, Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering
Judi Jewinski, Renison University College
George Freeman, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Allyson Giannikouris, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Why not take advantage of a workshop that provides an opportunity to explicitly try approaches to your teaching that are a risk for you, and may be a failure?  Wouldn’t it be nice to have this opportunity using peer feedback in a small group setting?

This session is designed to showcase the Instructional Skills Workshop.

One of the founding premises of ISW is to provide a safe, supportive environment for instructors to inform their teaching, by presenting 3 mini-lessons and receiving feedback from peers.  This unique environment offers instructors an opportunity to challenge themselves and learn from their failures; before “going live” in their courses.  ISW affords instructors the opportunity to practice, flounder; and even, perhaps fail; but embeds the experience in a setting of learning, providing diverse forms of feedback from equally invested peer colleagues.

One of the tools used in an ISW is a teaching model known as BOPPPS; Bridge-In, Outcome, Pre-Assessment, Participative Learning, Post-Assessment, and Summary; which is a structured approach to content delivery. In the participative learning element the instructor can structure that part of their lesson to support students in taking risks and experimenting.  The pre-assessment and post-assessment elements can then be used to measure student learning from the participative element, and thereby the success of the learning activity.

During this session a mock mini-lesson will be presented.  This lesson will: teach a concept to a group of learners; demonstrate the debriefing between the instructor and a facilitator; and demonstrate the feedback circle involving the teacher, learners and facilitator.  After the mini-lesson session participants will have the opportunity to share their observations about the demonstration.

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Session 403 - PANEL - A Prescription for success: Creating a safe environment for curricular innovation

Elaine Lillie, School of Pharmacy
Jeff Nagge, School of Pharmacy
Cynthia Richard, School of Pharmacy
Nancy Waite, School of Pharmacy

The University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy first opened its doors in 2008, and in its short history has become one of the most innovative pharmacy programs in Canada.  The School has created a dynamic teaching environment where educational innovation is paired with shared responsibility for success and failure and a willingness to re-evaluate and re-tool curriculum that was not successful.    In this session, members of the School of Pharmacy will discuss how they undertook various curricular challenges, assessed and made changes to the interprofessional, lab-based and didactic portions of the curriculum.  Through a series of short presentations followed by a panel discussion, speakers will discuss how they:

• Collaborated regionally to establish interprofessional education opportunities at a university with limited healthcare programs; specifically no medical and nursing Schools as required by pharmacy accreditation standards
• Intentionally created lab-based safe learning spaces and activities designed to help students learn from challenge and failure
• Used problem-based learning (PBL) in a non-PBL program to teach the complexities of patient care
• Five years into a new program, evaluated the successes and failures and undertook significant curricular reform 

This session will highlight the need for teamwork, resilience, creativity, risk taking, and change management strategies to achieve success in a new program.

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Session 404a - PRESENTATION - Programming is failure

Stanislav Sokolenko, Chemical Engineering

Despite the importance of numerical computation to the Chemical Engineering curriculum, there is a palpable aversion to programming in the student body. One aspect of this aversion stems from the basic challenge of learning a new skill. Another is that most Chemical Engineering students do not understand the importance of programming to their academic (or professional) practice and see it as peripheral to the main Chemical Engineering program. However, it should also be noted that few academic pursuits are as punishing as learning how to code -- the quintessential experience of programming is repeated failure. Students are forced to learn a new means of communication that offers no leeway for mistakes. In this presentation, I want to discuss a teaching strategy that takes the emphasis off programming in favour of addressing the challenge of failure directly. First, the students are provided with a strong motivation for pushing through their failures. Examples are designed to tackle common problems in the core curriculum. Spending 2 hours of working with code will save the students 4 of manual labour. Second, potential sources of frustration in syntax and execution are dissociated from more general topics such as algorithm development and problem solving. Third, problem resolution is dealt with explicitly in presenting and emphasizing debugging strategies. Finally, the students are provided with external resources such as help pages and tutorials as early as possible, to give them a references for working through their problems. Despite the programming context, however, the overall strategy is subject agnostic. Programming can represent any academic task that is seen as particularly challenging but irrelevant to the student. As such, I believe that this approach fits into a broader instruction strategy: give the students a reason to push through the failure and the means to do it.

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Session 404b - PRESENTATION - Reinforcing the research cycle through student consultations

Rachel Figueiredo, Library
Sandra Keys, Library
Donald Craig Love, English Language and Literature 

Research is a process of trial and error. Real research, appropriate for university-level assignments, involves a cyclical process of hypothesizing, searching, evaluating, and re-envisioning the original hypothesis in light of this newly found information. In contrast, many students prefer a straightforward search method using Google. When required to conduct academic research, many students prove themselves to be unfamiliar and uncomfortable with deep database searching, and it is common for them to become frustrated and revert back to familiar search tools. In an attempt to acclimatize students to the cyclical research process in a fall 2015 section of English 109, the instructor enlisted the help of two librarians. Unique to this course were the instructor’s mandatory follow-up appointments with the librarians to solidify ideas discussed in class and turn students’ research “failures” into constructive challenges, rather than disgruntled defeats. This 15-minute presentation will discuss the motivations for pursuing this course setup and the challenges associated with this structure. It will explore student, librarian, and faculty takeaways from the experience and provide concrete steps for those wishing to pursue a similar formula.

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Session 405a - PRESENTATION - Conducting teaching and learning research at UWaterloo: Tips and templates for navigating the ethics approval process

Julie Joza, Office of Research Ethics
Sacha Geer, Office of Research Ethics

Attendees will learn about the core principles of conducting research with human participants as well as the specific ethical issues to consider when conducting research with students as participants at UW.  These include: determining what needs to be included in the course syllabus; navigating consent ethically; managing recruitment; ensuring there is no undue pressure to participate; and allocating grades as an incentive to participate in a research study.  The talk will assist researchers in distinguishing between quality assurance and research projects and discuss when ethics clearance is necessary.   Participants will learn how to apply for ethics clearance using the UW system as well as tips and best practices for crafting a strong ethics application which can speed ethics clearance.  There will be time for questions to the speakers regarding specific projects.

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Session 405b - QUESTION & ANSWER SESSION - Conducting teaching and learning research at UWaterloo: Tips and templates for navigating the ethics approval process

Julie Joza, Office of Research Ethics
Sacha Geer, Office of Research Ethics

This session is a question and answer period for your questions related to navigating the ethics approval process when conducing teaching and learning research at Waterloo. People who did not attend Session 405a are welcome to attend.

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