Sparking and Sustaining Engagement
May 1 & May 2, 2024
For our 15th annual University of Waterloo Teaching and Learning Conference, we explored engagement and its myriad facets. Engagement is a buzzword in academia ... but it’s also what can make or break a lecture, a course, or a full semester for our students. Without the dynamic interactions between students and faculty members, without those moments that spark curiosity, developing a passion for lifelong learning can be nearly impossible.
As educators we strive to ignite a passion for learning in our students and cultivate their curiosity. Instructors, along with academic support staff, team up to design interesting courses, varied assessments, and novel learning experiences so students remain engaged—both in their learning and with the university community—throughout their university years. Sparking student engagement during the first weeks of a semester is only a first step; sustaining it long term is the real challenge. Engagement is crucial for our students’ success and acts as a feedback loop: instructor engagement encourages student engagement, which in turn motivates faculty to continue investing energy in designing stimulating learning activities and environments.
From flipped classrooms to experiential learning, engaged teaching not only develops students’ discipline-specific knowledge, but also cultivates autonomy and hones critical thinking and goal-setting skills, all of which are life-long, transferable skills. Engaged students are committed to the learning process and to their personal growth: enthusiastic and curious, they contribute to class by asking questions and collaborating with their peers, leverage the resources available to support them, and want to be part of campus life. Student engagement extends beyond academics, to faculty and university life, and community involvement. Engaged students feel like they belong and have a greater sense of self-worth and purpose.
For our 15th annual University of Waterloo Teaching and Learning Conference, the presenters dove into the following questions. What constitutes engagement? How can we ensure that our student-centered approaches to engagement are equitable and inclusive? Which assessment strategies might best engage students with course materials? How can we use technology to stimulate engagement? How do programs create curricula that offer sufficient choices, flexibility, and diverse experiences to sustain student engagement through their degree? How do we engage with local and global communities to bridge academia and real-world challenges?
Keynote - Fostering Equitable Engaged Learning In and Beyond the Classroom
Dr. Jessie Moore (Director of the Center for Engaged Learning and English Professor, Elon University, North Carolina, United States)
Jessie Moore, Elon University, delivered the UW Teaching & Learning Conference keynote.
How do we help students develop their capacities as engaged learners who actively and intentionally participate in their own learning, not only at discrete moments but rather as an ongoing, lifelong activity? In this interactive keynote, Dr. Moore focused on three of the six key practices for fostering equitable engaged learning in and beyond the classroom (Moore, 2023), specifically:
- facilitating professional relationships,
- developing feedback cultures, and
- promoting integration and transfer of knowledge and skills.
While universities often promote signature engaged learning experiences for their students (e.g., work-integrated learning, community-based learning, undergraduate research, culminating experiences, etc.), studies demonstrate that access and quality remain inequitable. In addition, surveys of recent university graduates suggest that many didn’t encounter pedagogical practices in their coursework to help them develop as lifelong, engaged learners. In her six key practices framework, Dr. Moore offers strategies for embedding the practices across curricular and cocurricular experiences so that every student has multiple opportunities to encounter and practice them.
The three key practices we explored during the keynote spark engaged learning by centering students’ experiences and building on them within our courses and other learning contexts. The key practices also sustain engaged learning by preparing students to adapt and apply their integrated knowledge and experiences as they continue their journeys through degree programs and professional careers.
Dr. Moore’s exploration of these three transformative practices draws on multi-institutional research and multi-disciplinary examples, supporting our collective efforts to foster engaged learning for all students, across our disciplinary contexts. Discover how we can empower students to become lifelong, engaged learners ready to bridge academic and real-world challenges in their local and global communities by watching a recording of her keynote.
As the Director of the Center for Engaged Learning at Elon University, Dr. Jessie Moore has significantly influenced the landscape of higher education, particularly in the realms of high-impact practices—proven to deepen student learning and promote retention—and meaningful student engagement, both inside and outside the classroom.
She is renowned for her work in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), and in 2019 her professional service to SoTL was recognized with the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) Distinguished Service Award.
In 2023, she published the book Key Practices for Fostering Engaged Learning: A Guide for Faculty and Staff. Over the past few years Jessie has edited two books: Cultivating Capstones: Designing High-Quality Culminating Experiences for Student Learning, and Writing Beyond the University: Preparing Lifelong Learners for Lifewide Writing. In addition, she also co-edits two book series: the Stylus Publishing/CEL Series on Engaged Learning and Teaching, and the Center for Engaged Learning Open Access Series. Her articles have been featured in the “Journal of Higher Education” and “Teaching & Learning Inquiry.”
Finally, she is also sharing her passion for learning in her 60-second SoTL podcast, where she distills key insights and practical strategies from the world of SoTL into concise, bite-sized segments lasting just 60 seconds.
Resources from the keynote address:
Igniting our Practice
Craig Fortier (they/them) is an Associate Professor of Social Development Studies at Renison University College (University of Waterloo). They have been an organizer within migrant justice, queer/trans* liberation, anti-capitalist, and anti-colonial movements in Tkaronto/Toronto for over two decades. Their book Unsettling the Commons: Social Movements Within, Against, and Beyond Settler Colonialism draws on those experiences and relationships to examine what it means to struggle for “the commons” in a settler colonial context. They are also the co-creator (with Matthew Borland in Systems Design Engineering) of the Emergent Encounters Action Project, an innovative cross-disciplinary project for teaching relationality, social justice, and action.
In their session, titled “Marx’s Concept of Primitive Accumulation: An Interactive Play,” Dr. Fortier demonstrated how they use theatre to explain the concept of “primitive accumulation.” Using costumes, props, and our volunteers acting skills, Dr. Fortier’s session blended theory and fun, and provided our attendees with a memorable Igniting our Practice session.
In Capital Volume 1, Marx explains the emergence of capitalism as the dominant mode of production through a chapter titled “The Secret of Primitive Accumulation.” Given that it can be challenging working with 19th Century political theory, Dr. Fortier works students through an interactive play where students themselves become the players. Monarchs, nobles, peasants, merchants, livestock all play their parts as they narrate the play as an adaptation of Marx’s work. Filled with real-life props and comedic interludes, students will come to gain a greater understanding of the process of dispossession and proletarianization at the heart of accumulation—and will come to recognize these processes as familiar (though in a different form) in today’s global economy
Dr. Suzanne Kearns (she/her) is an aviation academic with a focus on education and improving pilot performance. Her research explores how to optimize the next generation of aviation professionals (NGAP) by analyzing processes to attract people to the field of aviation. An accomplished educator both in the classroom and through electronic courseware, she has taught thousands of aviation professionals worldwide. She is a former airplane and helicopter pilot and is internationally recognized within the aviation industry.
Dr. Kearns is the author or co-author of six books, including the textbook “Fundamentals of International Aviation” which is used around the world in multiple translations. In 2021 she founded the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics (WISA), a research institute at the University of Waterloo which she leads as its Director. WISA includes more than 70 faculty members and has a mission to become the world’s leading hub for sustainable aeronautical research, technology, and education.
In her session, titled “Gamification, Group Interactions, and Learner Engagement,” Dr. Kearns demonstrated how she uses gamification to leverage group interactions in her Fundamentals of International Aviation course, which in turns promote learner engagement. Along the way, participants also learned a bit about some of the practices and challenges that make up the rich fabric of international aviation.
Contact
Visit our official conference website to learn about current and future conferences.
For questions about the conference, please contact Annik Bilodeau at the Centre for Teaching Excellence.