Monday, February 13, 2017

Interim University Registrar named

“I am pleased to announce that Maureen Jones, Director, Student Awards and Financial Aid, has accepted my request to serve as Interim University Registrar beginning March 1, 2017,” writes Vice-President, Academic & Provost Ian Orchard. “Maureen will serve as the interim Registrar until the role is filled permanently.”

Jones holds a BA in English from the University of Waterloo. She started her career 35 years ago in the Student Awards and Financial Aid Office after two terms as a Waterloo co-op student. She moved to the Office of Part-Time Studies and Continuing Education in 1989 and held numerous roles there until January 2004. In 2004 she returned to the Registrar’s Office as Acting Director, SAFA and then in 2005 as Assistant Registrar for the Faculties of Mathematics and Applied Health Sciences. In 2008 she became the Director, Student Awards and Financial Aid. In addition to her financial aid duties she is the Treasurer for the Ontario Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, a member of the Disability Issues Working Group for MAESD and a member of the OSAP & Net Tuition Billing Implementation Steering Committee. Previously Jones has been a member of the OSAP Appeal Board and Treasurer for OURA (Ontario University Registrar’s Association).

“Please join me in welcoming Maureen to the interim role,” the provost concludes.

Tales of a Teacher:  Patricia Hrynchak

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by Elorm Agbeyaka. This is the first of three Centre for Teaching Excellence Teaching Stories that will appear in the Daily Bulletin this week.

Since 2011, Dr. Patricia Hrynchak, a Clinical Professor in the School of Optometry and a recipient of that School’s 2016 Distinguished Teaching Award, has been a practitioner of a teaching method known as Team-Based Learning (TBL). Developed by Larry Michaelson for teaching business students in the 1990s, TBL is an active-learning strategy that Hrynchak describes as learner-centered but instructor-led. TBL promotes deep learning, while at the same time fostering both individual and group accountability. A typical TBL process takes about three hours and looks like this:

1. The instructor divides the class into smaller teams of six to eight students. These teams, however, are not created at random. Instead, the instructor assesses the key characteristics of each student in the class, and then distributes the students so that the members of each team are as diverse as possible, while at the same time keeping the teams similar to one another in terms of their collective knowledge and experience. These teams persist for the duration of the course.
2. The instructor then provides the students with a learning assignment which the students undertake individually.
3. The students then, still as individuals, take a multiple-choice test which is called the Individual Readiness Assurance Test or IRAT. The aim of the IRAT is to get students to recall factual information from the learning assignment.
4. Next, the students, now working as teams, take the same multiple-choice test. This step is called the Group Readiness Assurance Test, and typically each team performs better than any of the individual members of the team previously did, thanks to their ability to pool their knowledge. This step is facilitated by the use of Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique cards, better known as IF-AT cards. Students are allowed to challenge questions in writing, and each challenge is considered by the instructor, who also dispels any remaining misconceptions about the material. 
5. The students, still in their teams, then engage in an application exercise in which they solve case-based clinical problems that draw upon the material in the original learning assignment. Every team is given the same problem, and their results are reported at the same time to the rest of the class. The problems are designed to have multiple solutions, which encourages healthy debate among the teams and is facilitated by the instructor.

Studies on TBL affirm that it results in improved student learning, but Hrynchak notes several other advantages as well. For example, before switching to TBL, Hrynchak had individual tutors working with each team – this was not only expensive but problematic because the tutors varied with regard to their teaching and assessing skills. Now, with Hrynchak as the sole facilitator of the teams, both the cost issue and the tutor-variability issue are avoided.

Hrynchak also finds that TBL diminishes what the literature calls the “social loafing phenomenon,” a situation in which some members of a team shirk their work because they don’t feel accountable to their teammates. Hrynchak has members of each team assess each other once per term by providing written feedback as well as a grade (which Hrynchak factors into their final grade for the course). Students know that if they engage in social loafing, their fellow team members will give them a low grade. 

Lastly, Hrynchak reports that her students – who number about 90 in each course – are more satisfied with TBL than with other teaching methods she has used. “Their attendance is better,” she says, “and they don’t leave the classroom after the assessed components of a class are over because they are actively engaged with the material.”

Hrynchak does admit that TBL can be onerous for the instructor: developing fresh cases is time-consuming, as is assessing the teams and incorporating the grades that they give each other into her own grading records. This is in addition to the lectures and workshops that are still part of Hrynchak’s courses.

Overall, Hrynchak’s intention with TBL is to make her students fully involved in their learning. “It’s important to adapt your teaching methods to your goals,” she explains. “My goal with teaching-based learning is to stimulate higher level thinking. You have to use different methods to achieve those goals and TBL is one of them.”

Update on refined brand implementation

Marketing and Strategic Initiatives are continuing to work on the refined brand project and the implementation of the brand across campus.

What’s new

Brand implementation

1. WCMS homepage and top level page responsive have been updated for brand alignment.
2. Presentation templates in PowerPoint and Keynote are now available.
3. Social media avatars are now available.
4. Video project top, tail and titling templates and guidelines are now available.
5. A symbols library is now available (will be updated regularly).

Presentations and training

Our brand training program is up and running – check out our schedule of events.

WCMS FDSU and single page marketing responsive theme updates

Waterloo Content Management System (WCMS) Faculty, Department and Support Unit (FDSU) and single page marketing responsive themes will be updated for brand alignment and released in WCMS version 2.4.0 the week of February 13.

These updates were shared at various brand presentations during the brand refinement project, subsequent meetings with groups on campus as well as Web Advisory Committee.

This is what will change:

• Introduction of the colour bar*
• Updated typography
• Some use of expanded colour palette

*Affiliated and federated institutions at Waterloo will not have a colour bar on their WCMS responsive sites. To explore how to align with the University of Waterloo refined brand, affiliated and federated institutions at Waterloo should consult with Creative Services.

Questions

We’d love to hear from you! Please send us your questions and comments.

The Library wants to take you on a Blind Date with a Book

A message from the Library

Valentine’s Day is approaching and once again the Library is playing matchmaker! 

What is a blind date with a book? Books wrapped in paper come with a ‘personal ad’ containing some clues about what’s inside. Without knowing what the book looks like, the title or the author, signing out a book is like going on a blind date. You never know what you might get…it could be your favourite read of the year!

Love it or hate it, return the enclosed book review to be entered into our prize draw - and grab one of our new Library Love buttons while you’re at it!

Blind date with a book is the term project of one of our Library Ambassadors, Caroline Kayko, in partnership with the UW English Student Society.

The event takes place from Monday, February 13 to Friday, February 17 in the Dana Porter, Davis Centre, Musagetes in Cambridge and the St. Jerome’s libraries.

Monday's notes

Voting in the Federation of Students elections begins today and runs until Wednesday, February 15. For more information on elections, including candidate bios and platforms, please visit the Feds election site. 

Voting opens February 13 at 10 a.m. and closes at 10 p.m. on February 15. Students can vote at polling stations, online at www.vote.feds.ca, and through UW Portal.

This is a reminder that Creative Services has updated their online requisition form to make it easier for you request print design, video production, photographic management, illustrations, animation and web enhancements.

The new form will launched on Friday February 10 at 4:00 p.m.

Please update your bookmark for the online requisition to the following link: https://uwaterloo.ca/creative-services/send-online-requisition

Should you require any assistance, please reach out to either Jennifer Halcrow, ext. 31759 or Julie Grant, ext. 33612.