CTE Faculty Liaison: Environment (interim)

Email: jason.thompson@uwaterloo.ca
Office: B2-358D
Consults: Chat with Jason on MS Teams

As your Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE) Faculty Liaison, Jason can work with you on a variety of teaching and learning initiatives:

• Course Design: course design or redesign, blended learning or flipped classrooms, gathering student feedback
• Assessments: assessment and activity design, grading schemes, using or creating open educational resources.
• Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: LITE grants and Teaching and Learning Conference proposals. 
• Educational Technology: pedagogical strategies for using centrally support educational technology, see the EdTech Hub for technical supports. 
• Teaching Community: teaching conversations, CTE programming and events.

1. CTE Teaching Tips: Search the collection of 150+ evidence-based CTE Teaching Tips. Some categories to consider include:

• Course Design
• Assessments and Feedback
• Course Implementation
• Inclusive Teaching & Learning
• Support for TAs
• Support for Student Learning

2. Generative Artificial Intelligence: A good starting point is the University of Waterloo AVPA'sArtificial Intelligence at UW page. In addition, here are some suggested readings:

• Artificial Intelligence and ChatGPT by the Office of Academic Integrity, with instructor and student resources
• UWaterloo Course Outline Suggestions for Generative AI provided by AVPA,
• Using ChatGPT and other Text-Generating Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) from the Writing & Communication Centre, and
• ChatGPT and Generative AI, this Library Reseach Guide provides a good overview, discusses citation and refers tothe Artificial Intelligence Disclosure (AID) Framework.

3. LEARN: For technical assistance using LEARN, you can contact learnhelp@uwaterloo.ca or by all means ask me.

• Check out the LEARN: Start/End of Term Tasks page for some helpful reminders as you prepare your LEARN course for the beginning or end of term.
• There is extensive help documentation for all LEARN-related tools. Some commonly sought examples are:
  • Request a LEARN course shell (starting 7 weeks prior to the upcoming term)
  • Getting Started in LEARN (some resources to start you on your way)
  • Copy Content from another LEARN course
  • How to enrol TAs or Staff (e.g. co-instructors)
  • Impersonating the Test Student in LEARN
  • Calculating Final Grades in LEARN

4. Ed Tech Hub:

The EdTech Hub pulls together information regarding our centrally supported educational technology tools to help you decide which EdTech tool(s) may suit your use and how to get support on implementing and working with these tools.

5. Student Resources:

Academic Development for Students connects students to learning resources, peer success coaching, and workshops. The Assignment Planner Tool helps students complete a variety of multi-step assignments, including research essays, and lab reports.

About Jason

As CTE's Faculty Liaison in the Faculties of Science and Environment, Jason supports instructors with teaching and learning, blended learning, course design, and the effective use of technology in their courses. Jason also works closely with the Science Teaching Fellows to facilitate the uptake of teaching and learning initiatives. His role also involves serving as guide for instructors to access other CTE resources. 

Jason comes to CTE from the University of Guelph where he worked for ten years in their teaching and learning unit, OpenEd, as Instructional Technology Specialist providing support and advice to faculty regarding teaching strategies, learning activities, course design, assessment methods, instructional innovations and the integration of appropriate and effective learning technologies in their face-to-face courses.  Jason has his BSc from the University of Guelph in Environmental Biology and a B.Ed from Queen’s University.