Focusing on Care and Connection at Teaching & Learning Day Spring 2021 | Academic Newsletter | Seneca Polytechnic

by Arushi Manners, the Teaching & Learning Centre

in the June 2021 issue

Seneca’s Teaching and Learning Day Spring 2021 on May 3 focused on pedagogies of care and compassion as we continue to teach in virtual environments. Our keynote presenter was Dr. Alice Kim, Managing Director of Teaching and Learning Research in Action. Alice highlighted ‘connection’ and ‘care’ as valued practices in teaching and learning during COVID-19 and beyond the pandemic. She prompted participants to consider how they care for their own health and well-being and also how they extend care to students. Alice shared excerpts from an autoethnographic study where professors and students shared their experiences of teaching and learning in a pandemic. From her research, it is clear what students find affirming during troubling times: organization in course design, access to high-quality resources, and a sense of connectedness with their professors.

The remainder of the day delivered ‘show and tell’ style best practices that focused on these key aspects.

Connection and care remain ever so important as Seneca expands its teaching and learning portfolio to include flexible learning strategies. This means simultaneously incorporating asynchronous, synchronous, and face-to-face modes of teaching. Course design and organization, access to high-quality resources, and connectedness are foundational aspects in flexible learning spaces. Amy Lin introduced Seneca’s flexible learning strategy in HyFlex/Flexible and All That Jazz! In this presentation, Amy provides an overview of HyFlex learning and mentions the four pillars of learner choice, equivalency, reusability, and accessibility. The Teaching & Learning Centre has used these pillars to inform the new FunFlex course for faculty who wish to explore flexible learning in more depth.

As the landscape in teaching and learning continues to change in higher education, we return to the importance of connection and care. Siobhan Bell spoke about Trauma-Informed Teaching and Learning with Technology and Sherri Parkins re-visited the importance of Universal Design for Learning to inform authentic assessment practices. These are just some of the ‘show and tell’ presentations from the day. Recordings from the day can be viewed at http://open2.senecac.on.ca/sites/tldays/resources-tl-day-spring2021.

As we approach a new school year, the Teaching & Learning Centre would like to encourage you to continue to centre pedagogies of care in your practice for yourself, your colleagues, and your students. It is through this care and collegiality that we can successfully face and embrace change in teaching and learning.

View the June 2021 issue of the Academic Newsletter.