The Teaching & Learning Summer Conference | Academic Newsletter | Seneca Polytechnic

by the Teaching & Learning Centre

in the September 2018 issue

The Teaching & Learning Centre held a two-day summer conference in August to kick off the new academic year focusing on student engagement, using technology in the classroom, and effective teaching strategies. Many of our participants were newly-hired faculty at Seneca and the conference provided opportunities to learn and discuss teaching and learning as well as network and meet new people.

The keynote speaker was Dr. Joe Kim, Associate Professor at McMaster University, and he presented on strategies for durable learning to motivate students. Dr. Kim was engaging, and he shared many evidence-based strategies that could be easily incorporated into our teaching. The keynote presentation was recorded and is now available on the conference’s website.

Faculty were actively involved in micro-teaching sessions over two days. Micro-teaching is just as the name suggests – a shorter version of preparing and teaching a lesson. These sessions brought together a small group of peer faculty members to observe each other teach short lessons and to provide and gain supportive feedback on teaching. What does it look like when your students are engaged? What methods can we use to encourage students to have learning conversations? How do we incorporate educational technology in our classrooms effectively? These were some of the questions explored at our conference during the micro-teaching sessions.

All participants also had the opportunity to explore technologies that they could incorporate into their teaching including web-conferencing tools, animated videos, lightboard videos, student response systems, and student collaboration tools. The Teaching & Learning Centre and Playground, ITS, and Seneca Libraries and Sandbox also set up exhibits to demonstrate how they support faculty and students.

Overall, it was a successful conference and the feedback was positive from faculty and administrators who attended the event. What a great way to start the new school year!

What they said:

“The micro-teaching sessions was a great way to get new faculty warmed up to teaching!”

“The best thing I learned about at this conference was the different ways of enhancing student engagement in the classroom.”

“Fantastic keynote speaker – and learned about all of the resources available to us to help enhance the teaching experience.”

“I liked having an opportunity to practice teaching strategies.”

View the September 2018 issue of the Academic Newsletter.