Teaching & Learning Centre Information for Chairs | The Teaching & Learning Centre | Seneca Polytechnic

_{Updated: May 8, 2024}

Welcome to the Teaching & Learning Centre Information Hub for Chairs!

This page is curated with you in mind, serving as a central resource hub to assist you in planning and supporting your faculty members. Here, you will discover a spectrum of resources tailored to empower and enhance the teaching and learning experience for your faculty.

Navigate through the following key areas:

• A Focus on Assessment
• Support for Flexible Delivery
• Faculty Development Program Schedule and Deadlines
• Curriculum Integration in Summer 2024
• The Professional Development Plan for Non Full-time Faculty Members
• Teaching & Learning Centre Days
• Learn@Seneca Blackboard Ultra Webinars and Drop-ins
• Calls for Proposals

This hub is your ally in empowering your faculty and steering them towards success. For any questions or additional support, feel free to reach out to us at teaching@senecapolytechnic.ca.

A Focus on Assessment

Discover the assessment resources created by our Team: Assessment Resources (PDF).

New: Our Introduction to Authentic Assessment course begins May 21, 2024.

This four-week online course provides a practical overview of authentic assessment approaches that promote student success, academic quality, and equity and inclusivity. Through reflection and analysis of a course they currently teach (or will teach), as well as scenarios and examples of authentic assessments in various learning modalities, participants will work through the steps of selecting and outlining an authentic assessment idea for their course. Active participation will be encouraged by way of synchronous workshops, online discussion boards, knowledge checks, and learning activities. To successfully complete the course, participants will be required to complete a variety of deliverables specific to their teaching context. The final deliverable of this course is an authentic assessment planning worksheet.

This four-week online course is delivered in the form of:

• Four online synchronous sessions (one 1.5-hour session per week)
• Weekly asynchronous learning modules and discussion boards

Support for Flexible Delivery

We are curating resources to support flexible delivery on our Flexible Teaching (HyFlex) webpage.

We recommend beginning here: our Flexible Course Delivery page created in Adobe Express, our Envisioning Your Course Through a Flexible Lens nutshell (a self-paced online module), and our Five Things I’ve Learned about Flexible Teaching from Conversations with Seneca Faculty Spark Plug article.

New: Seneca Flexible Classroom Instructional Video — this video shows how to set up and use the flexible classrooms on campus.

Faculty Development Program Schedule and Deadlines

The Second Bundle in the Faculty Development Program begins on May 8, 2024. There are two sections of the Third Bundle in the Faculty Development Program: the Tuesday section begins on May 7, 2024 and the Thursday sections begins on May 8, 2024.

Important deadlines for your faculty for the summer 2024 term:

• In summer 2024, the second bundle ends on Jun. 12, 2024, the Tuesday section of the third bundle ends on Jun. 11, 2024, and the Thursday section of the third bundle ends on Jun. 13, 2024; all participants should complete the deliverables by this date.
• If extra time is needed, the faculty member needs to let their facilitator know. The final deadline to complete the summer 2024 deliverables is Friday, Jun. 21, 2024 — any faculty members who have not completed the deliverables for their summer 2024 bundle by Jun. 21 will not be eligible to participate in their next bundle in fall 2024.

Important deadlines for you:

• If any of your faculty members currently in the Faculty Development Program will not be able to participate in the Faculty Development Program in fall 2024, please let us know before Jun. 15, 2024. Our staffing and scheduling for the Faculty Development Program bundles will be set up by then, making changes difficult.

Standing Schedule of the Faculty Development Program

There is a standing schedule for the Faculty Development Program:

• The first bundle runs on Tuesdays.
• The second bundle runs on Wednesdays.
• The third bundle runs on Thursdays.

The only variables in our schedule are whether a particular bundle is offered during a given term and the exact timing of each bundle. If we have two sections of the same bundle running, or if that bundle runs in May/June, we ask for the participants to be available all day to participate in the bundle that they need.

Please note that the first bundle does not run in the summer term and if the second and third bundles are offered, they will run in May/June. We do not have Faculty Development Program bundles running in July/August.

Curriculum Integration in Summer 2024

Key dates for you:

• May 1: Launch: Curriculum Integration Spring 2024 kickoff
  We will offer day and evening timeslots.
• May 27-31 (Week 4 of the Curriculum Integration project in summer 2024): Chair midpoint check-in
  Review initial work of the project deliverable, a Curriculum Integration Action Plan (CIAP).
• Jun. 17-21 (Week 7 of the Curriculum Integration project in summer 2024): Chairs to discuss latest CIAP draft with Faculty Champions
  Discuss the progress on the full CIAP.
• Jun. 19: Spring 2024 Give Away Day.
  This is the celebration and sharing event for the cohort 3 faculty champions. Chairs are welcome to join us. Registration will open in MyPD once the location has been confirmed.
• Jun. 27: Faculty Champions submit their final CIAP.
  Meet with your Faculty Champions to review and sign-off on the CIAP. Discuss next steps for implementation.

The Professional Development Plan for Non Full-time Faculty Members

A professional development plan has been created for Seneca’s non full-time faculty members: PD Plan for Non Full-time Faculty. The hours of remuneration per course (at the meeting rate) are listed on the PD Plan webpage. Every course in the PD Plan is micro-credentialled and the micro-credential can be used as proof of completion if needed.

The summer 2024 courses are now open for registration in MyPD: Professional Development Plan for Non Full-time Faculty Summer 2024 Flyer (PDF) .

These courses are open to all faculty members and instructors.

Course(s) currently open for registration:

• Developing Online Materials for Your Course begins May 8, 2024
  registration closes in MyPD at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, May 7
• Effective Online Teaching begins May 13, 2024
  registration closes in MyPD at 1 p.m. on Friday, May 10
• Sustainability in Our Classrooms begins May 21, 2024
  registration closes in MyPD at 1 p.m. on Friday, May 17
• Introduction to Authentic Assessment begins May 21, 2024
  registration closes in MyPD at 1 p.m. on Friday, May 17

Teaching & Learning Centre Days

The Teaching & Learning Summer Conference 2024 is on Thursday, Aug. 23 and Friday, Aug. 24 at Newnham Campus.

New Faculty Orientation is on Monday, Aug. 26, 2024 at Newnham Campus.

Both the Teaching & Learning Summer Conference 2024 and New Faculty Orientation are part of the PD requirements for newly-hired full-time faculty members. All faculty members and instructors are welcome to participate in both events. Registration will open soon in MyPD.

Learn@Seneca Blackboard Ultra Support

Full details about our Learn@Seneca Blackboard Ultra webinars and drop-ins are available on the Blackboard Ultra Webinars and Drop-Ins webpage.

Our Blackboard Ultra website is where faculty can find all the resources they'll need to teach in Blackboard Ultra. With how-to articles, best practices, resources, and videos, this space hosts all of the Teaching & Learning Centre's Blackboard Ultra materials.

We recommend beginning with our Blackboard Ultra Crash Course. It walks through the main features of Blackboard Ultra. We have the Quick Tour, a short introduction video about Blackboard Ultra, and the Course Tour, showing what a course could look like in Blackboard Ultra.

The Crash Course also include four instructional videos that cover the vast majority of topics faculty need to know to successfully teach in Blackboard Ultra:

The First Look at Blackboard Ultra – explore the menu and content areas of Blackboard Ultra, then start creating content: documents, folders, and modules

Building Assessments – explore the details of assessments in Blackboard Ultra

Using the Gradebook – explore the Gradebook in Blackboard Ultra and see how all the same features are still available plus some quality-of-life improvements

Groups and Accommodations – explore how to create groups and add them to assignments, plus how to set up accommodations and exceptions

These are polished versions of our webinars that were recorded without audience questions.

Faculty may also be interested in our Blackboard Ultra Nutshells! Nutshells are a series of quick, self-paced, online learning modules for faculty. Our Blackboard Ultra series of Nutshells provide faculty with an overview of Blackboard Ultra in addition to tips, best practices, and resources.

Calls for Proposals

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) call for proposals closed on Mar. 28, 2024.

The Open Educational Resources (OER) grant application closed on Nov. 15, 2023.

The Extended Reality in Teaching and Learning Call for Proposals closed on Nov. 3, 2023.

_{Header photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash}