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

_{Updated: June 18, 2026}

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:

• Teaching & Learning Conference 2026
• Teaching & Learning Centre Courses in Summer 2026
• Faculty Development Program Schedule and Deadlines
• New Faculty Orientation for Summer 2026
• The Curriculum Integration Project: Resource Update
• Supports for Generative AI
• Support for Flexible Delivery
• A Focus on Assessment
• Learn@Seneca Blackboard Ultra Resources

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.

Teaching & Learning Conference 2026

The Teaching & Learning Conference 2026 is a three-day, in-person professional learning event as we prepare for the 2026-2027 academic year. Through keynote presentations, workshops, discussions, and showcases, participants will explore emerging trends, institutional initiatives, and practical approaches that support teaching and student learning.

You may attend one, two, or all three conference days. Separate registration is required for each day.

Teaching & Learning Conference 2026 — Day 1
Tuesday, Aug. 25
10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Newnham Campus
Theme: Conference Opening & Artificial Intelligence

Teaching & Learning Conference 2026 — Day 2
Wednesday, Aug. 26
10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Newnham Campus
Theme: Curriculum Integration & Implementation

Teaching & Learning Conference 2026 — Day 3
Thursday, Aug. 27
10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Newnham Campus
Theme: Teaching Practice, Supports, & Tools

Visit the August 2026 Sessions for Faculty page for more information and more sessions for faculty in late August 2026 and early September 2026.

Teaching & Learning Centre Courses in Summer 2026

The Teaching & Learning Centre is offering the following courses in summer 2026.

• Teaching with Technology 1 begins on May 21
• Foundations of Creating Accessible Content begins on June 9
• Accessible Presentations and Documents using PowerPoint and Word begins on July 9
• Micro-teaching Sessions runs Aug. 27-28, 2026

All four courses are part of Seneca's Micro-credentials for Faculty PD program.

Faculty Development Program Schedule and Deadlines

FDP in Fall 2026

The Faculty Development Program schedule for fall 2026:

• Faculty Development Program 1 (FDP1)
  FDP1 will run on Tuesdays, in-person, from 9:50 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Newnham Campus.
• Faculty Development Program 2 (FDP2) is not running in fall 2026.
• Faculty Development Program 3 (FDP3) is not running in fall 2026.

Faculty can now apply to register in MyPD.

Important deadline 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 summer 2026, please let us know before Jun. 15, 2026. Our staffing and scheduling for the Faculty Development Program bundles will be set up by then, making changes difficult.

Important deadline for your faculty for the fall 2026 term:

• In fall 2026, FDP1 ends on Dec. 8, 2026; 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 fall 2026 deliverables is Friday, Dec. 18, 2026 — any faculty members who have not completed the deliverables for their fall 2026 course by Dec. 18 will not be eligible to participate in their next course in winter 2027.

Standing Schedule of the Faculty Development Program

There is a standing schedule for the Faculty Development Program:

• Faculty Development Program 1 (FDP1) runs on Tuesdays.
• Faculty Development Program 2 (FDP2) runs on Wednesdays.
• Faculty Development Program 3 (FDP3) runs on Thursdays.

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

Please note that FDP1 does not run in the summer term and if FDP2 and FDP3 are offered, they will run in May/June. We do not have Faculty Development Program course running in July/August.

Professional Development Requirements for Newly-hired Full-time Faculty Members

As a reminder, The following are the professional development requirements through the Teaching & Learning Centre for newly-hired full-time faculty members:

• Participate in Micro-teaching Sessions or the Teaching & Learning Summer Conference
• Attend New Faculty Orientation
• Complete the three components of the Faculty Development Program

The next Micro-teaching Sessions is taking place on Aug. 27-28, 2026 and the next New Faculty Orientation is taking place online on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026.

The Curriculum Integration Project: Resource Update!

As recently highlighted by President Agnew, Seneca’s commitment to bringing our strategic priorities to life through the Curriculum Integration (CI) project continues. This initiative enhances our courses by helping learners see their field of study through the lenses of Truth and Reconciliation (TRC), Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), Sustainability, Human Skills, and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The Teaching and Learning Centre remains actively engaged in supporting programs as we strengthen our curriculum together. Baseline data has now been collected across all priority areas, and we are actively gathering additional data to measure and better understand the impact of this ongoing work on teaching and learning. Thank you to the academic schools for their leadership and collaboration in advancing this work and creating structures to continue sharing CI knowledge.

Available Resources

To support ongoing curriculum integration, the following resources are available:

• The CI Website – Your one-stop hub for Curriculum Integration resources. Dive into the priority areas and find connections to the goals you have for your students.
• CI Support Request Form – Submit specific questions or requests and receive a direct response from a team member. We will also connect with campus partners (Reconciliation & Inclusion team, Libraries, and others).
• CI Kernels Library – A collection of ready-to-use CI strategies drawn from courses like yours. We welcome new contributions as this library continues to expand.
• CI Newsletter – A comprehensive collection of success stories, highlights, and practical ideas to inspire integration in your own courses.
• Dedicated Contacts – Each program has a Teaching and Learning contact for CI support. Email teaching@senecapolytechnic.ca and we will connect you directly.
• Faculty Champions’ Roadmaps – Last but not least, the leadership and creativity of our CI faculty champions continue to guide and inspire this work.

Completion and Recognition

Programs finalizing their CI work will receive a brief Completion Form to document key achievements and artifacts. Congratulations to those reaching this milestone! As always, write to teaching@senecapolytechnic.ca anytime!

New Faculty Orientation for Summer 2026

New Faculty Orientation is taking place in Wednesday, May 6, 2026.

Attending New Faculty Orientation is a professional development requirement for all newly-hired faculty members, both full-time and non full-time faculty members.

We explain this and provide more details on our Welcome New Faculty Members: Understanding Your PD Requirements page.

Supports for Generative AI

In fall 2025, the Teaching & Learning Centre offered a four-part webinar series focusing on using Generative AI in teaching:

• AI Literacy and Generative AI for Educators
• Effective Techniques for Generative AI Prompting
• Assessing Learning in the AI Era
• Exploring GenAI Use – from the Teaching side of things

Resources and recordings are available in our Generative AI Webinar Series in November 2025 Spark Plug article.

GenAI Resources

• the Generative AI: Teaching & Learning Resources website from the Teaching & Learning Centre
• Seneca’s Academic Integrity Policy
• Seneca’s Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) Policy
• Generative AI – Faculty Toolkit – The Learning Portal

Support for Flexible Delivery

Upcoming sections of our Fundamentals of Flexible Course Design and Delivery course:

• Mar. 30 to Apr. 17, 2026

We have a Flexible Course Design website!

We also recommend our Envisioning Your Course Through a Flexible Lens nutshell (a self-paced online module), our Five Things I've Learned about Flexible Teaching from Conversations with Seneca Faculty Spark Plug article, and our Seneca Flexible Classroom Instructional Video which shows how to set up and use the flexible classrooms on campus.

A Focus on Assessment

Discover the assessment resources created by our Team: Assessment-Resources.pdf.

This PDF highlights the webpages, nutshells, and videos we have that focus on assessment (in general), authentic assessment, academic integrity and artificial intelligence, and formative assessment.

Reminder: The Teaching & Learning Centre can offer a workshops for your School. We also offer one-on-one consultations for faculty and instructors. Email us at teaching@senecapolytechnic.ca.

Learn@Seneca Blackboard Ultra Support

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

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

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

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

Building Assessments – explore the details of assessments in Learn@Seneca

Using the Gradebook – explore the Gradebook in Learn@Seneca 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 Learn@Seneca Nutshells! Nutshells are a series of quick, self-paced, online learning modules for faculty. Our Learn@Seneca series of Nutshells provide faculty with an overview of Learn@Seneca in addition to tips, best practices, and resources.

_{Header photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash}