Category: General

  • Teaching Faculty Scholars

    For the past four months, I have been co-facilitating a full year faculty development program with Liesel Knaack and Michael Paskevicius.  We arrived at the idea of offering this program by acknowledging that while many institutes of higher education design and facilitate support programs for faculty, these programs are often limited in time and content. …

  • Metacognitive Teaching Strategies: Helping Students Learn how to Learn

    Session 3: Community of Scholarly Teaching Practice (CoSTP), Fall, 2013 Perhaps the most popular of the fall CoSTP sessions, Metacognitive Teaching Strategies: Helping Students Learn How to Learn generated two engaging discussions related to topics inherent to helping students learn how to learn.    A relatively new research area for post-secondary educators to sink their teeth…

  • Reaching All Students: How to design learning for variety of needs and abilities in classroom

    Community of Scholarly Teaching Practice (CoSTP): Session 2 (Fall, 2013) Toward the end of October, the Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning (CIEL) convened for the second time VIU’s Community of Scholarly Teaching Practice (CoSTP).  After an invigorating first session on High Impact Practices, participants came together this time to discuss the theme Reaching…

  • Community of Scholarly Teaching Practice (CoSTP): Session 1 (Fall, 2013)

     High Impact Educational Practices On Wednesday October 9th and Thursday, October 10th,  the Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning (CIEL) convened its first Community of Scholarly Teaching Practice (CoSTP).  This group was comprised of faculty and staff at VIU interested in using a seminar-style approach to developing their knowledge of both the theory and…

  • Validation and encouragement to carry on…can be found at a conference!

    My colleague Lynda Robinson and I attended The Canadian Association for Prior Learning Assessment  (CAPLA) in Toronto, Ontario, November 17-19, 2013. CAPLA is a non-profit, membership based organization with a voluntary board of directors, the Chair none other than our own Student Affairs Executive Director, Patrick J. Donahoe, PhD. Please see The History of CAPLA…

  • Blogging in the “global Common Room”

    I really liked the recent description of academic blogging as the creation of a “global Common Room”. Maybe it’s the memory of my two sabbatical terms spent in England, where the Common Room tradition was still alive and well…for our “elevenses”, Mrs. Cambridge came in each day to make the tea. (Does that still happen,…

  • Reflections of a Novice: Educational Developers Caucus Institute, October 28-30, 2013

    Last month, I had the privilege of attending the Educational Developers Caucus (EDC) Institute at the University of British Columbia in sunny Vancouver.  Yes, it was sunny in Vancouver.  The institute was facilitated by Ruth Rodgers and Alice Cassidy, two of Canada’s leading educational developers.  Ruth and Alice brought not only their experience and expertise…

  • Course Outlines – boring or inspired?

    Difficult and oftentimes tedious to create, linear in content and layout, something students review with the instructor on the first day of class…as they struggle to stifle bored yawns, and then toss or lose. According to Liesel Knaack (I will leave you alone in future posts I promise!) course outlines or syllabus do not have…

  • EDUCAUSE 2013 Conference

    EDUCAUSE 2013 Conference

      A couple of us attended the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference held this year in Anaheim, California from October 15-18.  The conference program is derived from member-driven content organized across six overarching IT domains including: Data/Information Access and Management; Enterprise and Infrastructure; Leadership and Management; Security, Privacy, and Compliance; Services and Support; and Teaching and Learning.  This…

  • Join other B.C. Nursing Educators for a webinar on Developing a Scholarly Project in Nursing

    InspireNet Nurse Educators’ Scholarship Team Webinar Journey to Develop a Research Project November 25 3:30-4:30pm Presenters: Members of Collegial Relationships Research Team ►Sessions are recorded and archived on their team’s eCoP. Interested in attending via webinar or reviewing the recording? Three easy steps: 1. Join InspireNet if you’re not already a member (link at top right hand…

  • Strategies for doing conference reviews and reflections

    Strategies for doing conference reviews and reflections

      Attending a conference is a great opportunity to learn and interact with like minded colleagues from around the world.  Conferences can also be exhausting and overwhelming as the program is often fast and furious and you interact with many people in a very short timespan.  In this post I reflect on my strategies for…

  • What does blended learning look like?

    I always find it interesting to hear people’s reactions when the topic of  “blended learning” comes up.  As soon as these words hang in the air you can see the different thoughts whirling around.  Some will stare off in the distance thinking of themselves sitting in their pajamas, drinking coffee, never to be seen by their fellow classmates;…