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Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement within JSGS
By Jamie Mayoh-Bauche, Instructional Designer, U of R, Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy Keeping up with the latest scholarship on evidence-based practice can be a challenge for instructors who are busy with their own areas of research, amongst all the other things. In response to this challenge, Johnson Shoyama Graduate School (JSGS) embarked on creating a culture of continuous learning by making recent evidence-based teaching and learning practices easy and accessible for our instructors. Throughout the 2021/2022 school year, we organized a series of events and workshops aimed at building a shared understanding of program level competencies and instructional approaches that enhance student competency development. We gathered monthly…
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Announcing a New OER – Universal Design for Learning (UDL): One Small Step
We know that learners bring a wide range of knowledge, skills, backgrounds, and experiences into the classroom. As educators, we can expect to find variability in our classroom. The USask Learning Charter lists, as one of the Educator Commitments and Responsibilities, to Strive for Excellence in Teaching. This commitment means that educators work to develop respectful and inclusive learning environments that support student learning. Honouring this commitment requires that educators co-create with students a shared space for learning in which all participants feel respected, valued, and empowered to contribute as they achieve their goals and share the gifts of their identities in relationship with one another. This approach is also part of…
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Remote Breakout Rooms – Facilitating Small Group Discussions and Interactions with Zoom
The move to remote learning has created challenges for actively engaging students in our classes. A simple think-pair-share activity now requires extensive descriptions of who is partnered with who, how will you communicate, and how much time do you have – not to mention how to use the available technology to complete the activity. The truth is – facilitating learning activities and interactions remotely is different, but with some planning still provides our learners with valuable opportunities to engage, think, create and do – to practice and improve the things you want them to learn. If you are considering delivering any part of your class synchronously – consider actively engaging your…
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Considerations for creating an open-book exam
An alternative to the traditional time-constrained invigilated final exam is the open-book exam. “Open-book” implies that learners will have access to some type of references or resources during the exam, but the level of access to resources and time constraints are variables controlled by the instructor depending their exam design decisions. If you are considering an open-book exam, here are some things to keep in mind: Focus on the Learning Outcomes – When making decisions about exam design and the types of questions you are going to have on your exam, think about the most important things you want your students to come away knowing (your learning outcomes / key…