Pre-Conference Workshop (morning)
Wednesday, May 12, 2004  9:30 - 11:00 A.M.  
Maggie Benston Centre (MBC) 2296

Teaching the Art of Inquiry

featuring Bob Hudspith McMaster University

This workshop will introduce a form of student-directed learning known as inquiry.
Questions to be considered include:

How can students be taught the art of inquiry?
For what subject matter is this approach appropriate?
How can inquiry be used to structure a whole course or for just part of a course?
How can electronic research be incorporated into an inquiry approach?
How does inquiry differ from problem-based learning and the use of a research paper?
What common difficulties do students experience using the inquiry approach?

Participants will experience this approach through involvement in a guided inquiry exercise.

Bob Hudspith has recently retired from a faculty position in Engineering at McMaster University. He has taught courses on technology and society in the Engineering Faculty, the Arts and Science Program, the Engineering and Society Program and the Theme School on Science, Technology and Public Policy. He was the director of the latter two programs. Most of his teaching in the past 17 years has involved the use of inquiry and inquiry-based approaches. In 2001 he co-authored a Green Guide on Teaching the Art of Inquiry.

Each workshop participant will receive a copy of the publication Teaching the Art of Inquiry by Bob Hudspith and Herb Jenkins (STLHE Green Guide No. 3).

Pre-Conference Workshop (Afternoon)
Wednesday, May 12, 2004  1:00 - 4:00 P.M.  
Maggie Benston Centre (MBC) 2296

Web Tools and Strategies for Supporting Student Learning in Larger Classes

featuring Tim Pychyl Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Carleton University,
and Executive Director, Institute for the Advancement of Teaching in Higher Education
and Russell Day Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University

Course management systems such as WebCT, BlackBoard and Desire2Learn provide a variety of tools that instructors may use to support student learning.  The challenge for instructors becomes the appropriate application of relevant tools to meet students' needs and support the learning outcomes of the course (while taking into account the effects on workload for faculty and students).  In this workshop, Timothy Pychyl (Carleton) and Russell Day (SFU) will explain the design of their course Web sites and demonstrate the various tools they have implemented.  Both Pychyl and Day will discuss student response to and feedback about the hybrid learning environment. Each presenter will also discuss the progressive implementation of this technology in their teaching as well as the management of change for the instructor and students.  Workshop participants will engage in discussions and small-group activities with the goal of developing initial implementation plans for their own hybrid learning environments.

Participants will receive a copy of the publication Technology and Student Success in Higher Education.

An early adopter of technology for teaching and learning, Tim Pychyl was a member of the Council of Ontario Universities Task Force on Learning Technologies and he served on the CANARIE E-Learning Program Committee.  He is the Executive Director of the Institute for the Advancement of Teaching in Higher Education (www.iathe.org) and is active developing online resources for faculty with facultydevelopment.ca.  Pychyl's research interest in procrastination (www.procrastination.ca), complements his passion for teaching, with a clear focus on students and their learning.  He has won four teaching awards including an OCUFA teaching award (1998) and being named a 3M Teaching Fellow in 1999.

Russell Day is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Simon Fraser University.  With one colleague, he is responsible for the Introductory Psychology Program at SFU (up to 2500 students and 50 teaching assistants per year).  Besides teaching large classes of up to 450 students in one section, he offers basic WebCT courses in conjunction with the SFU Learning and Instructional Development Centre.  He has used the WWW and WebCT to support on-campus courses for many years and thousands of students.  For the past 10 years, he has been actively involved with the Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW) program and has conducted ISW and other workshops at several institutions across Canada.