Teaching Matters Seminar Series
SPRING 2019 seminar Series (no. 11)
The Teaching Matters Seminar Series is a forum for faculty and instructional staff to discuss literature, share experiences and demonstrate practices related to teaching and learning. It runs every second week in the spring and fall semesters.
If you would like further information or would like to contribute ideas for future offerings, please contact the co-leads:
- Veselin Jungic, Department of Mathematics (vjungic@sfu.ca)
- Jamie Mulholland, Department of Mathematics (jtmulhol@sfu.ca)
- Cindy Xin, Faculty of Education (cxin@sfu.ca)
- Jackie Amsden, Teaching and Learning Centre (jamsden@sfu.ca)
FACILITATOR: Dylan Cooke, Department of Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology
BPK 423, Neuroplasticity, is a discussion-based seminar course that emphasizes the process of reading and communicating about the scientific literature. In this presentation, Dylan will describe how the course has been designed to train students to:
- think about and articulate their most important gaps in understanding a paper
- extract and concisely summarize a paper's most important findings
- and decipher and explain complex graphical data.
Dylan will also share what he's learned about how to get to students to actually read the papers and (hopefully) enjoy the process.
Spring 2019
Mon, January 14, 2019 | 3:30–4:30
Room K9509 (Mathematics & Statistics Seminar Room)
FACILITATOR: Natalia Kouzniak, Department of Mathematics
In this session, Natalia will share her experience with applying the modified flipped class model to tutorials in a MATH-310 course. This model was initially used in a few free additional classes before and proved to be successful and popular among the students who have commented on improved quality of learning.
Spring 2019
Mon, January 28, 2019 | 3:30–4:30
Room K9509 (Mathematics & Statistics Seminar Room)
FACILITATOR: Diana Bedoya, Department of Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology
In this discussion, Diana will present findings from her 2017 Teaching and Learning Development Grant research into the use of competitive Googling, triple entry journals and worksheets to help students evaluate online nutrition sources more critically, both on their own and in groups.
Spring 2019
Mon, February 4, 2019 | 3:30–4:30
Room K9509 (Mathematics & Statistics Seminar Room)
FACILITATORS: Sheri Fabian, Institute for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the Disciplines, and Janet Pivnick, Teaching and Learning Centre
Sheri and Janet invite you into a conversation about the many meanings of decolonization and indigenization as it relates to curriculum and pedagogical practice. They will consider the goals of reconciliation within post-secondary education, provide frameworks for Indigenous pedagogy, offer case studies from SFU courses, and engage in discussion about participant goals and questions.
Spring 2019
Mon, February 11, 2019 | 3:30–4:30
Room K9509 (Mathematics & Statistics Seminar Room)
FACILITATORS: Petra Menz, Department of Mathematics, and Kevin Lam, Department of Biological Sciences
Instead of just seeing “students” that are taught and tested, Petra and Kevin are striving to see “whole” people in order to support them in their learning and well-being.
In this presentation, Kevin will first give an overview of some simple activities that allow the compassionate instructor to help students alleviate stress, isolation, and burnout. As well, Petra will share strategies that she has collected over the years to support students’ well-being in learning.
Students will then speak about their experiences encountering an instructor that goes beyond the curriculum to support their well-being. Finally, Petra will open up discussions by offering critical considerations for the instructor’s well-being in such a journey.
Spring 2019
Mon, March 4, 2019 | 3:30–4:30
Room K9509 (Mathematics & Statistics Seminar Room)
FACILITATORS: Diana Cukierman, School of Computing Science, and Donna McGee Thompson, Library
SFU's Academic Enhancement Program (AEP), is a collaborative program between the School of Computing Science (CS) and the Student Learning Commons (SLC). Its goal is to help students succeed in their studies by incorporating workshops on ‘learning about learning,’ within their core first-year CS courses.
Workshops and self-reflection activities are tailored to the courses where they take place, and students receive points for their participation, thus making the program an integral part of the course. The AEP has run since 2006 with the support of the School of CS and the SLC. AEP workshops have also been delivered in the School of Engineering.
The AEP model is adaptable to other disciplines, encouraging both, that students have opportunities to reflect about general learning and well being principles and more specific learning strategies associated to the discipline, to improve the whole academic experience.
In this Teaching Matters seminar, Donna and Diana will present key characteristics of the AEP and will lead participants through some of the activities that they include in their workshops.
Spring 2019
Mon, March 18, 2019 | 3:30–4:30
Room K9509 (Mathematics & Statistics Seminar Room)
FACILITATORS: Atiya Mahmood and Sarah Canham, Department of Gerontology
In this presentation, Atiya and Sarah will share how they integrated an experiential activity, the persona project, to allow students in their introductory Gerontology course to understand abstract course concepts and complex information in new, more meaningful ways.
For more information about the persona project, please see this article.
Spring 2019
Mon, March 25, 2019 | 3:30–4:30
Room K9509 (Mathematics & Statistics Seminar Room)
PANELISTS: Malgorzata Dubiel, Department of Mathematics, Sarah Johnson, Department of Physics, Nicky Didicher, Department of English and Atousa Hajshirmohammadi, School of Engineering Science, with Cindy Xin, Faculty of Education
In this panel, Malgorzata, Sarah, Nicky and Atousa—four university lecturers—will talk about their experiences with the university lecturer promotion process. They will share advice for others interested in pursuing this process, as well as answer questions.
Spring 2019
Mon, April 1, 2019 | 3:30–4:30
Room K9509 (Mathematics & Statistics Seminar Room)
Looking ahead
We warmly invite you to recommend additional readings, demonstrations and presentations to be included in future seminar series.