Lecturer in the Department of Political Studies, Dr. Martin Gaal, shares about his COIL experience in a recently produced testimonial video. COIL is a framework of teaching and learning that promotes intercultural opportunities through a short-term virtual exchange program. It…
It’s been a while since I wrote a conversational blog post – in a pre-pandemic world, more of our content on this site was first-person and took the tone of a friendly colleague. In the pandemic context, our blog quickly…
In the story of Goldilocks, the main character tries bowls of porridge that are too hot and too cold. Finally, Goldilocks settles on a porridge that is just the right temperature. Figuring out the right, or adequate, amount of work…
In a COIL project, an instructor from the University of Saskatchewan (USask) works with a partner instructor at another institution teaching a similar course and class size. Together, the instructors design a course-based project or experience of approximately one month…
Orange Shirt Day began as a result of a residential school commemoration event held in Williams Lake, BC in the spring of 2013. It grew out of Phyllis Webstad’s story of having her shiny new orange shirt being taken away…
While we do recommend designing your course for mostly asynchronous learning, and we definitely recommend being explicit and overt about netiquette from the start of the semester, we understand that some of your course will be conducted over live, synchronous…
You may have had guest speakers or guest lecturers into your class before. Typically, they brought their own material, spoke live to your class, and answered any questions before they left. You, as the instructor, were not responsible for recording…
When we move to remote teaching, we need to consider how we will continue to provide students with student-instructor interaction. One way of offering this is through office hours. While we used to offer office hours outside of lecture or…
Technology is excellent at allowing us to work remotely, but it can be more challenging for building community or keeping a community strong. Technology’s strength is for communication and is not as robust for building connection, especially with larger groups.…
Field work is important to your course because it provides a way for students to meet experiential outcomes, build a professional identity, feel engaged in their learning, and can help students retain knowledge and understanding. Some programs may rely on…
Download: Planning for Modules with Labs Lab experiences are often rich, hands-on elements of courses that build on learning outcomes from lectures or achieve a different set of outcomes. There are typically three key buildings blocks to any lab experience.…
DOWNLOAD: Planning for Modules Excel Template LINK: Module Checklist Take a look at your course syllabus. What do you want learners to be able to do by the end of the course? Review your learning outcomes and consider these questions:…
In an online remote context, virtual learning communities (VLCs) allow us to plan for: Interaction Communication Collaboration This video highlights some of the reasons we might want to develop rich VLCs in remote teaching. Below are some strategies framed from…
Let’s boil this down. What’s most important for us to rethink as we use our precious hours to redesign our courses for remote learning? Work with a colleague, friend, or student to talk through your answers after you fill this…
How do you breakdown a course outcome into manageable sections, or chunks, of information or action for students? What do students need to be able to do with automaticity before they can meet this learning outcome? Here is a template…