The 2023 CTLT Spring Institute will take place online and in-person May 29 – June 1, 2023. The CTLT Spring Institute focuses on purposeful innovation in teaching practices, educational research, student services, and learning technology to support student success and experiences. The Spring Institute also serves as a forum for members of the teaching and learning community to collaborate, network and engage in knowledge exchange.
Please see below for a detailed schedule and to register for sessions.
Schedule of Events (PDF)
Session materials and relevant resources will be curated on the UBC Wiki to support your ongoing learning.
Teaching and Learning in the Time of ChatGPT
May 29, 2023 | 9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. | Zoom
This panel presentation and discussion will provide an introduction to artificial intelligence tools and an overview of key issues they raise for teaching and learning at the university, including an overview of the technology and how it works, considerations for assessment and course design, principles for maintaining a culture of academic integrity, and introduction to relevant resources and procedures at UBC. Panel attendees will be invited to submit questions prior to and during the panel.
In-Person UBC Studios Open House and Tour
May 29, 2023 | 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | University Services Building, UBC Studios- Main Studio – Room 0110
Learn what UBC Studios is all about at our in-person Open House! Our team will introduce our professional services including video, animation, graphic design and 3D scanning, as well as our easy to use Do-It-Yourself support services, including workshops, DIY video and audio studios, and the Lightboard studio.
Students as Partners in Course Re-design: Reflections from Student, Faculty, and Staff Partners on Learning Through Partnership
May 29, 2023 | 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. | Zoom
In this panel session, which will highlight the voices of students, faculty, and staff who have been involved in funded UBC SaP course re-design projects, we will explore the individual and collective learning that has occurred through the process of working in partnership. Specifically, panelists will reflect on the concept of partnership, where students, faculty, and staff have “the opportunity to contribute equally, although not necessarily in the same ways, to curricular or pedagogical conceptualization, decision-making, implementation, investigation, or analysis” (Cook-Sather et al., 2014, pp. 6-7).
We will also encourage session registrants to share their experiences of working with undergraduate students in course redesign. Through this panel, participants will explore the impact of the partnerships on transforming teaching, curricular practices, student learning and educational development.
Exploring the Opportunities and Ethical Considerations of Generative AI in Teaching and Learning
May 29, 2023 | 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. | Zoom
In this hands-on session, we will explore various generative AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Bing, add more here), demonstrate how to write effective prompts and critically assess the content generated. We will discuss the capabilities and limitations of such tools, as well as some ethical considerations. Through the session, we will discuss the application or barriers of Generative AI to various teaching contexts and disciplines, including brainstorming together ideas for designing activities and assessments for your own classrooms in an era of Generative AI.
Ungrading Student Presentations: Toward Some New Paradigms for Evaluating Student Speaking
May 30, 2023 | 9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. | Zoom
In this session, we will interrogate this agreement, asking: how can we teach and evaluate speaking equitably in ways that don’t disadvantage students who, for example, may have accents, public speaking anxieties, or non-normative dress or gesture?”
In this interactive workshop, we will share our research on equitable speaking pedagogies, including an introduction to our TLEF-funded web tool, the PASS. The focus of the hour will be on evaluating student speaking. Participants will reflect on the values and rubrics for evaluating speaking in their discipline. Adapting methods from research on “ungrading,” we will explore alternative methods of evaluation that move us away from “white habits of judgement” (Inoue 2019) or the biases of our disciplines and make space for students to practice speaking equitably in our classrooms.
Impact of Multi-Access Delivery on Student Learning and Sense of Course Community
May 30, 2023 | 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | Zoom
In this session, findings will be shared from a study that investigated how multi-access delivery impacted student learning and sense of belonging to the course community in a large-enrollment undergraduate course with 200 students. The results of the study are highly promising and will hopefully encourage more educators to offer multi-access courses. Attendees will gain valuable insights into effective multi-access teaching strategies and how to promote a sense of community among virtual and in-person students.
Learn to Create Interactive Computational Learning Experiences with Jupyter!
May 30, 2023 | 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. | Zoom
In this 90-minute workshop, we will introduce you to the Jupyter framework for creating experiential computational learning experiences. These experiences can range from very simple (for students with little familiarity with computer or programming) to highly complex (for advanced students), to meet your pedagogical needs. Using the OpenJupyter system here at UBC, we will guide you through the process of creating a short notebook, using R, suitable for classroom instruction. We will also discuss ways to share your work with others, and distribute the notebooks to students.
Some familiarity with basic programming is necessary if you intend to make notebooks yourself, but this workshop may also be of interest if you are thinking of hiring RAs to support pedagogical renewal; in our experience, undergraduate RAs make excellent notebook authors!
How can we Equitably Support Students Access, Engagement and Expectations, Across Hybrid and Multi-access Modalities?
May 30, 2023 | 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. | Multi-access
Join us for a collaborative workshop designed to explore hybrid and multi-access learning in diverse teaching contexts. This interactive session will focus on fostering equitable access and engagement in these learning modalities while acknowledging the creativity often needed to navigate these complex environments.
Throughout the session, participants will exchange successful and unsuccessful practices and discuss the practicality of implementing these strategies in their distinct classroom settings. Attendees should come prepared to learn from their peers’ experiences and contribute to the growing body of knowledge in this domain.
Following the main event, Learning Designers will be available for one-on-one consultations to address your specific course or learning activities.
This workshop is the third in a series of three community-focused sessions that engage UBC teaching community members in discussions on hybrid and multi-access classrooms. Wicked Questions and other Liberating Structures will be employed during this session.
Increasing the Accessibility of Video
May 30, 2023 | 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | Online
How to make video more accessible? Captions, ASL, descriptive video…. it can be overwhelming. During this presentation, Educational Media Producer Michael Sider from UBC Studios will reveal solutions from free and do-it-yourself to professional. You’ll find practical tips, guidance and best practices for reaching a variety of communities that experience barriers with video.
New and Creative Ways to Embed Climate and Sustainability in your Class: Approaches from Five Faculties at UBC
May 31, 2023 | 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. | Zoom
A growing number of UBC faculty from across disciplines are incorporating sustainability and climate change content into their courses and programs. Participants in this session will hear from faculty members from Applied Science, Arts, Education, Medicine, and Science who have first-hand experience in developing innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to sustainability and climate education with support from the Sustainability Hub.
How do Instructors Design Experiential Education Activities in Large, First Year Courses in the Faculty of Arts?
May 31, 2023 | 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. | Zoom
This interactive panel brings together faculty members who have strong evidence-based beliefs in the teaching and learning outcomes that are possible through high quality experiential education (EE) in the classroom. Instructors from departments across the Faculty of Arts will share how they approach and design EE activities in their first year and/or large courses. In particular, these faculty will share their motivations for doing this work, as well as strategies, resources, barriers, and successes. The session will include a review of findings from interviews conducted with UBC Arts instructors involved in experiential education in 2022 (funded through UBC’s Advancing Education Renewal Fund).
From Theory to Practice: Streamlining Flexible Assessment with Canvas
May 31, 2023 | 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | Zoom
Are you tired of the traditional approach to grading, where instructors decide how much each assignment or exam is worth? Do you want to empower your students to take charge of their own learning by giving them control over how their grades are weighted? In this session, we will introduce a new Canvas app created by the Faculty of Land & Food Systems Learning Centre that streamlines the process of implementing flexible assessment in your courses.
We will begin by exploring the theory behind flexible assessment, how it benefits students, and why it makes sense to use this approach. We will then show you how the app works, and demonstrate how easy it is to set up and use in your courses. With this app, your students can decide which assessments they want to prioritize, and how much each one is worth. After grading is done, the app will also recalculate students’ grades based on their choices.
By the end of this session, you’ll have a clear understanding of how flexible assessment can improve student engagement and performance, and how the Canvas app can streamline the process for you as an instructor. Join us to consider how adopting a flexible assessment approach could promote a more personalized learning experience for your students.
Student Experience of Instruction: How to Interpret the Stats in Instructor Reports
June 1, 2023 | 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | Zoom
Student Experience of Instruction (SEI) quantitative data consists of responses on a Likert-type scale (most commonly a 5 or 7-point scale). For many years, the mean (average) and standard deviation were used to summarize and present quantitative data in instructor reports. However, more recently, UBC began using different metrics to report student experience of instruction survey results. The reported metrics include: the interpolated median, percent favorable and measure of dispersion suitable for ordinal data.
This session will introduce the new SEI metrics. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss, in small groups, how to interpret stats in instructor reports.
Conscious Learning and Academic Integrity: Designing Reflective Paths towards Student Learning
June 1, 2023 | 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. | In-person
This 60-minute workshop will address some of the concerns raised by instructors about the effect of ChatGPT and similar AI platforms on academic integrity and deep learning. I propose that by designing a course with regular self-reflection about learning processes, as well as collaborative and responsive exercises between students, we can guide students towards becoming more conscious, active learners who become more invested in their learning processes, and more accountable to themselves for their own learning.
In this workshop, I hope to share the techniques that have been successful for me to replace students’ opportunity to use others’ work and others’ voices, with their own work and voices, and to help students recognize their own strengths. Collaborative exercises will allow attendees to identify, discuss and address practical tools to respond to potential problems of academic integrity and deep learning in their courses.
This workshop will be relevant to instructors across primarily undergraduate levels, but also entrance-level graduate levels, with all modes of instructional delivery. The tools offered here will be adaptable across disciplines. The Learning Outcomes of this workshop will allow attendees will to take away some adaptable templates for course design, as well as some student writing prompts, quizzes and exercises that incorporate the techniques discussed in this workshop.