The 2023 CTLT Summer Institute will take place online from August 21–25. These workshops will focus on the fundamentals of teaching and learning for new instructors and teaching assistants. The Summer Institute serves as a forum for new 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.
Connecting Power, Privilege, and Positionality to Teaching and Learning Contexts
August 21, 2023 | 9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. | Online
This session is designed to help educators start exploring anti-racism in teaching and learning by reflecting on key concepts such as power, privilege, and positionality, and understanding how these concepts manifest in various educational contexts. As participants engage in introspective reflection activities and small group discussions, they will learn about how their own identities impact their roles as educators and the learning environments to which they are connected. Participants can expect to explore and consider how their personal, place-based, and social identities influence their teaching pedagogy and their personal, professional and academic lives.
Resources to Support Building TA Training Programs to Support Equity, Inclusion, and Indigenous Engagement
August 21, 2023 | 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. | Online
TA Training and support at UBC aims to create inclusive and equitable classrooms, as well as to responsibly engage with Indigenous curriculum. Join staff and graduate student facilitators with the Classroom Climate and Equity and Inclusion TA Training project for a workshop where you will learn about some of the concepts covered and resources available for those supporting TA Training programs at UBC.
TA-Instructor Working Relationship (For TAs)
August 21, 2023 | 1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. | Online
As a Teaching Assistant, you will be working closely in different roles with an experienced instructor to teach. When this relationship goes well, it can be rewarding, educational, and fun. When it does not, it can be frustrating and overwhelming. In this session we will explore the various needs and expectations (including the TA contract) that structure the TA-Instructor relationship, develop effective communication strategies, including feedback and building professional interpersonal skills, all with the aim of helping you to build a harmonious and rewarding professional relationship with the instructors you work with.
Faculty-TA Relationship (For Faculty)
August 21, 2023 | 1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. | Online
Teaching Assistants (TA) play a significant role in students’ learning. They are often expected to teach in face-to-face classrooms, facilitate discussions, conduct tutorials and labs in-person and/or online, grade electronically submitted papers, and perform many other duties to assist instructors and inspire students. As instructors, we need to provide support and guidance so that TAs can perform their best. In this session, we will explore what instructors and students expect from their TAs, key elements of the TA contract, and how we can enhance the teaching and learning experiences of our TAs.
A Classroom Marketplace: Sharing and Integrating Wellbeing Practices
August 21, 2023 | 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. | Multi-access
This session will bring together a diverse panel of students, faculty, and staff, who are practicing, researching, and/or experiencing wellbeing in the classroom. Through facilitated discussion and sharing ideas, tips, and tools, this session provides an interactive environment for instructors to be inspired and to find opportunity within their own classes to incorporate wellbeing practices.
Learning Objectives to Foster Student Learning
August 22, 2023 | 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. | Online
In this session, we will explore the multiple benefits of using learning objectives, including the ways they help to foster student learning. We will present a low-fuss approach to writing learning objectives and you will get a chance to practice writing these for your own context. You will also explore learning taxonomies which are useful tools for writing effective objectives. This session will focus on learning objectives at the lesson-level (not the course-level or program-level), and is intended for instructors who are new to the topic.
Decolonizing Gender and Sexual Diversity
August 22, 2023 | 10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. | Online
This presentation will take a foundational look at the impacts of colonial erasure on gender and sexual diversity within Indigenous communities across Turtle Island and explore some of the radical healing and resurgence taking place amongst Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer kin. This session will be the first of Indigenous Initiatives’ new ongoing Two-Spirit Speaker Series.
What Do Students Think About my Course? (Find out early, find out often!)
August 22, 2023 | 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | In-person
How do we learn how students really feel about the courses we teach–before it’s too late? Gathering that information during our courses allows us to make changes as we go, instead of waiting for student experience surveys to apply our learning to future courses. Bringing both faculty member and educational developer skill sets along with decades of experience at UBC, the presenters will share options for collecting course feedback at midpoint and/or throughout your courses. You will learn strategies for how to tailor your students’ feedback to focus on what is most meaningful to your teaching and their learning: a teaching tool you’re trying for the first time, a new pedagogical approach, or a tried-and-true technique you’re thinking of retiring. In addition, you will learn how to collect information about what students liked, an approach that helps reduce their depression and anxiety and has ancillary benefits for faculty. You will leave this session with several additions to your classroom/online teaching tool kit, confidence in collecting feedback even from students who are “surveyed to death, and the alluring possibility of learning what students like best about the courses you design.
Building Authentic Assessment for Learning
August 22, 2023 | 1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. | In-person
Teaching online during the pandemic forced us to re-examine our assessment practices and re-imagine ways to assess students’ true ability in the real-world environment. In the past years, faculty members explored many authentic assessment methods to assess students remotely during Covid. In this session, we will revisit our existing assessment strategies, review the general principles for assessments, explore some authentic assessment examples used by colleagues across campus, share our own perceived challenges in the ‘new normal’, and learn tips from each other. What are the principles for assessment? What types of assessment are better for the ‘new normal’? We hope that you will walk away with a couple of new ideas on how to tweak your existing practices for teaching. Join us to explore authentic assessment examples and develop practical assessment strategies to foster learning community for your course. How should we introduce academic integrity? What technologies are available to support our assessment strategies?
Engaging Activities for Learners: Active Learning Techniques in the Classroom
August 23, 2023 | 9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. | In-person
Implementing active learning techniques into your classroom can deliver great results in increasing student engagement and motivation. This also involves minimal investment of your time! Join us for a fun and engaging workshop.
Intro to Lesson Planning
August 23, 2023 | 1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. | In-person
In this fundamental session, we will explore the four lesson basics, learning outcomes, active learning, assessment, and motivation and how to use these to plan well aligned student-centred classes. This session will provide a high level overview and important pointers with the goal for you to apply these in your lesson-planning. We encourage you to join one of our upcoming Instructional Skills Workshops to build upon your learning in this fundamental workshop.
Student Experience of Instruction
August 23, 2023 | 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. | Online
This workshop will introduce the new SEI metrics and demonstrate how they support instructors to make sense of the student feedback they receive. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss, in small groups, how to interpret these metrics in instructor reports. The workshop will also explore the ways in which these metrics can be used by teaching and learning specialists to inform conversations with both academic leaders and instructors interested in making sense of student feedback.
Increasing the Accessibility of Video
August 23, 2023 | 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | In-person
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.
Inclusive Teaching: Reflecting on Your Teaching Practice
August 24, 2023 | 9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. | Online
In this session, you will have an opportunity to deepen your awareness of your own teaching practice as it relates to inclusive teaching. You will be introduced to a variety of inclusive teaching strategies, and you will have the opportunity to consider which strategies might be helpful to adapt into your own context.
Can I Use This? Copyright Basics and Working with Open Educational Resources (OER)
August 24, 2023 | 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | Online
If you are preparing resources for your teaching, from PowerPoint slides to online modules, chances are you’ll want to incorporate readings, images, video clips, problem sets, or other materials from different sources. This session will focus on the pragmatic elements of reuse, the essentials of copyright, and the basics of working with open educational resources that are licensed to allow revision and reuse. Such openly-licensed resources can impact teaching and learning through contextualization, time savings, and lowering student access barriers such as costs. Please bring your questions and join us in exploring UBC’s Copyright and Fair-Dealing guidelines and how copyright intersects with effective teaching practices.
Celebrating Teaching Excellence: Preparing an Award Nomination Package
August 24, 2023 | 1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. | Online
Celebrating teaching excellence involves rewarding excellent instructors and educational leaders with high-level recognition, including through nominations for international, national, provincial, and UBC-based awards. The strategy for nominations, however, can be murky and present a barrier for people self-nominating or nominating others. To demystify nominations for these top-tier awards, The Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Technology invites you to join a panel of award recipients and learn about the nomination and application process for the 3M National Teaching Fellowships, the D2L Collaborative Innovation Award, the West Coast Excellence Award, and the Killam Teaching Prize.
Kickstart Your TLEF Proposal
August 24, 2023 | 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. | Online
The Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund (TLEF) was created in 1991 to enrich student learning by supporting innovative and effective educational enhancements. It is financed entirely by a portion of tuition paid by UBC Vancouver students. Each year, the Office of the Provost invites all UBC Vancouver Faculties and Colleges to apply for TLEF funding for initiatives that will improve student learning experiences at the university.
From Philosophy to Physics: The Inclusive Use of Writing for Student Learning and Assessment
August 25, 2023 | 9:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. | In-person
This workshop invites participants to reflect on the role of writing in their classrooms and to apply an inclusive lens to their writing activities and assessments. Workshop facilitators will share a set of values and strategies for inclusive writing instruction and assessment that can be applied across the disciplines. Participants will discuss the use of writing in their own teaching contexts (challenges, successes, concerns, questions) and reflect on how one of their current writing activities or assessments connects to the inclusive writing values provided.