Events

Tuesday, April 22, 2025
10鈥�11 a.m.
Killam Library, Room 2622

鈥淚f we teach today鈥檚 students as we taught yesterday鈥檚, we rob them of tomorrow.鈥� 鈥� John Dewey, American education reformer 

Have you recently found yourself saying 鈥淏ack in my day, students used to be like鈥︹�� or 鈥淚 just don鈥檛 understand students anymore!鈥�? Generation Z is the largest cohort demographic on university campuses today. More than any other generation, this group of students has faced lightning-speed changes in society and technology, and have been heavily 鈥渟haped by the advancement of technology, issues of violence, a volatile economy, and social justice movements鈥� (Seemiller & Grace, 2017). As a part of the Resilient Classroom Series, this session will help you adapt your teaching to better align with Gen Z鈥檚 unique motivations, goals, skillsets, and social concerns. In this in-person session, you will learn:

• Common characteristics and learning preferences of Gen Z students.
• Strategies to adapt your course design and assessments to better support and teach Gen Z students.

To help you take what you learn from this session to your classroom, we will collectively brainstorm strategies to use in the Gen Z classroom. In addition, you will develop a preliminary plan for how you can adapt one student assessment or course design aspect to better suit your Gen Z students.

Presenter

Daniella Sieukaran, Senior Educational Developer (Curriculum)

Thursday, May 15
1-2:30 p.m.
In-person
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鈥淏urnout is what happens when you try to avoid being human for too long.鈥� 鈥� Michael Gungor, American songwriter

Along with healthcare workers, social workers, and corporate executives, university instructors are in the top ten professions most likely to experience burnout (Schaffner, 2023). In this in-person session, you will learn how to:

• Define burnout and describe how it manifests amongst instructors
• Identify the signs and symptoms of burnout in yourself and others
• Explain the factors that contribute to burnout in academia (e.g., career stage, systemic conditions)
• Use the four pillars of burnout resilience 鈥� purpose, compassion, connection, and balance (Pope-Ruark, 2022) 鈥� to better manage burnout
• Describe how an equity-minded lens can help address burnout in academia

We will collectively brainstorm actions that can be taken immediately to better prevent and mitigate the impacts of burnout, as well as first steps to chip away at systemic conditions that drive burnout in a university setting. You will use these ideas to begin developing a personalized care plan for addressing burnout.

Presenter

Daniella Sieukaran, MA (she/her)
Senior Educational Developer (Program Development)

Tuesday, May 20
1鈥�3 p.m.
Killam Library, Ko鈥檍ua Okuom (in-person)
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Building on the CLT session offered in Winter 2024 鈥淪torytelling as Transformative Pedagogy鈥�, this active-learning workshop engages Indigenous beadwork as a pedagogical tool and culturally relevant way of expressing knowledge in academia. 

As Anishinaabe scholar and beadwork artist Lana Ray (2016) explains, 鈥渂eading was never understood by Indigenous peoples within the parameters of arts and crafts鈥� (366), but rather as an integral form of knowledge. Beadwork embodies a worldview that challenges colonial and Western notions of knowledge production, while centering community and relationality within the learning process. 

Drawing on post-secondary examples of beadwork learning from mathematics, the social sciences, and law, the first 45 minutes of this session will take the form of a presentation that conceptualizes beadwork as relational pedagogy, illustrating its capacity to challenge traditional power structures in education and to offer an embodied, culturally relevant approach to teaching and learning. 

The remainder of the session will be devoted to hands-on learning, where attendees will participate in a beginner beading lesson led by Indigenous beadwork artist and 鲍鱼tv student Ella Parsons. This experiential component aims to engage participants in the act of creating while deepening their understanding of beadwork鈥檚 potential to shape knowledge, relationships, and transformative educational practices. 

All necessary supplies will be provided.

Facilitators

Ella Parsons (she/they) is an upper-year undergraduate student majoring in psychology with a double minor in Indigenous studies and gender and women's studies. She is mixed n墨hith膩w (Woodland Cree)/settler, and is an avid beadwork artist.鈥�

Rachelle McKay (she/her) is the Centre鈥檚 Educational Developer, Indigenous Knowledges and Ways of Knowing and uses beadwork as a pedagogical tool when teaching INDG 3050: Indigenous Research Methods. 

A series of sessions to help you prepare a teaching dossier, and to get a view into processes entailed in tenure, reappointment and promotion. 

The teaching dossier (or portfolio) is widely used by faculty members and instructors to document their teaching experiences and to provide evidence of the quality of their teaching practice. Teaching dossiers and teaching philosophies are increasingly required for faculty and teaching positions at many institutions. At 鲍鱼tv, candidates for faculty appointments, re-appointment, tenure, or promotion are usually required to submit a teaching dossier as part of the application process.

Learn more about this event and how to register. 

The CLT warmly invites members of the teaching and learning communities of 鲍鱼tv, The University of King鈥檚 College, Halifax, and beyond, to join us in our third annual Transformative Pedagogies retreat.

Our theme this year is Access to Learning: Multifocal Approaches to Accessibility.

Students experience barriers to learning for many reasons and in particular, students of equity-denied groups. This includes, for example, Indigenous, Black, racialized, 2SLGBTQ+++, those with disabilities, and/or non-Christian communities. And many students are from two or more communities, compounding the barriers to, and inequities in, their education.  For this reason, conversations and teaching practices centering 鈥渁ccessibility鈥� must attend to the whole student and to cultivate learning environments wherein all members contribute to accessible, equitable, and socially just education.

Each year, the Transformative Pedagogies Retreat provides an unhurried space for folk to learn, converse, reflect, integrate, and connect with others who share a passion for transformational education. Continuing with this tradition, we are looking forward to having robust and thoughtful discussions and reflections, as the members of the teaching and learning community come together.

Wednesday, July 16
11 a.m.鈥�12 p.m.
In-Person, Department of Biology Outdoor Learning Space
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Join us for an enriching outdoor discussion that delves into the practices of gratitude, reciprocity, and the generosity of nature as we explore how the gift economy thinking can offer meaningful insights into fostering more inclusive and relational approaches to teaching and learning. 

Drawing from the inspiring work of Robin Wall Kimmerer (Potawatomi Nation), we will reflect on her vision of abundance and interconnectedness both in the natural world and human relationships. We highly recommend attendees read Robin Wall Kimmerer鈥檚 The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World (2024)  or listen to (link opens in new window) in preparation for this session.

Through this session, we aim to explore how principles of reciprocity and gratitude can be meaningfully translated into teaching and learning contexts. How can we nurture environments that encourage generosity, mindfulness, and interconnection, both in educational spaces and beyond? What lessons can we learn from nature鈥檚 abundance, and how might we apply those lessons to our own practices of teaching and learning?

We invite all participants to join in an open and reflective discussion, sharing ideas, experiences, and insights that may help us collectively imagine more generous and sustainable ways of living and learning.

Facilitators

Suzanne Le-May Sheffield, Director Centre for Learning and Teaching
Rachelle McKay, Educational Developer 鈥� Indigenous Knowledges & Ways of Knowing

Details to be confirmed.

The aim of this hands-on, in-person workshop is to introduce key techniques in qualitative data coding and analysis using NVivo software and/or Excel. Participants will gain essential tools to organize, code, and draw meaningful insights from their qualitative data. During the session, you鈥檒l learn how to prepare your data and explore foundational coding techniques, such as in-vivo and thematic coding, to categorize and understand your data more deeply. Through interactive exercises, participants will identify themes and patterns and create a codebook that enhances clarity and consistency throughout the coding process. Additionally, we鈥檒l briefly discuss reliability coding principles in qualitative research.

Bring your own data, or use provided sample datasets for hands-on practice if you don鈥檛 have data prepared.鈥�

Please bring a laptop computer with you to this workshop.

Facilitator

Dr. Nasim Tavassoli 鈥� Educational Developer (Student Development) with the CLT鈥�