Centre for Learning and Teaching

Events

The Virtual Maple League Teaching and Learning Centre

Connecting people from different disciplines and backgrounds — to create new communities and strengthen existing ones — is one of the foundational strengths of the Maple League.

2025

April 3: CLT Virtual Drop-in Series - Instructor Self-Development

Come to our Winter 2025 virtual drop-in sessions to create a personalized support experience. Your needs and interests guide the direction of the sessions! Ask a CLT Senior Educational Developer questions, bounce ideas off a sounding board, and hear what others are doing in the classroom. Join us online anytime during the two-hour window, and stay for as little or as much time as you would like! Registration is NOT required. 

Thursday, April 3
11 a.m.–1 p.m.
Online via Microsoft Teams

    • Meeting ID: 250 204 667 67
    • Passcode: Zi7Kp9hS  

Instructor Self-Development: e.g., instructor self-care and emotional labour, teaching dossiers, using SLEQ data to enhance your teaching, and debrief on your teaching experiences.

 

April 11: Engaging in Ethical SoTL

Friday, April 11
10–11:30 a.m.
Killam Library, Room 2622
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Practicing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) by conducting research in our classroom comes with a range of ethical considerations. These include those typical to research with human participants, but some additional and unique considerations apply when our own students are our research participants. Knowing how to appropriately apply an ethical lens to SoTL not only protects the learner, but also works to enhance the quality of your SoTL project. 

Join us for this workshop where we will cover: 

  • What to expect during the Research Ethics Board (REB) application process, 
  • Important ethical considerations during the SoTL Lifecycle, and 
  • Tips to help you with conducting ethical SoTL. 

Facilitator

Kate Thompson, Educational Developer (SoTL), Centre for Learning and Teaching, ±«Óătv University

April 15: Decolonizing Language & Methods in SoTL

Tuesday, April 15, 2025
3–4 p.m.
Hybrid: Microsoft Teams & Killam Library, Room B400
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Post-secondary education has been described as “a central site of ongoing colonialism” (Cote-Meek & Moeke-Pickering, 2020). SoTL is not immune to these colonial influences, as it often continues to perpetuate Eurocentric frameworks, methodologies, and ways of knowing. In this session, participants will be encouraged to critically consider the colonial connotations embedded in much of the language (e.g., expert, principal investigator, sample population) and conventional methods (e.g., interviews, surveys, and focus groups) commonly used in SoTL research. Decolonial research methods including Indigenous storywork, arts-based methods, and co-designed research processes will be discussed as possible alternative ways of doing SoTL research that can aid in creating space for marginalized voices, Indigenous ways of knowing, and community-based insights. 

Presenter

Rachelle McKay, Educational Developer – Indigenous Knowledges & Ways of Knowing

Intended Audience

  • Faculty
  • Staff
  • Graduate Students
  • Teaching Assistants
  • Open to all

April 22: Resilient Classroom Series: Gen Z in the Classroom

Tuesday, April 22, 2025
10–11 a.m.
Killam Library, B400 (basement)*

“If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.” – John Dewey, American education reformer 

Have you recently found yourself saying “Back in my day, students used to be like
” or “I just don’t understand students anymore!”? 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 “shaped by the advancement of technology, issues of violence, a volatile economy, and social justice movements” (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’s 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)

May 20: Beadwork as Pedagogy: Active-Learning Workshop

Tuesday, May 20
1–3 p.m.
Killam Library, Ko’jua Okuom (in-person)
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Building on the CLT session offered in Winter 2024 “Storytelling as Transformative Pedagogy”, 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, “beading was never understood by Indigenous peoples within the parameters of arts and crafts” (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 ±«Óătv student Ella Parsons. This experiential component aims to engage participants in the act of creating while deepening their understanding of beadwork’s 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 nÄ«hithāw (Woodland Cree)/settler, and is an avid beadwork artist. 

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

July 16: Serviceberry Teachings: Nurturing Gratitude and Reciprocity in Teaching and Learning

Wednesday, July 16
11 a.m.–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’s 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’s 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 – Indigenous Knowledges & Ways of Knowing

Doing SoTL: Analyzing Qualitative Data

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’ll 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’ll briefly discuss reliability coding principles in qualitative research.

Bring your own data, or use provided sample datasets for hands-on practice if you don’t have data prepared. 

Please bring a laptop computer with you to this workshop.

Facilitator

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

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Past CLT Events

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