February 2011

Unless otherwise indicated, sessions occur in the Learning and Teaching Centre (LTC) Classroom in the Harry Hickman Building (HHB), Room 128.

If the register buttons are not working, please contact us by email.

For a copy of the February 2011 broadcast email, please click here.

Teaching Squares
It seems a strange thing to feel, but teaching can be a lonely endeavour. Sure, you can build a cameraderie with your students centred around the content of your classes, but it may not be so easy to share ideas of teaching with them. Teaching Squares is a concept created by Anne Wessely of St. Louis Community College. A group of four people (it can also be three people in a triangle) who are teaching in different disciplines agree to sit in on each other's classes as a non-participating observer. Each Teaching Squares member visits one class per week and is visited once by another. After all visits have been completed, the group reconvene to discuss what they discovered about their own teaching.

Charting Feasible Paths to Sustainable Energy Systems: an introduction to the Institute for Integrated Energy Systems (IESVic) [Community-Based and Community-Engaged Research (CBR/CER) Workshop Series]
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
12:30 PM ~ 2:00 PM, Business and Economics Building Computer Lab, Room 180
Facilitators:Dr. Peter Wild and Dr. Ned Djilali, IESVic, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
One of the greatest challenges facing humanity today is finding access to safe, clean and sustainable energy. Around the world, researchers, policymakers and investors struggle with sustainable energy questions. What energy sources are available? How can they be used? How might this affect the environment or the economy?

The Institute for Integrated Energy Systems at the University of Victoria (IESVic) is unique in its big-picture approach to sustainable energy research. Collaboration between mechanical engineers, economists and environmental scientists is the norm rather than the exception. Students get hands-on experience, examining entire sustainable energy systems – from harnessing, storing and converting energy sources to delivering end-user services. And when they encounter barriers to sustainable energy's widespread adoption, they develop technologies and expertise to overcome them. This passion and determination has made IESVic a go-to source of expertise for industry leaders.

To learn more, join the current and former Directors of IESVic for a hands-on, introductory exercise on designing a solar PV project. Please note the location: Business and Economics Building Computer Lab, Room 180.

Dr. Peter Wild is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Professional Engineer, Executive Director of IESVic and holder of the NSERC Chair in Sustainable Energy Systems Design at the University of Victoria. Dr. Wild earned a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from UBC (1983) and a PhD from UVic (1994). Prior to undertaking his graduate work, Dr. Wild worked for six years in industry as a mechanical design engineer. From 1996 through 2002, Dr. Wild was a member of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Queen’s University where his research focused on industry-based design problems. In 2003, he moved to UVic where he has developed an active research program in the design of sustainable energy systems.

Dr. Ned Djilali is a Professor with the Department of Mechanical Engineering and holds the Canada Research Chair in Energy Systems Design and Modelling. He has served as Director of IESVic and as Interim Director of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions.Prior to joining UVic in 1991, he was an Aerodynamicist with the Canadair Aerospace Division, Bombardier Inc., in Montreal. At UVic he has taught and developed research programs in thermofluids, computational fluid dynamics, transport phenomena, fuel cells and energy systems. His current research interests center around fuel cell technology and sustainable energy systems. The work combines experiments, theoretical modelling and numerical simulations of a variety of transport phenomena (fluid, flow, heat and mass transfer, charged species transport) using laser diagnostics, computational fluid dynamics and other simulation tools.

For more information on IESVic please see: http://www.iesvic.uvic.ca/index.php
CBR/CER Workshop Series

Do I Have to Write it for You? [Critical Incidents Series]
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
6:00 PM ~ 7:30 PM, HHB128
Facilitator: Lorraine Dame, Department of Mathematics & Statistics
A dependent student is meeting with a professor to get advice on how to complete an essay assignment. The vignette raises questions about the amount of help that should be extended to students and the ways that people can be helped to achieve higher levels of conceptual reasoning.
Critical Incidents Series

Community of Practice
Monday, February 7, 2011
1:00 PM ~ 3:00 PM, HHB128
Facilitators: Janet Sheppard, Counselling Services and Jonathan Morris, School of Child & Youth Care, Coordinator of Healthy Minds/Healthy Campuses
A community of practice is a self-governed learning partnership among people who:

• Share challenges, passion or interest;
• Interact regularly; and
• Learn from and with each other to improve their ability to do what they care about (Wenger, 2010)
  

Communities of practice are forming in many different settings, locales and forms. Can this learning model become a useful form of social learning for Instructors in higher education? The workshop will introduce you to some key processes, engage you in activities to help you explore the nexus of learning and practice, and give you examples of one thriving, post-secondary-based community of practice.

An Approach to Successful Collaborative Learning [TA ProD]
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
1:45 PM ~ 3:15 PM, HHB 128
Facilitator: Catherine Nutting, Department of History in Art
Managing groups in classroom settings can be quite challenging. Therefore the more strategies in our teaching repertoires, the more confident we will be to include group work in either small or large classes. One successful strategy is the jigsaw activity. Following an info-sharing session in which participants talk about group management techniques that have worked well, this workshop will introduce participants to the jigsaw approach through participation in an actual jigsaw activity.
TA/Graduate Student Workshops

Petulant and Persistent [Critical Incidents Series]
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
6:00 PM ~  7:30 PM, HHB128
Facilitator: Jennifer Lindquist, Department of Mathematics & Statistics
A petulant and persistent student is complaining to a professor about a grade that she has been given for an assignment in his course. The professor becomes quite defensive and this encourages participants to identify some of the do's and don'ts in dealing with complaints about assigned grades.
Critical Incidents Series

Developing Your Teaching Dossier Workshop [Teaching Assessment Series]
Thursday, February 10, 2011
1:00 PM ~ 3:00 PM, HHB 128
Facilitator: Dr. Marty Wall, Department of Psychology, and the Learning and Teaching Centre
Developing your teaching dossier is the most effective way to document your teaching for reappointment, tenure and promotion, as well as for winning awards. The most important part of the dossier is the narrative statement that guides the reader through the supporting documentary evidence. This workshop will discuss the role of the teaching dossier in the assessment process at UVic, assist you in developing your narrative, and outline an effective structure for organizing your material. The workshop is also useful for graduate students who plan to apply for teaching jobs!
Open to all those who are involved, or plan to be involved, in instruction.
Teaching Assessment Series

UVic Teaching Awards Celebration
Thursday, February 10, 2011 [Hosted reception]
4:30 PM University Club
Co-presented by the UVic Alumni Association, the Faculty of Graduate Studies and the Learning & Teaching Centre
UVic celebrates teaching excellence in many ways, one of which is an annual event to recognize teaching award recipients across the university and beyond. Please join us to show appreciation of those who have been identified as exemplars of UVic's commitment to teaching and student success in 2010, including presentation of the Gilian Sherwin Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Andy Farquharson Teaching Assistant Awards.
Alumni Week

Speakers' Club! - The use and benefits of using waitlist information for managing surgical wait list through a demonstration of a provincial Surgical Registry's Data Mart
Speaker: Erdem Yazganoglu, School of Health Information Science
Come and practice your talk, seminar, defense or conference presentation in a safe, friendly environment!
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
4:00 PM ~ 5:30 PM, HHB 116
Facilitator: Sohad Kadhum, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Coordinator: Dr. Jane Gair, Division of Medical Sciences and the Learning and Teaching Centre
At the suggestion of some past Presentation Skills Workshop (PSW) participants, we have started up a Speakers' Club where anyone can come to practice a talk, receive some suggestions, advice and feedback or just come to listen and get some ideas for your next talk or presentation. After the PSW, where else can you get the practice (that does make perfect!) and the feedback from friendly colleagues?

Monthly events will/have been held on the following Tuesdays from January 2011 to May 2011:
January 25, February 15, March 29, April 26 and May 31, 2011

Expect-to-see, Like-to-see, and Love-to-see Learning Outcomes [Student Learning Series]
Wednesday, February 16, 2011, 10:00 AM ~ 11:30 AM, HHB 128
and Monday, February 21, 2011, 1:00 PM ~ 2:30 PM, HHB 128
and Tuesday, April 12, 2011 1:00 PM-2:30 PM
Facilitator: Dr. Joe Parsons, Learning and Teaching Centre
General Workshop Learning Outcomes:
Expect-to-see: Participants will describe and discriminate the “core features” of successful learning outcomes.
Like-to-see: Participants will define a set of six useable learning outcomes that apply the “core features” to their discipline.
Love-to-see: Participants will take their in-workshop learning and successfully apply it to their own course(s).
This interactive workshop involves two 80-min sessions (and a little bit of between-session homework). Participants are encouraged to attend both parts of the workshop.
Student Learning Series Information

Social Determinants of Health: Mapping Our Way to Healthy Communities [Community-Based and Community-Engaged Research (CBR/CER) Workshop Series]
Wednesday, February 16, 2011 [Light lunch provided]
12:30 PM ~ 2:00 PM, HHB 128
Facilitators: Aleck Ostry, Department of Geography; Peter Keller, Department of Geography; Maeve Lydon, Office of Community-Based Research; Ken Josephson, Department of Geography; and Inba Kehoe, UVic Library
Concerns about the links between diet, nutrition, the environment and health have waxed and waned over the past five decades. Recently, however, prominent health issues (ranging from issues of food safety, bird flu and “mad cow” disease to obesity and food security) have engaged the public and policy makers’ attention. At UVic, the Office of Community Based Research and faculty within the Geography Department have taken an active role in exploring some of these health-related issues through the use of mapping as a primary tool for knowledge mobilization and community engagement.
To learn more about this work to date, join us for a lunchtime conversation with key scholars and practitioners in the field.

Facilitators: Aleck Ostry is a Professor in Geography, Canada Research Chair, and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (MSFHR) Scholar. With Master's degrees in History and Health Services Planning, and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology, his approach to research and policy is highly inter-disciplinary. He has a long-standing research interest in the workplace determinants of health. He has recently developed a program of research on public health nutrition and food security, in which he works with national research organizations, regional health authorities, other government agencies, and several students on issues of nutrition policy and food security. One of his research projects focuses on the use of data to map local food production capacity in relation to local demand for food across communities in British Columbia.

Peter Keller is a professor in Geography and the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. His research and teaching focus on geographic information. He is interested in how geographic information is used and managed by society and how geographic information can be manipulated and analyzed to help solve real world problems. His interests bridge the different cognate areas of Geomatics, most notably cartography, GIS, spatial analysis and management sciences. Of note is his research involving measuring health in relation to environment and his role as a PI with Population Data BC - a BC Population Health Data Access and Analysis platform that focuses on how health data can be made more accessible to qualified researchers. He has applied these interests in Health and Geography to the development of interactive, electronic Health Atlases. These atlases have used Canadian Health Survey Wellness indicators and socio-economic census variables to explore and map regional and socio-economic variations in wellness and design community information systems. 

Maeve Lydon is the Associate Director of UVic’s Office of Community Based Research (OCBR). She has worked with local and national NGOs for 25 years in the areas of human rights, community development, participatory learning, and sustainability. In Victoria, she co-founded groups including the Common Ground Community Mapping project, and managed the GroundWorks Learning Centre which creates learning resources and services focused on food security, community mapping, planning and youth agri-food enterprise development. In addition, Maeve has been on the board of the Environmental Law Centre for over 10 years and, before joining the OCBR, was a sessional instructor with the School of Environmental Studies at UVic.

Ken Josephson is an accomplished cartographer and graphic artist in UVic’s Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Geography. Participatory design, community engagement and mapping have been his primary focus for the last 8 years.  Green mapping, visioning, and community art engagement are his current passions. Last year he taught a CBR Skill Building workshop on Using Accessible Innovative Tools for Community Mapping: Re-Presenting Knowledge about Place and People using Creative and Open-Source Mapping Processes and Map Products.

Inba Kehoe is the Copyright Officer and Scholarly Communications librarian at UVic.  A librarian since 1994 and former British Columbia Library Association President, she has worked as a liaison librarian to the Faculty of Business, School of Public Administration and the Economics Department. She has also held the position of Government Publications & Data Librarian, as well as Information Literacy Coordinator.  As liaison to the Office of Community Based Research, she looks for partnership opportunities to improve and extend the research, teaching and learning mandate of the university to communities by facilitating access to university research and/or digital files. 
CBR/CER Workshop Series

How to Encourage Preparedness through Reading [TA ProD]
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
2:00 PM ~ 3:30 PM, HHB 128
Facilitator: Catherine Nutting, Department of History in Art
How many times have you come to class hoping that students had done the required readings, only to be faced with silence on the part of your students? Unfortunately, students are not always as prepared for class as we would like. Please come to the workshop prepared to share your wisdom on how to encourage students to do assigned readings. What has worked for you? In this workshop, we hope to address how to get students to prepare for class/lab/tutorial, and how to encourage reading at a deeper level.
TA/Graduate Student Workshops

Student Success or Faculty Sanction [Critical Incidents Series]
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
6:00 PM ~  7:30 PM, HHB128
Facilitator: Lynda Cameron, Department of Pacific & Asian Studies
An instructor is warned by the Chair of his department about what she regards as the excessively high grades achieved by his students. It emerges that this professor is using a mastery-learning approach which permits students to repeatedly submit work until it reaches the required criteria. This stimulates a wide discussion of grading practices and policies.
Critical Incidents Series
THIS WORKSHOP HAS BEEN CANCELLED.

Preparing a Great Syllabus [Teaching Tips Series #6]
Thursday, February 17, 2011
1:00 PM ~ 3:00 PM, HHB 128
Facilitator: Professor Marty Wall, Department of Psychology and the Learning and Teaching Centre
The syllabus is a document that most instructors regard as a formal contract with students, outlining basic information about the course and penalties for violating rules of participation. But such a version misses other potential uses, including the opportunity to communicate important and subtle information about you and the course that will engage your students right from the start and will reinforce the impact you should be creating in your first meeting with students. We will discuss this more expanded view of the functions of a syllabus. Please bring with you a copy of your current syllabus.
Teaching Tips Series Information

Administering the Course Experience Survey (CES) for Multiple Instructors [Teaching Assessment Series]
Friday, February 18, 2011
9:30 AM ~ 10:45 AM, HHB 128 (PLEASE NOTE NEW TIME)
Facilitators: Mary Sanseverino, Acting Director; Carolyn Boss, Program Coordinator and Assistant to the Director, Learning and Teaching Centre; and Bob Riley, Computing Services
This workshop will focus on administering the CES for multiple instructors in one course. This is the first of many workshops that the Learning and Teaching Centre will be offering. If you have any specific issues that you would like us to focus on in a workshop, please contact Carolyn Boss at the LTC.
Teaching Assessment Series

The Perfectionist Writer (for Graduate Students) [TWC Workshop]
Friday, February 18, 2011
1:00 PM~ 2:30 PM, HHB 128
Facilitator: Dr. Joe Parsons, Teaching Consultant, The Learning and Teaching Centre, formerly with Counselling Services
This workshop is designed for graduate students, particularly those in their thesis/dissertation writing stage. Some graduate students struggle with perfectionism, writer’s block and procrastination. In this workshop, facilitated by , you will learn about perfectionism and what you can do to overcome it. Registration is limited to 16 participants, so sign up early!
TWC Workshop Information

What Every Instructor Should Know About Student Mental Issues [First Year Course Instructors Community (FYCIC) Series]
Thursday, February 24, 2011
10:30 AM ~ 12:00 PM, HHB 128
Facilitators:Dr. Rita Knodel, Manager, Counselling Services; Dr. Joe Parsons, Teaching Consultant, Learning and Teaching Centre; and Dr. Judy Burgess, Director, UVic Health Services
Student mental health concerns are on the rise on campuses across North America. Faculty and staff are often in a position to identify students who are in difficulty. Recognizing the signs of emotional distress and responding with interest and concern may be critical factors in helping students resolve the problems that are interfering with their academic achievement. Data collected by Counselling Services will be presented summarizing trends in UVic student mental health concerns over the past 25 years. This presentation will also provide information on how to identify students in distress and how to address their concerns. Services that are available on campus as well as information on how to make appropriate referrals will be discussed. Please bring your questions because there will be ample opportunity for discussion.
First Year Course Instructors Community (FYCIC) Series

Presentation Skills Workshop (PSW)
Participants must attend all three days, HHB 128
Thursday, February 24, 2011, 5:00 PM ~ 8:00 PM
Saturday, February 26, 2011, 9:00 AM ~ 4:00 PM
Saturday, March 5, 2011, 9:00 AM ~ 4:00 PM
PSW Coordinator: Dr. Jane Gair, Teaching Consultant, Learning and Teaching Centre and Senior Instructor, Division of Medical Sciences.
Facilitators: Sohad Kadhum and Adel Younis, Department of Mechanical Engineering
This workshop is designed to facilitate participants in giving an effective presentation in an academic environment. Each participant will give two 10-minute presentations designed for different contexts. All participants will receive constructive oral and written feedback about their presentations from other participants. The PSW requires preparation outside of the workshop time. $60.00 registration deposit (refundable upon completion of the full program).

This workshop is open to all teachers or potential teachers currently affiliated with a department/school at UVic (including post docs, TAs and other grad students). Graduate students must be enrolled in a UVic graduate program. Special arrangements are also available for current instructors at Vancouver Island Educational Developers' Alliance (VIEDA) partner institutions. These include Royal Roads, Camosun College, Vancouver Island University and North Island College.

Please note: Your $60.00 deposit (cheque or cash) holds your place in this workshop and will be returned to you once you have completed the required days of this event. If you are unable to attend this workshop, you must let us know 10 working days prior to this event taking place in order to receive your deposit back. Deposits cannot be returned for no-shows or cancellations less than 10 days prior to the start of the event.
THIS WORKSHOP IS NOW FULL, BUT YOU MAY REGISTER AS USUAL AND HAVE YOUR NAME PUT ON THE WAITLIST. There is another one offered in May, but please check to ensure that it's what you are looking for.

Prezi - a New Format to Help Make Your Presentations More Dynamic! [TA ProD] [Instructional Technology (IT) Series]
Monday, February 28, 2011
1:00 PM ~ 3:00 PM, HHB 128
Facilitator: G. Reza Emad, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Do you get bored using PowerPoint? Are you looking for an attractive, dynamic, and easy to use alternative? If so, then this workshop is for you. In this session, a free online application called Prezi will be demonstrated. It is not just a presentation tool; it also provides an open canvas to develop and arrange your ideas.
Bring your laptop and your ideas and together we will begin to create a presentation in Prezi. The session will end with a discussion and demonstration about how to design and build an effective presentation.
TA/Graduate Student Workshops
Instructional Technology (IT) Series

March 2011 Events