Despite social distancing, COVID has bought us together in more ways than one to support each another in our teaching and learning.  Are you interested in where we go from here? If so, please join us to explore the idea of the “Dalhousie Academic Landscape” (DAL) and to offer your input about our future directions.  This session will begin with a short overview by former Provost Teri Balser and will highlight the many ways in which teaching and learning are supported and enhanced at Dalhousie. Participants will then have the opportunity to engage in two of five possible breakout sessions to discuss how we can best build community and support teachers and teaching at Dal.  Join us to learn more about how DAL works and how you can get involved.

Wednesday March 10, 11 a.m.—12:30 p.m.
Online via Teams Meetings
Register

Breakout sessions will include:

Exploring ideas for a cross-Dalhousie teaching community: A Dalhousie Teaching Academy?
Anne Marie Ryan (Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences)

Teaching Academies are common at top universities worldwide, and provide opportunity for cross-university peer-interaction and community focused on teaching and learning. If you have ever wished to connect with like-minded colleagues around teaching ideas, with whom you can share your teaching journey and develop a sense of belonging, join us for this session on building a Dalhousie Teaching Academy! Help define parameters for the Teaching Academy, and provide input into how such a community could best meet your hopes and needs, while providing a safe space to interact with faculty from within and beyond your own unit.

 

Building connections beyond Dal: Explore the LEARN/CIRTL North American network!
Angela Siegel (Faculty of Computer Science) & Erin Careless (College of Continuing Education)

CIRTL is a network of 38 universities across North America focused on the development of teaching and learning for grad students and faculty. Dalhousie is a new member of the network, and we are developing our programming as part of it. This session will provide an introduction to how CIRTL can help you advance teaching within your discipline, and how you can join a larger teaching and learning community across North American universities. You will also be invited to provide input about how a CIRTL “node” at Dal might best serve our faculty, staff, and students.

Teaching with technology: Using the tools available through Brightspace
Les Tyler Johnson (Centre for Learning and Teaching) and Michelle McDonald (Academic Technology Services, and Dalhousie Libraries)

The Brightspace LMS is a robust tool that supports teaching and learning, both through the platform itself and its integrated technologies, such as Panopto, Urkund, Collaborate, and more. In this session, facilitators will support you in your selection and use of the various tools available. Do you have a question about how to use a specific tool? Is there a specific activity or assessment you’d like to implement in your class and like to discuss what technology might help you bring it to life? Facilitators look forward to supporting these and related conversations on the suite of educational technology tools available at Dal.

A New Academic Web Portal: Building skills, careers, and community
Marlo MacKay (Dalhousie Libraries) and Suzanne Le-May Sheffield (Centre for Learning and Teaching)

In an effort to bring related but often discrete elements of Dalhousie’s academic landscape together, we’re creating a web portal based on the pillars of skill building, career building, and community building. This portal is meant to be the virtual place where instructors and faculty will find professional development and skill building opportunities, as well as opportunities to connect with colleagues both within and beyond Dalhousie. Join this breakout room and help us develop the content you’d like to see featured on the portal.

Elevating the Dalhousie graduate students and post-doctoral fellows experience: Your voice matters
Mabel Ho (Faculty of Graduate Studies) and Jill McSweeney-Flaherty (Centre for Learning and Teaching)

How can you make the most of your experiences at Dalhousie?  Join us in this session where we invite you to tell us about your experiences at Dalhousie, what would you like to see, and explore how we can work together to build community and opportunities across campus.