Winter 2009 CTL Newsletter

From the Director 1

Reflections of a Former Teaching Chair 3

E2QUATE: Enabling Educators at Queen’s to Pursue Active Teaching Strategies and Promote Excellence 5

Bill Newstead, Recipient of the 2008 Chancellor A. Charles Baillie Teaching Award 6

2008 Teaching Awards Reception 7

Keys to the Tower: Why MentoringMatters 10

Teaching and Learning Enhancement Grants 12

Community Service Learning Grants 15

Going Public: From Local to International Participation in the Scholarship of Teaching andLearning 15

STLHE: Discussing Teaching andLearning with Canadian Colleagues 16

EOSET: An Opportunity for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning with Technology 18

CASTL: Supporting the Scholarship of Teaching and learning 19

Conference of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 20

ICED 2008: Towards a Global Scholarship of Educational Development 21

Upcoming Conferences 23

Resource Corner 24

Teaching and Learning at Queen’s

A publication of the Centre for Teaching and Learning Winter 2009

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From the DirectorIn this Issue

This issue of “Teaching and Learning at Queen’s” highlights

the activities of several members of our Queen’s community who are engaged in the scholarship of teaching and learning.

In the first section, we focus on the innovative practices of professors who have been recognized for their excellence in teaching. In the lead article, the inaugural Queen’s University Chair in Teaching and Learning, Dr Leo Jonker, reflects on his three-year tenure, from 2005 to 2008, describing his use of community service learning

pedagogy to promote student learning. He identifies some of the challenges in trying to foster reflective, innovative, and effective teaching practice at a research-intensive university like Queen’s and makes several recommendations for addressing such challenges. Dr Lindsay Davidson, the 2008 Queen’s University Chair in Teaching and Learning, describes an exciting project that she will lead during her three-year term as Chair. The E2QUATE project seeks to facilitate and increase the use of active teaching strategies across the University. The third article in this section describes the outstanding teaching practices of Professor Bill Newstead, the recipient of the 2008 Chancellor A. Charles Baillie Teaching Award which recognizes undergraduate or graduate teaching that has had an outstanding influence on the quality of student learning at Queen’s University. The final

Teaching and Learning at Queen’s Winter 2009

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Joy Mighty is Director of the Centre for Teaching and Learning, and is cross-appointed as Professor to the School of Business.

piece in this section provides highlights from the 2008 Teaching Awards reception, an event hosted by Principal Tom Williams to recognize and honour all the faculty members and teaching assistants who received awards in the 2007-2008 academic year for their outstanding teaching.

In the second section, we hear from Leslie Doucet, a graduate student who reflects on the value and importance of faculty mentoring in making the academy more welcoming and accessible to students, particularly those whose social identities as minorities may impede their academic and social success at university.

The third section presents specific examples of the scholarship of teaching and learning at Queen’s. It summarizes the projects that were awarded CTL Teaching and Learning Enhancement Grants in 2008. These grants are usually awarded annually to individuals or groups to allow them to explore innovative strategies for enhancing student learning. In keeping with the principles underlying the scholarship of teaching and learning, the successful projects are typically made public so that others may benefit from the results.

The final section highlights some of the conferences and other scholarly activities on

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teaching and learning in which members of the Queen’s community participated in 2008. These events included regional symposia, national conferences and international networks that provided opportunities for faculty as well as CTL educational developers to share their research and evidence-based practice with other scholars in the higher education community around the world. Disseminating one’s scholarship of teaching and learning in this way opens it to peer review and allows others to build upon and develop the scholarship so that, in the final analysis, it can be used to improve the quality of teaching and learning in post-secondary institutions. As you read about these conferences and other activities, I hope you will consider participating in similar events in 2009. A list of upcoming conferences is provided for your information and action. As usual, the educational developers in the CTL would be happy to discuss and facilitate your engagement in the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Happy reading!

Meet Leo Jonker OnlineHave you ever wanted to be a fly on the wall in a colleague’s classroom? We are pleased to offer you a glimpse into Leo’s classroom and hear him discuss his teaching: what he does, why he does it, what works well, and what does not. Go to:

http://www.queensu.ca/ctl/programs/programsworkshops/mtt/


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wrong, somehow, that as Chair of Teaching and Learning I should seek to reduce my involvement in teaching; so I tried to squeeze time out of my

other involvements. In retrospect, I

think it would have been reasonable for me to use some of the Chair’s

funds to buy a temporary

teaching load reduction. Creating

some distance from the daily pressures of managing a large teaching load would have allowed more time to reflect, and might have enabled me to be more creative about my projects.

Most of my Teaching Chair activity, and certainly the most successful, has been around service learning. The term service learning can mean a range of things. It covers community involvement that keeps students focused on the wider context within

In 2005, when I became the first Queen’s Chair in Teaching and Learning,

neither I nor the University was totally clear what it implied. I knew it meant I would receive a generous expense allowance for the three years of my tenure, and that I was expected to work on projects proposed in my application for the position. I was less clear about the extent to which I was allowed to view these projects as my own teaching projects, to what extent I was expected to address the culture of teaching and learning at Queen’s, or the extent to which my position as Chair of Teaching and Learning would imply my involvement with the Centre for Teaching and Learning. I was also immediately faced with the difficult decision of what to give up in order to create time for the additional work the position might require. My teaching load was substantial, but it seemed

which university education is a privilege; it can also mean volunteer work that makes use of specific skills acquired at university; and it can refer to university courses in which the course content and associated service activity work symbiotically, not only to provide a community service, but especially to enable things in the classroom that would not be possible without the service context. I am mainly interested in the third alternative.

My interest grew out of the creation of a mathematics course that would interest and benefit students who disliked or even feared mathematics in high school. We all know that there are many such students, even among those who later become teachers. The course in question is billed as a mathematics course for students interested in becoming elementary school teachers, and hinges on students’ provision of mathematics enrichment teaching at local elementary schools, in what has become known as the StepAhead

Reflections of a Former Teaching Chair Leo Jonker, 2005 Queen’s University Chair in Teaching and Learning, Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Teaching Excellence at Queen’s


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for the Centre for Teaching and Learning as well as for a teaching chair, to have a significant impact on teaching practices at Queen’s. The current financial climate makes the situation more critical as well as more difficult. If we are going to do more with less as instructors, we had better make sure that what we do is well thought out. To enable that kind of re-thinking of both curriculum and teaching practice, the University should encourage and enable temporary teaching reductions that are tied to curriculum improvement projects addressing student learning as well as faculty work load. We owe it to our students; we owe it to ourselves.

enrichment programme. The course model seems to be unique in Canada. I have used my Teaching Chair funds to help bring about a science course at Queen’s based on the same scheme. Since this type of course does not easily fit the mold for university mathematics and science courses, I have also used Teaching and Learning Chair funds to create a website together with many tools that can be used by other university departments to create and support similar courses.

My close involvement with the Centre for Teaching and Learning has been instructive and enjoyable. Through it I have come to know a team of experienced and dedicated people with a passion for the enhancement of the quality of learning at all levels at Queen’s. I thank Joy Mighty and her colleagues for their warm hospitality. I have also come to see how many colleagues around this campus are deeply reflective and wonderfully innovative in their undergraduate teaching. This kind of reflection and innovation are essential, I think, if we want to ensure

that for most students the undergraduate experience is what it might be. At the moment, our students do not achieve anything close to the conceptual grasp of the ideas in our courses that we imagine they do. This reality is constantly reflected in our exit polls, where the question “Instructors made an effort to check that students understood the material taught” receives only 50-60% agreement from graduating students. We need to make more use of formative assessment in our courses. This assessment need not imply more assignments or a greater marking load, for much of it can

take the form of self-assessment or peer assessment. However, it does mean that many courses have to be re-thought, not so much in terms

of content (though we may have to reduce the procedural to make room for more conceptual development), as in delivery. At the same time, I am keenly aware of how little time many of my colleagues, especially in highly research-intensive departments, can give that kind of reflection and innovation to their teaching, and thus what a difficult uphill battle it is,

Leo Jonker, is also a 2004 3M Teaching Fellow


I have also come to see how many colleagues

around this campus are deeply reflective and

wonderfully innovative in their undergraduate

teaching.


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organizations within the University, such as the Centre for Teaching and Learning, the Emerging Technology Centre, as well as the network of Queen’s Educational Developers, the E2QUATE project will allow interested teachers to connect and share their experiences and expertise and, perhaps most importantly, their stories.

During the first year of the project, the E2QUATE team will work with Faculty, Department heads and student leaders to identify teachers already experienced in student-centered instructional and active educational techniques. These innovative teachers will be invited to join the project as partners and consultants. An online community will be created which will allow social networking amongst interested Queen’s educators and staff. During the first year, the E2QUATE website

will be developed. Teachers who exemplify different active teaching strategies will be profiled. Each teaching strategy will be described in a practical way with specific implementation steps highlighted, emphasizing the local context of our campus and institution. Video clips will include demonstrations of teaching strategies, archives of teaching sessions, as well as

interviews with teachers and students.

During the second and third years of the project, the E2QUATE panel will work with the Centre for Teaching and Learning to sponsor and support individual teachers working to implement active instructional models in their teaching. We hope to implement a minimum of three new student-centred courses over the

Queen’s University’s mission statement highlights the exceptional quality of undergraduate and graduate

students and programs in the arts, sciences and professions. Excellent students and programs require excellent teachers. The Queen’s community includes world-class content experts in many different disciplines. Perhaps less obvious, but no less important, there exists at Queen’s cross-faculty expertise in active educational techniques. The E2QUATE project will provide virtual and face-to-face forums to document, celebrate and share these resources across the whole University community. The goal of this three-year project is to facilitate and increase the use of active teaching strategies at Queen’s.

Novice teachers are often preoccupied with little more than basic survival in the classroom. Expert teachers learn, over time, the importance of recognizing students as active participants in learning. This type of student-centred instruction demands and rewards active student engagement. A variety of instructional techniques can be used to accomplish this goal including e-learning, team-based learning, simulations, role-playing, open-ended problems, and asynchronous online discussion.

While many active instructional techniques have been shown to improve student performance (motivation, knowledge retention, depth of understanding, attitudes), for the instructor, the initial implementation can be fraught with challenges and can be an isolating experience. Building on and working with existing

E2QUATE: Enabling Educators at Queen’s to Pursue Active Teaching Strategies and Promote Exellence Lindsay Davidson, 2008 Queen’s University Chair in Teaching and Learning, and Orthopaedic Surgery

An online community will be created which will allow social

networking amongst interested Queen’s educators

and staff.


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course of the three-year project. These will evolve from a partnership between the CTL and the E2QUATE community of educators.

Bill Newstead, 2008 Recipient of the Chancellor A. Charles Baillie Teaching Award Sandra Murray, Program Coordinator, Centre for Teaching and Learning

What happens to the Queen’s Department of Chemistry when it adds one professor with an

“unrivalled ability to create a positive learning environment, [who] engages the imaginations of students and helps them follow the flow of concepts in lectures”1 to a first-year class with over six hundred students who “feel lost and insignificant”? You get an explosive reaction of student engagement and deep learning that ultimately triples student enrolment in the program, and sends USAT scores soaring to almost perfection. Who is this Professor, you ask? It is none other than Bill Newstead, the 2008 recipient of the Chancellor A. Charles Baillie Teaching Award.

Since 2001, Professor Newstead has captivated and inspired his students with his unbridled enthusiasm for Chemistry and his stimulating teaching methods. Students describe him as being gifted with the ability to connect with all those in his class, even in a large class setting. The result is that he makes all students active participants in the learning process rather than just passive listeners, yielding students who

are excited about their learning. Newstead’s students are so motivated that his classes are brimming to capacity, even at 8:30 in the morning.

In his classes, Professor Newstead uses a variety of teaching methods that not only arouse student interest but also provide a vehicle for communicating difficult concepts. One such method is one that he calls “chemical curiosities” in which he employs practical examples to capture the students’ curiosity. When teaching the concept of chemical bonds, Newstead uses the example of a gecko and its remarkable ability to walk on ceilings and walls, to spark discussion. He then creates links between the gecko’s amazing abilities and engineering


Dr. Lindsay Davidson, 2008 Queen’s University Chair in Teaching and Learning, and Orthopaedic Surgery

When teaching the concept of chemical bonds, Newstead uses the example of a gecko and its remarkable ability to walk on ceilings and walls, to spark discussion.Image by H. Lee, W. Lim and A.J. Kane

For more information, or to join the E2QUATE community, please visit: http://meds.queensu.ca/courses/community/e2quate:overview_of_projector contact Dr. Lindsay Davidson at [email protected].


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Teaching (2003 and 2006), the Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching (2003), and the First Year Applied Science Teaching and Learning Award (2004 and 2006). Perhaps Dr. Robert Lemieux, Head of the Chemistry Department says it best when he writes that Bill Newstead’s “leading-edge contributions will benefit the institution for years to come”. It is no wonder that his far-reaching contributions have been acknowledged and honoured with the prestigious 2008 Chancellor A. Charles Baillie Teaching Award.

1. All quotations in this article have been extracted from documents submitted in support of Bill Newstead’s nomination for this award.

applications. It is no wonder that students have described his classes as “adventurous, mind stimulating and captivating”. Such examples also explain why students with several degrees describe his class as one of their “most memorable academic experiences”.

With such a commanding teaching force at its disposal, the Department of Chemistry has been able to draw on Professor Newstead’s leadership and vision as the “driving force” in its curriculum development and TA training. However, his contribution is respected well beyond his home department. Regardless of his heavy workload and dedicated attention to his students, Professor Newstead still finds time to plan and facilitate workshops for the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) in support of enhancing the quality of teaching and learning across the university. At the CTL’s Professional Development Day for Teaching Assistants, he has been a keynote speaker and, for a number of years, has facilitated workshops on maintaining good tutorial tone. His workshops are always one of the most highly attended and highly evaluated. Participants indicate that Professor Newstead effectively models all of the teaching techniques he teaches. His excellence has been acknowledged by many other teaching awards such as the Golden Apple Award (2001-2002), the Frank Knox Award for Excellence in


Bill Newstead, Department of Chemistry and the 2008 Recipient of the Chancellor A. Charles Baillie Teaching Award

2008 Teaching Awards Reception Sandra Murray, Program Coordinator, Centre for Teaching and Learning

This year’s Teaching Awards Reception, hosted by Principal Thomas Williams, was just what the doctor ordered for the

University’s 2007-08 award winning faculty and TAs who often lack opportunities to share with their colleagues the successes and challenges that they have experienced in their classrooms.

Held on November 13, Dr. Lindsay Davidson, Orthopaedic Surgery and the 2008 Queen’s University Chair in Teaching and Learning, began with a Teaching “Walk-in Clinic” as a catalyst for such a discussion and networking activity. Using Post-it notes, guests were instructed to write an obstacle or challenge that they


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Not knowing how much material to cover in lectures, and so running out of time.

• Perhaps you could try covering less material. Given the short attention span (about 12 minutes) of the typical adult learner, try presenting only 3 or 4 main points in one session with each interspersed with activities where students reflect and talk about, apply or practise some aspect of the point covered in the last 12 to 15 minutes.

Spending too much time on preparation.• Less is more! Really!!! Get the students

involved too.• I got my best teaching ratings ever at a time

when I was forced to arrive unprepared for much of the term – Why? Because I was truly interested and challenged to discover what I was doing in each class!

I found out that many students ask almost the same questions over and over again through emails, phone calls, and personal visitation. It took so much time to respond to those queries individually.

• I develop a group email list (blind copy). When I get a question that I sense will recur, I answer the first individual and then the whole group. Admittedly a class of 23, I know them fairly well.

Not being completely familiar with course contents and having fear of how to respond to students’ problems properly.

• Be comfortable admitting when you are unsure of the answer to a question. Find the answer after class and present it at the beginning of the next lecture.

Given a course to teach where I had no prior content knowledge.

• Stick to basic concepts of learning.


Principal Williams congratulating Dr. Linda Campbell, 2007/2008 recipient of the School of Environmental Studies Students’ Choice Professor of the Year Award at the November 13, 2008 Teaching Awards Reception. Dr. Joy Mighty, Director, Centre for Teaching and Learning, is shown in the centre.

encountered early in their teaching career and attach it to one of three flip charts arranged around the room. Then using a different colour Post-it note, they were asked to provide solutions to someone else’s challenge and attach it directly below the corresponding Post-It. Here are some of their challenges and responses:


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I found that interest “dried up” by the end of a 3-hour class.

• Incorporate active learning; make students move and interact (group activities, tours, etc.)

Early on I found it hard to engage students in large didactic lectures. More recently, I have tried “Click it” technology and more interactive techniques.

• I now make the students come prepared to class by various nefarious means. Being prepared means being ready to engage.

Individualizing my teaching to meet the emerging needs of my students – teacher candidates.

• Small groups/weekly (short) meetings.

Remembering students’ names• It is impossible to remember everyone’s

name, so do your best to remember at least somebody’s name, and refer to them (strategically) in class.

• Remember details about them other than their names. (For example, that they love cycling or music).

As the Teaching “Walk-in Clinic” drew to a close, Principal Tom Williams personally congratulated the award winners in attendance, presenting each with an apple shaped lapel pin provided by the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL). Made of pewter, the pin reads “Celebrating Teaching Excellence at Queen’s”. Guests were then able to enjoy hors d’oeuvres and a celebratory glass of wine, while chatting with the Principal, CTL faculty and staff, and colleagues from across the campus. Apart from the graduate students who won awards for their outstanding contributions as teaching assistants or teaching fellows, there were few other students in attendance. Yet, the voices of students were clearly heard in the kinds of teaching honoured at this event. These winners were honoured for teaching that makes students’ learning experience more meaningful and ignites in them a deeper passion for lifelong learning beyond the walls of this institution.


Dr. Lindsay Davidson, 2008 Queen’s University Chair in Teaching and Learning facilitating the Teaching Walk-in Clinic

Online Teaching Awards Directory

The Centre for Teaching and Learning has compiled an online directory of Queen’s University teaching awards. Although these awards are created and adjudicated by various departments and student societies on campus, the CTL updates a central list (currently consisting of 63 awards) and each year disseminates the names of winners to Senate, Marketing and Communications (for a special teaching awards issue in the Queen’s Gazette), and the Office of the V.P. Academic (for inclusion in the Queen’s Annual Report).

For further information about Teaching Awards, go to: http://www.queensu.ca/ctl/scholarship/awards/index.html


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My first university class as an undergraduate

student at Queen’s was held in the large auditorium at Dunning Hall, which easily accommodates 400 bodies. I arrived just a little late, and entered the hall through the doors at the back. The room was packed with students, who were noisily chatting with each other, waiting for the professor to arrive. I opened the door, took one step inside the auditorium, and a wave of silence washed over the room. Four hundred pairs of eyes turned and focused on me; they watched intently as I made my way down the aisle towards the front of the room. Now, understand that I was making my way towards the front of the room because, as a forty-one-year-old mature student, I couldn’t see the board from far away. The students, however, were all waiting for me to take my place at the podium. When

Keys to the Tower: Why Mentoring MattersLeslie Doucet, Department of Sociology

A Graduate Student’s Perspective

I quietly sat down a few rows from the front, the chatter resumed.

While an amusing little anecdote in its own right, this story also serves as a starting point for talking about why mentoring matters. Without a sense of ‘ownership’ on campus, I felt like an interloper, intruding on an age-ordered

world in which there was no place for ‘people like me.’ Extrapolate that experience, adding or subtracting the

multidimensional layers of identity that our students bring with them, and we begin to get a sense of numbers. How many of our students have, at some time or another, felt alienated and isolated from the limestone buildings in which they find themselves?

It is often expressed as not knowing the password that

will let you ‘in’; or needing the ‘keys’ that unlock the doors to the ‘inner world’ of the academy. It is the fear that the ‘fraud police’ will tap you on the shoulder at any moment and quietly escort you off campus. “Why is it that everyone seems to know what to do but me? Was there a handbook that I didn’t get?”

The metaphorical keys

As mentors, our greatest strengths lie in the subterranean pools of

experiential knowledge from which we draw upon subconsciously. Giving voice to the intuitive ways in which


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we became ‘successful’ is giving shape and form to the metaphorical keys that unlock those ‘doors.’

Students who seek out mentors are usually expressing anxieties around lacking the necessary social capital to be successful at university. By virtue of our own position in the academy, we have necessarily been successful at navigating the corridors of academia and making a place for ourselves. I refer not to our set of academic skills, which may be formidable, but rather to our set of social skills and institutional knowledge that we use daily to constitute ourselves comfortably as scholars.

Our social skill set includes the many ways in which we are able to draw upon a common set of practices and discourses that yield patterns of shared meanings and understanding. These cultural codes function as social short-hand. For example, if I were to ask you, “Are you going to apply for a ‘shirk’ this year?” would you understand what I meant? If you knew that ‘shirk’ was really the acronym SSHRC, and furthermore, knew SSHRC to be the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council,

and furthermore, knew that it was a federally-funded body, then you and I have a shared meaning of ‘shirk’. We tend to take these cultural codes for granted. Yet, one of the most important things we can do as mentors is to help our students

decipher such codes that constitute the social world around them.

Likewise, our institutional knowledge of the ‘way things

work’ is rarely articulated, but frequently reflected in our daily practices. Some of it might even seem inconsequential – for example, I know where all the photocopy machines are in Stauffer library – but for a student new to campus, lacking enough of these small details can add up to insurmountable obstacles. By connecting students to the resources on campus that will support their success and by being able to share even small bits of information – the best copiers are on the second floor of the library – our institutional knowledge becomes keys that open doors.

Mentoring Matters

Students who seek a mentoring relationship are usually cognisant of the ways in which their ‘difference’ or their perceived lack of social capital works to impede both their academic and their social success. They carry with them a multiplicity of social markers that delineate them, to a greater or lesser degree, things like their gender, their ethnicity, and their social class – in short, a package of social identities that articulate themselves in complicated and sometimes contradictory ways. University presents an additional identity, that of an academic, which can feel like an uncomfortable and ill-fitting piece of clothing.

They also bring with them heterogeneity of experiential knowledge that informs both their own subjectivity and

their sense of place in the academic world. Through a process of self-reflection, mentors tap into an awareness of the often fragile and uncertain social terrain in which these students find themselves. It can mean helping students

become comfortable with their own sense of themselves through embracing their unique positionality on campus.

“Why is it that everyone seems to know what to do

but me? Was there a manual I didn’t get?”

Through a process of self-reflection,

mentors tap into an awareness of the often fragile and uncertain

social terrain in which these students

find themselves.


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Steering students to peers who share similar experiences and interests can help them gain a sense of belonging and ‘ownership’ on campus. We reaffirm and validate students’ experiences through the sharing of personal narratives and qualitative commonalities.

Mentoring is a mutually-affirming relationship that often lasts a lifetime. It is a virtuous chain of social networking that serves us all well. We are helping students create significant and lasting connections with their peers, their instructors and with the

wider world in general. We are helping them to engage with their discipline in meaningful ways, and supporting their academic endeavours. And in the process, we are pushed to examine our own privileged positionality within the academy. It gives us reason

to re-examine our own social identities, and how we have managed to fit ourselves into an institutional framework that does not always welcome diversity. Through mentoring, we can rediscover our own

passion for our discipline, and for our love of all things ‘academic.’

When I walk into an auditorium now, whether taking my place as a student, or at the podium as a lecturer, it is with the confidence of someone who now has a full set of keys.

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Queen’s

Each year, the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL), in partnership with ITServices, invites proposals for the

Teaching and Learning Enhancement Grants which provides up to a maximum of $5,000 from $20,000 available. These grants are intended to encourage and support activities and projects

designed to enhance student learning at Queen’s. Projects might include designing or redesigning courses or programs, developing innovative and effective assessment or teaching strategies, integrating technology, or creating new active learning opportunities to increase student engagement in learning. In the first year of

Teaching and Learning Enhancement Grants

We are helping students create significant and

lasting connections with their peers, their instructors and with the wider world in

general.

© Greg Black, University Photographer


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competition (2007), four grants were awarded and we include here a brief description of these funded projects below.

Enhanced Professional Skills Instruction and Student Learning in Rehabilitation through the Integration of Technology across the Curriculum1 Diana Hopkins-Rosseel, School of Rehabilitation TherapyIn collaboration with Paul Kasden, IBL-Internet Business Logic Inc., Alice Aiken, School of Rehabilitation Therapy, and Sarah Wickett and Matthew Thomas, Bracken Library, Diana Hopkins-Rosseel introduced an innovative teaching and learning strategy into the physical therapy curriculum by integrating a novel patient/client management software platform, IBL Clinic Server, across several courses in the curriculum. This program aims to improve the students’ written patient/client documentation skills, provide a platform for problem-based learning activities, promote future best practices through evidence-based client management, and expose students to current and diverse information technology rehabilitation. After completing an online tutorial, students documented their interaction with a volunteer at the Clinical Education Centre, and then compared their entries to other students who had interviewed the same volunteer as a peer learning method. Student response to the new technology has been positive. They have recommended that it be used in the curriculum on an ongoing basis.

Multimedia Course Design for FILM240: Media and Popular Culture1 Sidney Eve Matrix, Department of Film and MediaThe objective of this project is to enhance the student learning experience by designing stimulating multimedia lectures using award-winning advertisements from around the world. Grant funding allowed Professor Matrix to pay

for a subscription and licence to a corporate advertising database (Adforum), and to pay for staffing costs to hire an undergraduate research assistance. This new course was a huge success. The retention rate was extremely high: of the 290 students who registered, 283 finished the course. USAT feedback indicated that students rated the course at 4.8 on a five-point scale in terms of excellence, and 55% of them specifically mentioned the multimedia lectures and use of visuals as particularly enjoyable and interesting. Final grades were higher than expected with a mean of 77% and students commented that the visual examples helped them when recalling content at exam time. Students were so engaged in the classes that the average attendance rate was 86% per class. Professor Matrix was nominated for two teaching awards. SOCY223 Race and Ethnic Relations1 Cynthia Levine-Rasky, SociologyIn an effort to engage students deeply in the topic of Race and Ethnic Relations (now called Race and Racialization), Professor Levine-Rasky created a poster component to her course. Students were assigned topics about which they had to develop a visual presentation of research for display to the Queen’s Community, the media, and the public. Following a hands-on training workshop for the students, the posters were designed and laid out electronically with PowerPoint and printed professionally. Topics included Phillippe Rushton and pseudo-scientific racism, white supremacist groups, Somalis in Canada, Filipino domestic workers, the 1907 Vancouver Race Riot, Muslim women, Roma in Canada, Aboriginal residential schools, the Sleeping Car Porter Union, racism in the criminal justice system, affirmative action policy and critical whiteness studies. Space was then booked in the John Deutsch University Centre, and invitations were issued across the university and to the general public. Guests were invited



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to view the students’ work, engage in discussion, and write comments about the event. The benefits for students were evident in the skills acquired including the ability to synthesize research to key textual and visual components. The event also instilled in the students a greater sense of social responsibility.

The Qscalpel project: a model for developing blended e-Learning instructional units for the M.D. clerkship curriculum1 Lindsay Davidson, Orthopaedic Surgery; A Szulewski, School of Medicine; Elaine van Melle, Health Science Education; and David Pichora, Orthopaedic SurgeryMoving to a more student-centred learning approach, this team of educators hired a group of three students to develop content, based on existing surgical clerkship seminars in the Queen’s MD program. Modules were developed around a series of authentic clinical cases (such as Acute Hand Problems, Blood Transfusion, Skin Cancer, Common Eye Problems seen in the Emergency Room and Fluids and

Electrolytes). Each was designed to explore some of the learning objectives described at the outset. Multimedia enhancements including photographs, illustrations and reproductions of imaging studies were included in the cases. Formative assessment with embedded feedback was included in each module as multiple choice and short answer questions, allowing students to assess their knowledge as they progressed through the module. Surgical clerks who worked through the modules and then completed a content-based quiz, scored 1.15 marks (out of 10) higher than the clerks who had attended the didactic seminar and completed the quiz. Focus groups revealed that the modules provided a consistent, accessible and flexible learning environment.

1. Information for these project descriptions has been taken from reports written by the projects’ Principal Investigator(s).

On Monday, February 25, 2008, the students of Queen’s University SOCY 233, Race and Ethnic Relations are shown displaying their posters that visually present their research integrating written and illustrative components.

Photo by Jordan Watters


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Community Service Learning Grants The Community Service Learning Engagement Grants has now gone through four series of submissions for 2008-2009. In collaboration with the Office of the Associate Vice-Principal and Dean of Student Affairs and the Centre for Teaching and Learning, this program creates and supports opportunities for faculty and students — particularly first-year students — to enjoy meaningful engagement and learning beyond the context of the classroom. As such, applicants apply for grants to support collaborative service-learning projects whether or not they relate to a current course. Grants may fund activities taking place in as little as one day, or as long as one year, but under appropriate circumstances may be extended. Applicants apply for any amount, up to a maximum of $2,500 from the $20,000 available.

These grants are intended to encourage and support activities and projects occurring outside of the classroom that are designed to enhance student learning at Queen’s through the pedagogy of Community Service Learning. Projects might include developing and implementing a service project that relates to material discussed in coursework, building pre-service capacity by engaging students in purposeful discussions in residence halls (e.g. book groups, issue-based programs, lunch series, etc.), or creating new inquiry-based and active learning opportunities involving civic engagement projects or projects promoting cross-cultural dialogue and/or learning. Summaries of successful submissions will be published in our 2010 newsletter.

Going Public: From Local to International Participation in

the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

At the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL), we believe that teaching

is a major professional responsibility for all academics, and that good teaching is a scholarly activity that is enhanced by both disciplinary scholarship and the scholarship of teaching and

learning in the disciplines. University professors typically get

support for and feedback on their disciplinary scholarship through regular participation in various disciplinary

conferences, as well as through reviewing their peers’

articles and publishing their own


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Canada has its very own conference where academics can discuss teaching and learning. Last June I attended the 28th

annual conference of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE for short). Held at the University of Windsor, the conference provided a full slate of workshops,

presentations, roundtables and poster sessions over a period of 3½ days. Those interested in details of the conference offerings can consult the 2008 conference program, which is still available online at http://web2.uwindsor.ca/stlhe/.

My first impression of the conference was the warm welcome and the impressive conference structure and organization. Every detail for a successful conference was in place, including significant attention to the reduction of waste and the importance of recycling. Delegates

STLHE: Discussing Teaching and Learning with Canadian Colleagues Tom Russell, 2007 Queen’s University Chair in Teaching and Learning and Faculty of Education

A snapshot of one of the many workshops offered at the 28th Annual STLHE Conference: A World of Learning, held in Windsor, Ontario between June 18 and June 21, 2008.

work in disciplinary journals. Less common is the practice of sharing experiences, insights and research on teaching and learning in their disciplines.

The CTL is committed to fostering the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), which requires that as professors we reflect on our teaching practices and document how we teach, what our students have learned, and what changes we have made to improve their learning.

SoTL also implies making instructional processes more public than they typically have been in our University, enabling us to discuss them with colleagues on campus and beyond, and to learn from each other about evidence-based practices that are effective in enhancing learning. In this section, we highlight some of the conferences and other activities which bring together people who are engaging in SoTL as an important means of enhancing student learning in higher education.


Courtesy of the Centre for Teaching and Learning, University of Windsor


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were friendly and interesting conversations were frequent. Presenters tended to be well-organized, with clear and informative messages.

The first presentation I attended proved to be one of the best. An American who had clearly done extensive work in the area offered a workshop on “Cooperative Learning and How People Learn.” Her session was built on three key principles of learning and provided a masterful enactment of those principles as participants were guided through an engaging illustration of cooperative learning. An excellent handout was accompanied by an offer to share other resources by email. I was hooked!

My next selection was interesting but ultimately unsatisfying, but then that’s par for the course at any conference. The contrast between the two sessions was valuable in itself, reminding me of the motivation to learn that arises when a sense of having learned an interesting idea is created very early in a class or lecture. I was also reminded of the frustration and powerlessness a student must experience when moving from an engaging lecture to one that feels vague and controlling.

On the second day I spotted a session developed by a high school teacher from Windsor; its out-of-the-way location meant that only a few people witnessed the powerful educational impact of a well-crafted dramatic performance. Later in the conference I attended a session that explained the many ways that one Australian university is working to prepare and support its non-tenured sessional members of staff. Overall, I found my first STLHE conference highly productive, rich in ideas for anyone seeking new ways to think about teaching and learning in post-secondary education.

STLHE appears to be well-known internationally, for there were presenters and delegates from the USA, the UK, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Australia. Anyone attending an STLHE conference for the first time needs to be forewarned that this society loves its awards, particularly to those who have supported and served the society over many years. Never have I seen so many rounds of applause at a conference banquet! The annual STLHE conference is the setting for the annual meeting of 3M National Teaching Fellows, and each year’s winners of 3M Fellowships are recognized at the conference.

STLHE is a bilingual organization and its current President is Joy Mighty, Director of the Centre for Teaching and Learning at Queen’s. The official website of the organization can be found at http://www.stlhe.ca. In 2009, STLHE’s 29th conference will be held from June 17 to 21 at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, and more than 600 delegates are expected, including a significant number from outside Canada. Information about this conference, with the theme “Between the Tides” is available at: http://unb.ca/stlhe.



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The Eastern Ontario Symposium on Educational Technology (EOSET) is an annual conference that brings together

faculty and instructional designers from across Eastern Ontario to share their challenges, opportunities, and best practices in using learning technology. It was in 2003 that the institutions in Eastern Ontario decided there was a need to have a community of interested persons who share the desire to improve our respective learning environments through the critical and effective use of educational technology. Each year, on a rotating basis, one of the partner schools of Carleton University, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, University of Ottawa, Queen’s University, Royal Military College and Trent University plays host to this event. The strength of this gathering is the diversity and range of experiences across member institutions and the commonality of problems and solutions.

Since 2003, when Queen’s hosted the first EOSET, more than 25 representatives from Queen’s have shared their experiences of how they have used technology to help their students learn. Each year this symposium has afforded an opportunity to highlight three representative projects designed to enhance student learning at Queen’s. In 2008 the Queen’s presentations were:

From Interactivity to the Overflow Effect: Engaging Students with On-Demand Instruction in a Media-rich Popular Culture Course by Sidney Eve Matrix, Film Studies. This presentation shared results from a second-year popular culture course that engaged students by using vodcasting, clickers, WebCT, and multimedia lecture presentations. The course allowed for synchronous and asynchronous (on-demand) learning and provided visually engaging participatory media experiences, interactive lectures that involved 300 students in peer-to-peer reciprocity, and opportunities for self-directed learning by accessing online material.

Hatching CHRPP: The Development of an Online Research Ethics Tutorial by Laura-Lee Balkwill, Office of Research Services. This presentation demonstrated some of the features of a dynamic eight module Course on Human Research Participant Protection (CHRPP) designed to provide research ethics education to graduate

EOSET’s inaugural symposium was hosted by Queen’s University in 2003.

EOSET: An opportunity for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning with Technology Andy Leger, Educational Developer, Centre for Teaching and Learning


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of interactive web-based modules that were designed for the Queen’s University Surgical Clerkship rotation to reduce didactic teaching in favour of a more student-centred learning approach.

In 2009 EOSET will be hosted by the University of Ontario Institute of Technology on May 22. A call for presenters will go out in April. If you are interested in learning more about EOSET, go to the website www.eoset.ca


CASTL: Supporting the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Denise Stockley, Associate Director, Centre for Teaching and Learning

students and other interested members of the research community at Queen’s University. Developed by a committee with expertise in diverse fields, including pedagogical theory, e-learning, research ethics, and content development, CHHRPP features radio and television excerpts, interactive learning objects, and an inclusive approach to e-learning. Developing e-Learning Modules for the Surgical Clerkship: A Reflection on the Qscalpel Project by Lindsay Davidson, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. This presentation described lessons learned during the implementation of a series

Engagement in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) has become an increasingly important dimension of the work of teachers in higher education, as they seek to understand and improve student learning. Through the leadership of the Centre for Teaching and Learning and with the support of the Office of the Principal and the Office of the Vice-Principal Academic, Queen’s University is a member of one of the thirteen clusters within the Institutional Leadership Initiative of the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL). The theme of our group is Building Scholarly

Communities. Our work draws upon two major movements in higher education: Faculty Learning Communities and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

Faculty learning communities are groups of trans-disciplinary faculty, graduate students and professional staff who regularly engage in active, collaborative programs that seek to improve curricula and enhance teaching and learning in post-secondary institutions. Through frequent seminars and other activities that provide opportunities for learning, and the scholarship of teaching and learning, the groups develop into ongoing communities that support

members’ growth and capacity to adopt innovative teaching strategies that enhance student learning. Our CASTL cluster seeks to develop local and international multidisciplinary faculty learning communities that also engage in SoTL.

Our cluster consists of six post-secondary institutions: Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Queen’s University, and Ryerson University, all from Canada; Southeast Missouri State University and The Ohio State University from the United States of America; and the University of Glasgow from Scotland. Our collaborations to date include working towards the


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The purpose of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) is “to serve faculty members, staff, and students who care about teaching and learning as serious intellectual work.” (http://www.issotl.org). The annual conference is one way that the Society fulfills this goal. The theme of the 2008 conference held in Edmonton Alberta was “Celebrating Connections: Learning, Teaching and Scholarship.” The conference began with a keynote presentation by Dr. Marcia Baxter Magolda. Her research focuses on the evolution of learning and development in college and young adult life, the role of gender in development, and pedagogy to promote self authorship1. Using the actual words of students,

Dr. Baxter Magolda demonstrated quite vividly that how we teach significantly influences students’ ability to be independent, self-directed learners.

Many of the presentations at the conference highlighted strategies required to promote and support the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Creating a common definition, building collaborative partnerships, establishing communities of inquiry, using participatory action research and creating teaching scholar programs are a few examples of the types of approaches discussed. “How do we measure the impact of the SoTL?” was a pervasive question posed throughout the conference. This question

Conference of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference Elaine van Melle, Director, Health Sciences Education


recognition of a continuum of SoTL, establishing common and rigorous outcome measures with personal, professional, and programmatic implications, and disseminating successful SoTL initiatives. In this way, each of our CASTL institutional members is building awareness, understanding, support, and the practice of SoTL, within and beyond its local community.

Those individuals at Queen’s already engaged in SoTL may want to consider publishing in the two international electronic

journals that were created as a direct result of institutional participation in our CASTL cluster: Transformative Dialogues www.kwantlen.

ca/academicgrowth/TD/index.html (Canadian-Based) and Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher

Education http://www.pestlhe.org.uk/index.php/pestlhe (European-Based). In 2009, we will be launching a formal research study documenting the types of SoTL already taking place at Queen’s. You will be invited to participate through questionnaires and interviews, and to submit SoTL project descriptions for our SoTL projects database which will be on the CTL website. Please contact Denise Stockley, [email protected] for more information.

...each of our CASTL institutional members is building awareness,

understanding, support, and the practice of SoTL,

within and beyond its local community.


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The 2009 ISSOTL conference will take place October 22-25 in Bloomington, Indiana, USA. The call for proposals was announced in January 2009. If you are wondering whether to submit a proposal, abstracts from the 2008 conference program can be found at: http://www.issotl.org/conferences.html.

References

1. Baxter Magolda, M. B. (2004). Making Their Own Way: Narratives for Transforming Higher Education to Promote Self-Development. Stylus Publishing.

2. Earnest L. Boyer. (1990). Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

3. Glassick, C., Huber, M.T. and Maeroff, G.I. (1997). Scholarship Assessed: A Special Report on Faculty Evaluation. Princeton University Press, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

was particularly salient given that the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) initiative is moving into its final year. Launched in 1998, the purpose of the CASTL program is to move forward the ideas described in Scholarship Reconsidered2 and Scholarship Assessed3, for example to ensure that the SoTL fosters significant, long-lasting learning for all students; enhances the practice and profession of teaching, and; brings to faculty members’ work as teachers the recognition and reward afforded to other forms of scholarly work (see www.carnegiefoundation.org/programs). Indeed, demonstrating tangible outcomes will be key to ensuring that the SoTL becomes a valued activity embedded in the academic culture.

To that end, one of the key strengths of ISSOTL is having access to an international compendium of strategies designed to advance the SoTL. For example, the October 2008 ISSOTL Newsletter provides global approaches for integrating the SoTL into the institution (see http://issotl.org/newsletter.html). In fact a unique feature of the ISSOTL conferences is exposure to global developments regarding the SoTL.

ICED 2008: Towards a Global Scholarship of Educational Development Joy Mighty, Director, Centre for Teaching and Learning


As the President of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE), I was honoured and privileged to represent Canada at the annual Council meeting and biennial conference of the International Consortium for Educational Development (ICED) held in

Salt Lake City in Utah, USA, from June 10 to 15, 2008.

Established in 1993, ICED is made up of national associations that seek to improve teaching and learning in higher education. It is committed to promoting

educational development across its member networks and to supporting the establishment of new networks throughout the world. The ICED Council consists of presidents of member associations, 27 of whom attended the 2008 meeting.


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One of the highlights of the ICED 2008 Conference was the China Higher Education International Forum which was featured as one aspect of the ICED Council’s outreach to new and emerging networks. The China Forum brought scholars and high-level administrators from top universities in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to the ICED community for the first time. Eight Chinese universities sent representatives to the China Forum. These included both national and regional universities from various geographical locations in PRC. The China Forum provided an opportunity for other international scholars to learn more about the fast-changing higher education system in the PRC, the largest in the world with a student population of 22 million. It also allowed the visiting Chinese scholars and administrators an opportunity to learn from other international experts about a range of issues on teaching-and-learning and educational development.

Dublin, Ireland was chosen as the venue of the next ICED Council meeting in June 2009, while Barcelona, Spain will host the next ICED Conference in 2010.


Council members shared their experiences and the educational development trends, challenges, and future directions in their national associations. We discussed a wide range of issues including the growing concern with accountability for the quality of higher education across the globe, the continual challenge of ensuring that teaching is valued in our post-secondary institutions, and especially that a balance is maintained between research and teaching as equally important dimensions of academic work. We also discussed the role of educational development in promoting the scholarship of teaching and learning and the growing importance of ICED’s publication: the International Journal for Academic Development (IJAD) as a vehicle for doing so. IJAD is published twice a year by Routledge/Taylor and Francis. A current focus of the ICED Council is on fostering more inclusivity by encouraging strong participation from less represented countries and regions, expanding its influence to a larger

international community, and stimulating more scholarly exchange, dialogue and learning from a variety of perspectives. This emphasis is partly reflected in the theme of the 2008 conference “Towards a Global Scholarship of Educational Development”

The scholarship of educational development refers to the excellent practice of educational development (variously called academic, faculty, instructional, or organizational development), as it relates to teaching and learning in higher education. This practice is informed by research which is peer-

reviewed and made public through discussion, presentation or publication. The ICED 2008 Conference offered the opportunity to engage in and contribute to this important area of new scholarship. It

brought together educational developers from over forty countries, providing them opportunities to share research and to learn about the latest innovations supporting teaching and learning in higher education.

A current focus of the ICED Council

is on fostering more inclusivity by encouraging strong participation from

less represented countries and

regions...


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Upcoming Conferences

2nd Annual SoTL Commons: An International Conference for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning March 11-13, 2009, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia, USAhttp://academics.georgiasouthern.edu/ijsotl/conference/2009/index.htm

Web Conference: Using Course Portfolios to Document Student LearningMarch 19, 2009, ONLINE WEBCASThttps://www.academicimpressions.com/web_conferences/0309-course-portfolios.php

2009 International Conference on Education Technology and Computer (ICETC 2009)April 17-20, 2009, Singapore, Singaporewww.icetc.org

Postgraduate Supervision: Research and PracticeApril 27 - 30, 2009 Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africahttp://www.postgraduate2009.co.za

EOSET Conference 2009May 22, 2009, University of Ontarion Institute of Technology, Oshawa, Ontario http://www.eoset.ca/

The Teaching Professor Conference: Educate, Inspire, EngageJune 5 - 7, 2009, Washington, DChttp://www.teachingprofessor.com/conference/

UNIQUAL 2009 The 6th International Conference on Universities’ Quality DevelopmentJune15 -16, 2009 Trondheim, Norwayhttp://www.ntnu.no/uniqual2009/

29th Annual STLHE Conference: Between the TidesJune 17 - 19, 2009, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswickhttp://www.unb.ca/stlhe/ 2009 HERDSA Conference: The Student ExperienceJuly 6 – 9, 2009, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Australia http://conference.herdsa.org.au/2009/

Faculty Development Summer Institute Aug. 3-7, 2009 University of Prince Edward Island Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island www.upei.ca/lifelonglearning/FDSInstitute

ISSOTL Conference 2009: Solid Foundations, Emerging Knowledge, Shared FutureOct. 22 – 25, 2009, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana http://www.issotl.org/conferences.html

E-Learn 2009 World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher EducationOctober 26-30, 2009, Vancouver, BChttp://www.aace.org/conf/ELEARN/

34th POD Conference 2009Oct 28 – Nov. 1, 2009, Houston, Texashttp://www.podnetwork.org/conferences/futureconferences.htm

International Consortium for Educational DevelopmentJune 28-30, 2010, Barcelona, Spainhttp://www.osds.uwa.edu.au/iced/conferences


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Teaching and Learning at Queen’s is published by the: Centre for Teaching and Learning Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6

Phone: 613-533-6428 Fax: 613-533-6735 Email: [email protected]: www.queensu.ca/ctl/

Editor: Joy Mighty Designer: Sandra Murray

Place Mailing Label

here

Resource Corner

Teaching More Students: Supervising Graduate Students (Book 8)Supervising Graduate Students is the eighth book in the Teaching More Students Series and is now available from the Centre for Teaching and Learning. This practical guide includes advice on: a variety of supervisory approaches; things to consider when accepting a graduate student; creating and maintaining effective supervision techniques with less time; helping students take on a more autonomous role; and creating a quality graduate culture. Written by Denise Stockley, Centre for Teaching and Learning and Brenda Brouwer School of Graduate Studies, this 72 page guide brings a unique Queen’s perspective to graduate supervision and may be purchased from the CTL for $12.

Empowering Online Learning: 100+ Activities for Reading, Reflecting, Displaying, & DoingThis is an essential resource for anyone designing or facilitating online learning. It introduces an easy, practical model (R2D2: read, reflect, display, and do) that will show online educators how to deliver content in ways that benefit all types of learners (visual, auditory, observational, and kinesthetic) from a wide variety of backgrounds and skill levels. With a solid theoretical foundation and concrete guidance and examples, this book can be used as a handy reference, a professional guidebook, or a course text. The authors intend for it to help online instructors and instructional designers, as well as those contemplating such positions, to design, develop, and deliver learner-centered online instruction. This book is available for loan from the CTL library.

Documents

Winter 2009 CTL Newsletter