News

• eCampusOntario $50 million Virtual Learning Strategy

  Monday, January 18, 2021 | By wgilmore

  eCampusOntario Expressions of Interest (EOI) are now open for the Government of Ontario’s $50 million Virtual Learning Strategy (VLS). Faculty interested in creating or adopting an OER, designing an open source course, designing simulations, serious games or XR experiences are invited to contact cpi@brocku.ca. For more information about this VLS initiative visit https://vls.ecampusontario.ca/eois.

  Deadline for internal submissions to CPI at cpi@brocku.ca is Thursday January 28.

  Learn more about open educational resources available to you through eCampus Ontario at https://openlibrary.ecampusontario.ca/.

• Call for 2020 Faculty Teaching Awards

  Thursday, October 08, 2020 | By wgilmore

  

  Brock University Faculty Teaching Awards

  CALL FOR NOMINATIONS IS NOW OPEN

  Recognize and celebrate the outstanding contributions of faculty and instructors to teaching and learning at Brock University. There are 3 awards annually. Application guidelines and eligibility criteria can be found on the CPI website.
  Deadline for submissions is November 8, 2020. 

  1. Don Ursino Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Large Classes
  2. Clarke Thomson Award for Excellence in Sessional Teaching
  3. Award for Excellence in Teaching for Early Career Faculty

  Nomination packages can be submitted electronically to the Centre for Pedagogical Innovation at eddev@brocku.ca in PDF format. Awards will be conferred in early December 2020.

• Faculty Specific TA Workshops with Instructional Support Assistants (ISA’s)

  Thursday, October 08, 2020 | By wgilmore

  Faculty Instructional Support Assistants (ISAs) have developed workshops and resources to support the work of TAs. Visit the CPI website (TA Workshops) for details. All Brock University teaching assistants, marker graders, lab demonstrator, tutorial leaders, course co-ordinators and seminar leaders are welcome to participate.

  FACULTY OF APPLIED HEALTH SCIENCE

  Engagement, interaction, and participation – How to get it and how to keep it! (Async) Oct 17 – Oct 25
  Let’s Take a Break: Mindfulness and Wellness for TAs (Async) Oct 17 – Oct 25

  FACULTY OF EDUCATION

  Navigating Difficult Conversations with Adult Learners about Grades (Sync) Oct 17  10:30 am – 11:50 am
  Culturally Responsive Teaching in an Online Environment (Sync) Oct 31 10:30 am – 11:50 am

  FACULTY OF HUMANITIES

  Encouraging Participation and Facilitating Engagement in an Online Humanities Course (Async) Oct 13 – Oct 30

  FACULTY OF MATH & SCIENCE

  Marking and grading assignments in SAKAI for Math and Science TAs (Async) Oct 26 – Oct 31
  Using MS Teams to Support Teaching and Learning in Math and Science (Sync) Oct 22 11:00 am – 12:00 pm

  FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

  eCollaboration: Online Student Engagement (Async) Oct 23 – Oct 30
  Listening to Support Teaching and Learning (Async)  Oct 26 – Nov 2

  GOODMAN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

  Formative Assessment – Promoting Mastery Oriented Thinking (Async) Oct 19 – Oct 30

• TA Workshops – October 2020

  Thursday, October 08, 2020 | By wgilmore

  All Brock University teaching assistants, marker graders, lab demonstrators and tutorial leaders are invited to participate in the TA workshop series. Registration is now open for the October TA workshops.

  Types of Workshops:
  Synchronous workshops (sync) take place on Teams. Registration now open. Asynchronous workshops (async) take place on the joinable TA Program Sakai site. Asynchronous workshops provide two weeks for participants to complete the required work.

  Saturday October 3, 9:00 am-10:30 am
  Instructional Strategies 101 (sync)
  Universal Design for Learning (UDL) for Teaching Assistants (async) Oct 3-Oct 16

  Saturday October 17, 9:00 am-10:30 am
  Growth Mindset for Teaching Assistants’ Success (sync)
  Questioning Strategies to Support Learning (async) Oct 17-30
  Saturday October 31, 9:00 am-10:30 am   
  “NO CAPES!” Pedagogy as a Foundation for Instructional Design (aync)
  Using Feedback to Support Teaching and Learning (async) Oct 31-Nov 13 

  Completion of each workshop earns a credit towards the TA Certificate Programs. For additional information, please contact eddev@brocku.ca.

  TA Discussion Drop-In Tuesdays 1:00 pm-2:00 pm and Fridays 11:30 am-12:30 pm
  For information on how to access the meeting please email eddev@brocku.ca.

• Online Teaching Showcase

  Wednesday, October 07, 2020 | By wgilmore

  Online Teaching Showcase – Wednesday October 28 – 10:00 am – 11:00 am

  Join the Centre for Pedagocial Innovation (CPI) in a discussion featuring instructors sharing their successes, challenges, and advice about teaching online. Online registration is now open.

  If interested in presenting your teaching experiences, email Giulia at gforsythe@brocku.ca.

• Introduction to paper-based marking online with Crowdmark

  Wednesday, October 07, 2020 | By wgilmore

  

  Crowdmark is a tool that has been integrated into Sakai to add a digital workflow to hand-written assignments.

  Instructors can create Crowdmark courses based on their active Sakai courses, then create assignments that require scientific, mathematical or musical notation in the response, or provide an artifact to be labelled. Students can respond with a picture or scan of their response. Instructors and the rest of their marking team can grade and provide feedback on submitted work all within the Crowdmark web experience.

  All Brock University faculty, sessional instructors and teaching staff are invited to join the Centre for Pedagogical Innovation for a virtual workshop on Crowdmark on Wednesday October 21, 9:00 am – 10:00 am.

  Additional Resources:
  Register for October 21 Workshop
  Learn more about Crowdmark
  Workshop Recording

   

  Tags: Crowdmark, Exams, paper-based marking online, quizzes, tests
  

• Getting Ready for Online Exams

  Wednesday, October 07, 2020 | By wgilmore

  

  Considering your options for online exams this year?

  The Centre for Pedagogical Innovation is hosting one-hour sessions to help instructors consider their options for delivering their online exams. Focus will be on tools like Sakai’s Tests and Quizzes, Crowdmark and options for take home exams. Register for a Getting Ready for Online Exams session.

  Wednesday October 14  10:00-11:00 am & Monday October 19 1:00-2:00 pm

  Tags: Exams, Online Exams, Workshops
  

• Being an Online TA

  Thursday, September 10, 2020 | By wgilmore

  BEING AN ONLINE TA is a TA DAYS WORKSHOP, open to ALL Brock University TAs, marker-graders, tutorial leaders, lab demonstrators, and course coordinators.

  This workshop is synchronous and requires registration to receive the Microsoft Teams invitation to participate in the online workshop.

  BEING AN ONLINE TA
  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17
  10:00 am -11:30 am

  Workshops are applicable to all disciplines.

  We will explore different online tools to facilitate student learning online in smaller groups. Many of our students have a vaandriety of online learning experiences; during this session, you will have the opportunity to experience learning online as a student and then practice online facilitation using active learning principles.

  FACILITATORS: Giulia Forsythe and Natalie Currie-Patterson, Centre for Pedagogical Innovation

  Participation in this session will earn 1 TA credit towards the completion of the Certificate in Online Teaching & Learning in Higher Education.

  If you have questions please contact eddev@brocku.ca

• TA Days 2020 – Professional Development for Brock TAs

  Thursday, September 10, 2020 | By wgilmore

  TA Days 2020

  The Centre for Pedagogical Innovation (CPI) invites all Teaching Assistants, Marker/Graders, Lab Demonstrators, Tutorial Leaders, and Course Coordinators to join us online for a week long professional development event: Saturday, September 12^th through Friday, September 18th, 2020!New and Returning TAs are welcome to join us for a rewarding schedule of professional development. 

  TA DAYS offers a variety of professional development workshops and an opportunity to earn TA credits towards a TA certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Please register for “TA Days 2020” to ensure you are added to the CPI TA Sakai site and the TA Microsoft Teams site for the 2020-2021 academic year. 

  For an agenda and full details visit “TA Days 2020” and the CPI events page.  Included is information on how to participate and access individual TA Days synchronous workshops and asynchronous workshops (work at your own pace) hosted by CPI and Faculty Instructional Support Assistants.

  Save the Date – Saturday September 12 to learn about teaching at Brock and the teaching supports available to Teaching Assistants, Marker/Graders, Lab Demonstrators, Tutorial Leaders, and Course Coordinators.

• Brock’s Sakai System to be Updated to Version 19 on July 1

  Tuesday, June 16, 2020 | By mclare

  

  Brock University’s update to Sakai 19.4 mainly focuses on streamlining performance issues and workflows in tools such as Assignments, Gradebook, Lessons, Tests and Quizzes with the addition of a new tool: Rubrics.

  Instructors, faculty and TAs will find the following new features and updates in the Sakai 19.4 upgrade planned for July 1^st, 2020 from 8:00 AM to Noon.

  Updates to watch for:

  • The addition of a Rubrics tool, applicable to Assignments, Forums, and Tests and Quizzes. Rubrics will allow for grading to be input and calculated in the Rubric and applied to the assessment. Rubrics are customized and designed by instructors.
  • Changes to the Tests and Quizzes interface: Tests and Quizzes look more like Assignments and Resources, with an ‘add’ tab at the top, remove column on the right side, and an Actions button to the right of the Quiz name. The tabs for Working Copies and Published copies now appear in a list similar to Assignments with “Draft’ identifying the working copy of a quiz.
  • The option to enable statistics and grade distribution for student view in Gradebook.
  • Excuse/Include Grades in Gradebook.
  • Site Info has a cleaner interface and the addition of tabs at the top of the page to view participants and manage the overview page.
  • A collection of small updates to Sakai’s component technologies. These updates will ensure Sakai is robust and ready for future challenges.

  Echo360 note:

  Enabling the “Video” tool (Site Info > External Tools > Videos) now presents options for accessing the Library and “Creating a Video” immediately upon selection from the left side navigation space.