Pedagogies of Care: Bringing it All Together – Sharing Our Stories

Date and time: Tuesday, April 1, 2:00 p.m. to 2:50 p.m.

Join us for a series of four monthly 50-minute sessions designed for graduate students, instructors, and professors committed to exploring pedagogies of care. These sessions offer strategies that foster care, inclusion, and broaden perspectives in higher education, including insights into how brain science can enhance teaching effectiveness. Each session will provide practical tools for creating inclusive, engaging, and empowering learning environments, drawing on research into neural connections, brain plasticity, and how these processes affect learning, memory retention, and student engagement. Whether you’re teaching in-person or in an online format, this series will equip you with neuroscience-based strategies and pedagogical approaches that cultivate caring and inclusive educational spaces.

During the Bringing it All Together – Sharing Our Stories Spaces session:

• Participants will collaboratively share their experiences and insights, synthesizing the pedagogical strategies learned throughout the series to create an integrated teaching approach.
• Participants will discuss their practices through storytelling, identifying ways to further develop their teaching practices.

Register for the Pedagogies of Care workshop

Decolonizing Classrooms: Start here

Date and time: Wednesday, April 2, 9:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

As part of the Decolonizing Classrooms Series, “Decolonizing Classrooms: Start Here” is designed for those beginning their journey in decolonizing and reconciliatory learning. This workshop offers foundational knowledge about Indigenous Peoples, their Knowledges, and the important relationships we all maintain with the Land in what is now commonly known as Canada. Participants will learn about colonization and processes of decolonization, and identify initial steps to engage in important decolonizing and reconciliatory processes. This workshop will equip you with the necessary information to meaningfully engage with Indigenous pedagogies and foster ongoing learning and action. Additionally, it provides the background necessary for full participation in other workshops in the Decolonizing Classrooms Series.

Register for the Decolonizing Classrooms workshop

From Theory to Practice: Using the UM Competencies Framework to Level Up Experiential Learning

Date and time: Friday, April 4, 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Have you thought about the kind of people you want your students to become upon graduating? You might envision them as empathetic listeners, critical thinkers, effective collaborators, or team players. How can education use Experiential Learning (EL) to move beyond traditional content delivery, actively nurturing these skills? Join us as we dive into the dynamic combination of EL and the UM Competencies Framework, equipping educators to foster real-world skills, growth, and empowerment in students.

Register for From Theory to Practice: Using the UM Competencies Framework to Level Up Experiential Learning

Experiential Learning Community of Practice Brown Bag Lunch Conversations: Experiential or Active Learning What’s the Difference?

Date and time: Tuesday, April 15, 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Bring your lunch and connect with other members of our community of practice! There is no formal agenda for these casual meetings just good people and conversation! Everyone is welcome to share their thoughts and experiences as we explore different topics in experiential learning.

Topic: Experiential or Active Learning what’s the difference? Are they different approaches, or different names for the same approach? Come tell us what you think!

Register for Experiential or Active Learning What’s the Difference?

Universal Design for Learning in Practice: Represent a Diversity of Perspectives and Identities in Authentic Ways

Date and time: Thursday, April 24, 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Join us for the last Thursday of each month in an ongoing series, where participants will review discreet elements of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Participants will work together to develop pedagogical practices that align with the UDL principle being discussed that month.

Topic: The session will focus on CAST’s UDL principle of representing a diversity of perspectives and identities in authentic ways and how it can be directly applied to pedagogical practice. There will be a brief presentation of the core elements of this principle followed by a question-and-answer session where participants can collaborate with the facilitator to develop their practice. 

Register for Universal Design for Learning in Practice: Represent a Diversity of Perspectives and Identities in Authentic Ways

-Prairie Town by R. Bachman

Randy Bachman, Burton Cummings, and Neil Young famously grew up in Winnipeg, a mid-sized Canadian city in Treaty 1 territory with a burgeoning arts scene. Contemporary Winnipeg is home to a multitude of musicians of all genres, and the city is not only culturally diverse, but also boasts the highest per capita urban Indigenous population of any Canadian city.

In spite of the tremendous musical and cultural diversity in this place, music education in Winnipeg schools tends to be relatively uniform. School music offerings are performance-oriented and consist mainly of concert band, choir, instrumental jazz, and guitar programs in senior high contexts, and general music, instrumental, or choral programs for younger grades. While students in Winnipeg schools reflect the musical and cultural diversity of the city, music teachers generally do not. The majority of music educators are of European descent and have completed a Bachelor of Music degree during which they engaged in private classical or jazz instrumental or voice study and participated in similar ensembles to the ones they now teach in schools. Music teachers’ remarkably uniform experiences as music learners and music teacher candidates result in the reproduction of a Euro-derived pedagogy focused on the performance of specific musical work rather than allowing students to create their own music or to engage with the musical practices of local musicians.

Desautels Faculty of Music associate professor Dr. Jody Stark wants to do something about this situation. Stark has received over $60 000 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to develop and pilot a local music pedagogy that responds to and incorporates various ways people make and enjoy music in Winnipeg, Canada. Stark plans to engage in a collaborative research project with a group of music educators and community collaborators including local Indigenous and settler musicians and representatives of various local cultural institutions and organizations. Together, the group will create and test out a decolonizing pedagogical framework for local music education on the land, and with the popular, contemporary, and traditional musics, of Treaty 1 territory..

Stark notes, “Through the process of doing this research, out team will have the chance to think about how to ethically bring diverse musical practices and musicians into the Winnipeg music classroom, but also to notice and explore the barriers to decolonizing and Indigenizing music education. Schools are colonial social structures with often invisible assumptions about teaching, learning, people, and the world, and this makes change challenging. By developing and piloting a framework for a local music pedagogy, our team will not only explore how best to undertake school-community musical partnerships, but we will also have the chance to notice and wrestle with some of these challenges.”

The results of this innovative project will allow the research team to contribute to the knowledge base of music teachers, university-level music teachers and teacher educators, policy makers in schools and community arts organizations, and artists seeking to engage youth and children. Plans are underway to offer in-person and online workshops, articles for music educators, community musicians and music education researchers, and for the team to create a podcast for other music educators interested in exploring a local approach to their teaching.

The Experiential Learning Institute: Assessment in Experiential Learning

Date and time: Tuesdays, October 1, October 8 and October 15, 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM

The Experiential Learning Institute offers faculty and instructors an opportunity to engage deeply with a topic over the course of three weekly sessions. The focus of the Fall 2024 institute is assessment in experiential learning.

Participants must attend all three sessions to receive a certificate of completion. If you are not able to attend all the sessions you may register for individual sessions, but you will not receive a certificate of completion for The Experiential Learning Institute.

Sessions:

• Oct 1, 2024: Assessing Experiential Learning (led by Gera Villagran Becerra)
  What are effective ways of assessing experiential learning? How does assessment fit in the experiential learning cycle? In this workshop, we’ll explore best practices for assessing experiential learning. Participants will be challenged to take an experiential approach to assessment and reflect on the challenges it involves.
• Oct. 8, 2024: Beyond Reflection Papers: Innovative Strategies for Assessing Experiential Learning (led by Meaghan Ewharekuko)
  Have you heard about multi-stage assignments, two-stage exams and gamification as strategies to assess experiential learning? In this workshop we will explore novel methods and effective strategies for assessing different types of experiential learning within the classroom and beyond.
• Oct. 15, 2024: Assessing 21st Century Competencies (led by Janine Carmichael)
  How do you assess 21st century competencies like empathy, active listening, conflict resolution and innovation in experiential learning? In this workshop, we’ll explore strategies to assess these competencies and mitigate potential challenges. We’ll also learn how to use tools like the newly created UM Competencies Framework.

Register

Small Shifts, Significant Gains: Transformative Teaching Strategies Series (Session Two, Three, and Four)

Date and time: Thursday, October 3, 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM, Thursday, October 10, 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM, and Monday, October 21, 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM

Looking for ways to revitalize your teaching but don’t have time for a big redesign? In Small Teaching James Lang argues that small changes in classroom techniques and activities can have big impacts on student learning. Drop in to any or all of these brown bag lunchtime chats to hear creative strategies from your faculty colleagues across the university.  Bring your questions and your lunch.  Leave with ideas you can implement right away in your courses!

Session Two, Lightning Presentations:

• Xiaopeng Gao (Department of Soil Science) presents: Enhancing Education Through Hands-on Learning and Real-world Connections
• Brandon Trask (Faculty of Law) presents: Building in Relevance: Integrating Aspects of Clinical and Applied Learning in Different Course Types 

Register for session two

Session Three, Lightning Presentations:

• Jillian Seniuk Cicek and Jeff W. Paul (both from the Price Faculty of Engineering) present: Your Students’ Brains on PowerPoint: How to Leverage Cognitive Science to Use PowerPoint to Teach Instead of Present
• David Watt (Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media) presents: Developing Relationships through Assignments and Feedback

Register for session three

Session Four, Lightning Presentations:

• Julie Pfeffer (Department of Restorative Dentistry) presents: Self-Directed Student Assessment – How to Maximize the Output/Input Ratio for Your Learners (and for Yourself!)
• More to come

Register for session four

Decolonizing Classrooms: Barriers to Decolonizing, Part 2

Date and time: Thursday, October 10, 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM

The Decolonizing Classroom series aims to give participants the context and tools necessary to meaningfully engage with decolonizing processes as they relate to education. “Unpacking and Overcoming Barriers to Engagement and Decolonizing Processes” explores the barriers that exist for teachers and students, which prevent them from enacting decolonizing processes in educational contexts. Part two of this workshop series discusses the barriers that prevent teachers from engaging fully in decolonizing classrooms and creates a space for the discussion of strategies for overcoming these barriers.

Register

Open Educational Resources – What, How, Why (Part 2) 

Date and time: Thursday, October 17, 9:30 AM to 12:00 PM

The term open educational resources (OER) describes a wide range of materials in teaching and learning that are available for public use with an open license or in the public domain. Examples of OER include full courses, course modules, syllabi, textbooks, lectures, assessments, and datasets. In this workshop, participants will learn why OER are valuable, how to locate them, how to evaluate them using a rubric, and how to adapt and create them. The workshop does not assume prior experience with these topics.

Register

Cultivating Minds, Nurturing Hearts: Fostering Well-Being, Integrity, and Inclusion in Teaching and Learning

Date and time: Tuesday, October 29, 10:00 AM to 11:30 PM

The University of Manitoba (UM) identified well-being as one of five core values in its 2024 -2029 strategic plan to “advance the personal and professional growth and academic success of our community members. Grounded in respect and compassion for each other and our community, we cultivate a supportive environment that embraces the values of mino-pimatisiwin (good life) and mino-ayawin (good health) (University of Manitoba, 2024, p. 4).

This raises important questions for educators: How do we approach teaching with care, compassion, and kindness? How do these pedagogies of care, compassion, and kindness align with other priorities in higher education (e.g., academic integrity, accessibility)?

In this interactive workshop, we will take a holistic approach to understanding pedagogies of well-being and how these pedagogies can be implemented to better support our students’ mental well-being without compromising academic standards. 

Register

Experiential Learning Community of Practice Monthly Meeting – Partnerships 101

Date and time: Wednesday, October 30, 2:30 PM to 3:30 PM

The Experiential Learning Community of Practice brings together faculty and instructors involved in the development and facilitation of experiential learning (EL) across UM.

The EL Community of Practice meets once a month to build relationships and explore topics related to teaching in experiential learning. Each monthly meeting includes opportunities to meet other faculty and instructors, explore best practices and innovations in EL, and participate in group discussions.  

At this session, we’ll chat about challenges and best practices for finding industry and community partners for EL. Join us to share your own experience in this area, hear perspectives from colleagues in other faculties and programs, and learn about successful strategies for engaging community and industry partners in your courses. 

Register

Decolonizing Classrooms: Indigenous Approaches to Building Good Relationships

Date and time: Thursday, September 19, 9:30 AM to 12:30 PM

Over the past several years, an important discussion of how we can Indigenize and decolonize the academy has been occurring. This workshop series aims to give participants the context and tools necessary to meaningfully engage with decolonizing processes as they relate to education. “Indigenous Approaches to Building Good Relationships” will discuss how participants can employ the 4/5Rs (relevance, reciprocity, respect, responsibility, and relationships) to ameliorate and decolonize student-instructor relationships. Indigenous ways of understanding relationships and specific tools and strategies that instructors can use will be considered, and participants will be supported as they consider how they can implement the 4/5 Rs in their own teaching practices.

Register for the Decolonizing Classrooms workshop

Small Shifts, Significant Gains: Transformative Teaching Strategies Series

Date and time: Thursday, September 26, 1:15 PM to 2:15 PM

Looking for ways to revitalize your teaching but don’t have time for a big redesign? In Small Teaching James Lang argues that small changes in classroom techniques and activities can have big impacts on student learning. Drop in to any or all of these brown bag lunchtime chats to hear creative strategies from your faculty colleagues across the university. Bring your questions and your lunch. Leave with ideas you can implement right away in your courses!

Session One, Lightning Presentations:

• Danielle Yaffe (College of Nursing) presents: Make Learning Fun with Interactive Drag-and-Drop PowerPoint Activities
• Lisa Ford and Janna Wilson (both from the Department of Environment and Geography) present: Transparent Learning: Course Alignment using Learning Objectives Table

Register for the Small Shifts, Significant Gains workshop

More updates to this workshop series will be posted soon.

Planning Your SoTL Study

Date: Tuesday, January 23, 2024

In this workshop, participants will begin outlining a SoTL study. Building on an existing idea, participants will develop research questions and utilize quantitative and qualitative research methods to outline a plan for data collection and analysis. We will also work collaboratively to develop solutions to possible SoTL challenges and identify critical SoTL resources.​ To get the most out of this workshop participants should come with a developed SoTL research question in mind.

Register for Planning Your SoTL Study

Applying trauma-informed teaching practices online synchronous courses

Date: Friday, January 26, 2024

This introductory panel will discuss trauma-informed teaching and how to apply the basic concepts in your online teaching.

Register for Applying trauma-informed teaching practices online synchronous courses

Decolonizing Classrooms Part 2: Unpacking and Overcoming Barriers to Decolonizing Processes

Date: Tuesday, January 30, 2024

The Decolonizing Classroom series aims to give participants the context and tools necessary to meaningfully engage with decolonizing processes as they relate to education. “Unpacking and Overcoming Barriers to Engagement and Decolonizing Processes” explores the barriers that exist for teachers and students, which prevent them from enacting decolonizing processes in educational contexts. Part two of this workshop series discusses the barriers that prevent teachers from engaging fully in decolonizing classrooms and creates a space for the discussion of strategies for overcoming these barriers.

Register for Decolonizing Classrooms Part 2: Unpacking and Overcoming Barriers to Decolonizing Processes

Experiential Learning Community of Practice – January

Date: Wednesday, January 31, 2024.

Facilitated by The Office of Experiential Learning, the Experiential Learning Community of Practice meets online once a month. An Experiential Learning Townhall is organized once every academic term for CoP members who would like the opportunity to meet in-person.

Each online meeting will consist of a 30-minute presentation on a topic related to best practices, trends, and challenges in experiential learning, followed by a 30-minute facilitated discussion.

January: Why experiential learning now?
Enhancing and expanding experiential learning (EL) opportunities for students has become a priority for the UM and many other post-secondary institutions in Canada and abroad. However, EL has been around for a long time both in theory and practice. So, why has EL suddenly become the topic of the hour?
At this initial meeting of the EL CoP, we’ll explore the reasons that make experiential learning an appropriate response to the challenges facing postsecondary education today, and share updates about the UM’s upcoming Experiential Learning Framework for faculty and instructors.

Register for Experiential Learning Community of Practice – January