Transitioning to university can be a daunting endeavour, with student success dependent on a myriad of effects (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Understanding how to navigate university systems, who to meet, how to get help, how to study, and what goals to set can be hard to grasp (Valle et al., 2003). We provide an overview of the new…

In our service-learning courses, students work with real people and record and reflect on these experiences, to learn appropriate professional behavior, how to think creatively, and how to respond to changing circumstances. Many of our students are strategic learners, characterized by alertness to assessment and intention to achieve the highest…

Metacognition directly contributes to learning, performance, and beliefs about the self as a learner. This paper describes the rationale, implementation, and assessment of a weekly online reflection activity based on instructor prompts designed for post-secondary students who aspire to be elementary school teachers. Our study defines four…

The fourth cohort of 3M National Student Fellows explores the current state of our post-secondary education system across Canada and opportunities to further tune into practice in order to pursue an authentic and meaningful academic life. Six of the 2015 3M National Student Fellows propose recommendations for decision-makers at post-secondary…

This article describes a model for supporting undergraduate research that can be adapted for very different classroom contexts; we implemented this model in a first-year general education composition class, a second-year Psychology class and a fourth-year English literature seminar. We examine student work created for each class as well as…

Flexible Learning (FL) is a pedagogical approach allowing for flexibility of time, place, and audience, including but not solely focused on the use of technologies. We describe Flexible Learning as a pedagogical approach in four courses framed by three key themes: 1) objectives and aspects of course design, 2) evaluation and assessment, and 3)…

Educators are regularly confronted with moral dilemmas for which there are no easy solutions. Increasing course sizes and program enrolments, coupled with a new consumerist attitude towards education, have only further exacerbated the quantity and quality of students' requests for special academic consideration (Macfarlane, 2004). Extensions, late…

We explore the advent and initiatives of teaching leadership chairs--modeled after the Canada Research Chair framework--to instill individuals or small groups of teaching leaders at various centres across the country to stimulate educational change. In its past, present, and future, we explore the grassroots of teaching leadership chairs and their…

This practice-sharing piece outlines two main approaches to flexible summative assessment schemes, including for each approach one example from my practice and another from a published study. The bento approach offers the same assessments to all students but a variety of grade weighting schemes, allowing students to change weighting during the…

Although previous studies have offered empirical and anecdotal support for academic mentoring, there are still considerable gaps in understanding the specific actions or components that are present in these relationships. Research has shown that academic faculty mentors provide all of Kram's (1988) mentoring functions to their graduate student…

In this essay, we tell the story of how a team of English and nursing professors came together to develop curriculum for a mandatory first-semester writing course in the collaborative Bachelor of Science, Nursing (BScN) at Fanshawe College and Western University, both in London, Ontario. The discussion focuses on the implementation of the course…

Active listening is an important communication skill in a variety of disciplines and professions, including the profession of Educational Development. In our roles as educational developers, we engage in a variety of processes, all of which rely heavily on the practice of active listening. Emerging strategies of active listening praxis have…

Communities of practice are emerging as an innovative approach to faculty development. While collaborative learning is becoming popular in the classroom, autonomy and individualism continue to dominate the culture of higher education for faculty. However, as we begin to recognize that old solutions to new problems are no longer effective, there is…

In October 2014, the University of British Columbia Vancouver campus (UBCV) ran a campus-wide survey to establish baseline information on teaching practices and attitudes among faculty, to measure the impact of existing teaching and learning initiatives and to identify the conditions leading to change in practices and attitudes around teaching.…

In this paper, we (a faculty member and an educational developer) discuss our attempts to be more mindful in the academy with attention to mindfulness practices in the classroom and the development of a community of practice at our institution as ways to foster community and deepen learning. Included within the paper is an introduction to…