Teaching Assistants' Training Program

In December 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada released its Final Report, which included 94 “Calls to Action” for federal, provincial, territorial and Aboriginal government agencies, institutions, and peoples alike. In academic spaces, land acknowledgements, strategies to “Indigenize,” and calls to “decolonize” are common throughout the disciplines. Decolonization is not a metaphor, […]

Are you interested in teaching in Ontario's college system, but unsure how your university experience has prepared you for this challenge? This roundtable draws on the experience of five industry professionals who have demonstrated excellence in pedagogy and made the transition from university to college teaching. The session will be divided into two parts: first, […]

How do we prepare students for 21st century challenges beyond our classrooms? While the mandate of many university programs is not ‘job preparation’ (as it is in many college programs or professional faculties), we as post-secondary teachers have opportunities to support our students in developing a range of competencies to prepare them for life ‘after […]

In this workshop, participants will build towards a complex understanding of equity terminology and principles. We will start by working through various scenarios around how equity issues arise in our classrooms and collaboratively generate strategies that work to address them. Then, we will ask participants to reflect on their own practices, learn from each other, […]

This workshop will engage the fundamentals of oral presentation and lecturing in various classroom settings. Participants will examine the difference between “writing for the eye’ versus “writing for the ear” in their teaching. Through a combination of discussions and group activities this session will: Learn principles for outlining and organization lectures and oral presentation. Discuss practices […]

Oral presentations are an excellent gauge of students’ understanding of course content as well as their ability to communicate ideas effectively. As TAs and CIs, we are responsible for grading and providing feedback on both of these aspects. However, at times, we may not know which to focus on or what to look for in […]

Over the last couple of decades, the pressure to improve the quality of teaching has been transforming Higher Education in North America. One of the key initiatives has been the emergence of individuals holding a full-time appointment focused on teaching. Indeed, teaching-stream faculty (TSF) – professors whose main responsibilities are teaching and teaching-focused research (i.e., […]

Mentorship in the laboratory is a multi-pronged form of teaching that spans various domains of knowledge (e.g., technical skills, soft skills, background/conceptual knowledge, health and safety considerations, university SOPs, laboratory norms and culture etc.) Graduate students in the sciences and engineering are often tasked with training and mentoring undergraduates in the laboratory despite having no […]

Interested in hosting live (i.e., synchronous) sessions online? Want to use webinars to build community, present curriculum content, facilitate discussions, manage or collaborative work? This webinar will explore the basics to get you started with webinars. We will examine strategies and tips for structuring and facilitating effective web teleconferencing sessions. Latter half of the webinar […]

Are you interested in reducing barriers to learning and increasing student engagement in e-learning? Do you want to respond to the needs of all your students? Do you want to create a genuinely inclusive environment in your classroom? Join us for a workshop on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) - a set of principles for […]