Professional development workshops led by leading edge educators.
Join us on Friday, November 4th for an exciting series of professional development workshops led by some of the most innovative and creative professionals we know. (See their bios here.) When you register, choose one workshop that intrigues you from each of the following two blocks.
[Full Gathering Schedule | Register now]
Workshop Block I: 1:30-3:30pm
1a. Goodness Gracious Google!
Easy & Effective Strategies for building community, student engagement and agency, and providing meaningful assessment using a few Google tools. See how easy it is to get some instant results, and not work so dang hard. Avi will show you how to be lazy, yet effective in your endeavours to make assessment meaningful, to increase engagement, and even try Gamification. After we look at several strategies and tools Avi has used, you will get to try one or two yourself in this hands-on session. Please ensure you have a Google account and a laptop.
Presenter: Avi Luxenburg, Vancouver Island University, Instructor (Graduate, Undergraduate)
1b. Self-Directed Projects- A Strategy for Effective Teaching and Learning
- Self introduction of self and context for the presentation
- Self introduction of participants and their goals
- Sharing of examples of past projects ( 7 different types)
- Logistics of how this strategy can be implemented by teachers/professors
(step by step how to do it provided including the contract used)
- Sharing of research of survey results (student reviews of this project)
- Sharing of ideas on how this project could be implemented in their own settings (small groups )
- Sharing of possibilities for this strategy (whole group)
- Closing comments with door prizes (skill testing questions)
Presenter: Dr. Bernie Krynowsky- Professor of Education- Vancouver Island University
1d. Exploring Social and Emotional Learning
How do you help students discover empathy? What does it take for students to “flick the switch” and become initiators of their own learning? This workshop will not answer these questions. It will however further thinking on how opportunities for social and emotional learning (SEL) can be embedded in both school day and out of school time. We will overview six domains of SEL, groupthink experiences that helped develop them in our lives, and devise ways for classroom and afterschool teachers to experiment with and accelerate the SEL learning curve in students of all ages.
Presenter: Will Spotts, NBCT, Assistant Director, Eastern Michigan University Bright Futures, A 21st Century Community Learning Center
1f. Using Storytelling as Formative Assessment in Science Classes
Storytelling is one of the oldest and most enjoyable methods of communicating important knowledge from one person to another. In this workshop you will learn methods for using storytelling as a means of formative assessment in science classes, though the methods can be transferred to other subjects. By getting students individually, in pairs, or in groups, to write stories about challenging & difficult topics, educators will easily be able to assess the level of understanding in the class and students will enhance their familiarity and recall of the topic.
Presenter: Lisa Lewis, Instructor, Vancouver Island University
Workshop Block II: 4:00-6:00pm
2b. Facilitating Successful Learning Through Failure
When is failure really a success?
Our present education system is built around always finding the ‘right’ answer, but when can the wrong answer be valuable? Technology can provide opportunities for students to make mistakes, iterate, persevere and develop alternative approaches to problems relevant to what they are learning. In this workshop, participants will engage in a team challenge and introductory coding activities to explore the value of failure as a key part of meaningful learning.
Presenters: Dave Sands – Principal of Technology Implementation, SD43 & Dave Truss – Vice Principal of Inquiry Hub Secondary and Coquitlam Open Learning
2c. Aesthetics: A path to Student Engagement in Science
In this hands-on workshop, we will explore how leading with fascination, discovery, and beauty can enhance learning of science. We will be playing with substances available in most kitchens or bathrooms to create different fluid dynamics phenomena, and recording those phenomena in still photos or short video. After “capturing” an image that personally appeals to us, we will discuss how striving for that “just right” image helped us persist in the experiments, and how aesthetic dimensions can be added to other fields of science, and other content areas more broadly.
Presenter: Dr. Katherine Goodman, Assistant Professor, University of Colorado Denver
2d. Let’s Play on the Social Media Playground!
Join me to explore Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram applications for personal, professional and classroom use. We will create an online scavenger hunt using GooseChase, play our group created game, and post our photo/video missions to Twitter. We will explore how to create a Storify with a # (hashtag) search. Use TweetDeck to organize chatter on Twitter. Explore “what’s trending”? Talk about everything from your handle to a hashtag to a geofilter. Bring your Smartphones with apps for Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Goosechase (note Goosechase does not have an iPad app yet, but all the others do). Storify and TweetDeck will be demonstrated for computer use, logging in through your browser, so please bring your laptops too. Please see me, or an iiE person, to help you download apps prior to the workshop. I will be available from 1-1:30pm and 3:30-4pm for pre-workshop app support. Whether you are a novice or a seasoned veteran, there will be new experiences for everyone! Can’t wait to get to know you on the Social Media Playground!
Presenter: Amanda Dawes, Chief Social Media Officer iiE, Teacher/Educator, Florida
2e. Snuneymuxw and Surface Area: Lessons in Math and Cultural Immersion
Snuneymuxw and Surface Area is a project designed to showcase math and cultural studies as relatable intellectual explorations. Via the educational technology of Webquest, the project introduces students to the mathematical concept of surface area while simultaneously immersing them in the complex socio-cultural context of the Snuneymuxw people. Furthermore, the project embeds the study of math in contemporary struggles of de-colonization and self-determination while introducing students to Snuneymuxw as a living culture that can be understood and explored in relation to the practice of language revitalization and the nurturing of traditional cultural teachings.
Presenter: Caitlin Johnston, Senior Community Researcher for Aboriginal Early Childhood Development at Vancouver Island University and TTOC in SD 68.
2f. Get In The Game! – A How-To Guide to Using Gamification to Level Up Your Classroom
In this session, participants will learn essential tools and practices to bring game-like methods to their classrooms. These gamified methods emerge directly from games themselves…and the best way to understand these methods is to play some games! After a brief introduction to this topic and sorting out some vocabulary, participants will play some board and card games along with their fellow attendees and the workshop host. The players will, through play, come to understand the fundamental mechanics of the games and then will discuss how to implement these mechanics in a lesson plan. Participants will be hands-on almost from the start of the workshop. Attendees will get an assortment of documents to help them duplicate this work in their own schools (lesson planners, etc.)
Presenter: Jonathan M. Cassie, Ed.D., Director of Innovation, TVT Community Day School, Irvine CA
2g. Supporting Student Learning: Learning How to Learn
It is often assumed that students attending post-secondary institutions have the skills necessary for successful learning. However, strategies that may have served them well in secondary education do not always transfer to successful learning in an environment that requires self-regulation. In fact, many of their strategies encourage surface learning (memorization) of concepts, making it difficult to apply their knowledge to new learning environments.
Anatomy and physiology, considered a gateway course for first year students, presents many challenges for learning. The large amount of science vocabulary and the need to make connections between concepts can quickly overwhelm students new to the post-secondary environment, especially if they lack the tools for deep learning. To help support students in their learning, a new course, “Elements of Anatomy and Physiology: Techniques to be Successful in Health Sciences”, was developed by the Faculty of Academic and Career Preparation (VIU). While most courses are designed around what students need to learn (content), this course was designed around how to learn (strategies). Students are introduced to strategies, encouraged to apply them within concurrent courses, and then reflect upon the benefits or challenges of using each strategy.
This workshop will take participants through the course development process, the strategies included in the course and the rationale for their inclusion. Participants will also be invited to actively engage with several the learning strategies to explore how they may be able to incorporate them into their own classrooms. The workshop will close with a discussion of the challenges and successes students experience working with the strategies. Participants will be encouraged to share their observations of learning strategy gaps within their own classrooms and how they have supported the students.
Presenter: Charlene Stewart, ABE Instructor, VIU