Dal Events

CLT virtual drop-in for Graduate Teaching Dossier Retreat inquiries

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 17:00:00 GMT

Wednesday, September 24
2–3 p.m.

Link to join the drop-in (opens in Microsoft Teams)

Have questions about the upcoming Graduate Teaching Dossier Retreat? Join us for a virtual drop-in session hosted by the Centre for Learning and Teaching. This is an informal space where you can connect with our CLT Educational Developer (Student Development) to ask about the retreat schedule, requirements, or registration, or simply stop by to clarify details. Join us online and stay for as little or as much time as you would like! Registration is not required.

Teaching Tuesday Virtual Drop-in: Establishing Roots – Keeping Students Engaged

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 13:30:00 GMT

Tuesday, October 7
10:30–11:30 a.m.
Online via Microsoft Teams
Link to join the session (opens in new window)

Come to our autumn-themed Teaching Tuesday Virtual Drop-ins this semester to create a personalized support experience. Your needs and interests guide the direction of the drop-ins! Ask our CLT Senior Educational Developer questions, bounce ideas off a sounding board, or debrief about your teaching. Join us online and stay for as little or as much time as you would like! Registration is NOT required. Each month has a broad theme:

October

Come to our Establishing Roots – Keeping Students Engaged virtual drop-in to create a personalized support experience. Your needs and interests guide the direction of the drop-in! Ask our CLT Senior Educational Developer questions, bounce ideas off a sounding board, or debrief about topics such as: active learning, rapport-building, fostering critical thinking, and other student engagement methods. Join us online and stay for as little or as much time as you would like!

November: Preventing Deadwood – Instructor Self-Care
Chat about emotional labour of teaching, preventing burnout, maintaining momentum through to the end of the semester, and teaching stressors.

(AI Pedagogy) Assessment Re-design, Part I: Moving toward process-oriented assessment models

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 18:00:00 GMT

Tuesday, October 7
3–4:20 p.m.
Killam Library, Room B400 or Online
Link to register for the event (opens in new tab)

GenA.I. is troublesome for educators because its capabilities challenge our assessment’s “construct validity”— the ability of the assessment task to provide evidence that students are meeting learning outcomes. Assessment that is designed to gather evidence of student learning from their “journeys” (how they did it) rather than their “destinations” (what they submitted), provides the instructor with better evidence for how well outcomes are met. Additionally, process-oriented assignments augment students’ self-efficacy and metacognition, and can strengthen the relationship between instructor and student. This workshop will help participants test the construct validity of their current assessments and discover ways to design assessments that help students attend to, and evidence, their learning journeys.

Facilitator

Les T. Johnson, PhD (he/him)
Educational Developer (Accessible Digital Learning)

Capacity

Online: 16
In-person: 16

Intended Audience

Instructors

Decolonization in the Post-Secondary Context

Wed, 08 Oct 2025 17:00:00 GMT

This session is part of the Decolonization Workshop Series.

This three-part series invites faculty members, instructors, and teaching assistants to reflect on what it means to take a decolonial approach to teaching and learning. Drawing on Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s reminder that “decolonization is not a metaphor,” the series distinguishes decolonization from Indigenization and inclusion, and explores how colonial legacies continue to shape higher education. Together, we will consider how to reimagine virtual and in-person classroom participation, assessment practices, and our broader academic contexts in ways that are more just, relational, and responsive.

This series is limited to faculty, instructors and graduate students, staff at Dal & King’s.

Wednesday, October 8
2–3 p.m.
Online and in-person (Killam Library, Room B400*)
Link to register for the event (opens in new window)

Building on Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s reminder that “decolonization is not a metaphor,” this session explores what decolonization means — and does not mean — within universities. We will distinguish it from Indigenization and inclusion, unpack common misconceptions, and reflect on how colonial legacies continue to shape teaching, research, and academic structures.

Through attending this session, participants will gain:

A clearer understanding of what decolonization is and is not in the post-secondary context.
Tools to distinguish between decolonization, Indigenization, and inclusion in their own teaching and scholarship.
Space to reflect on how colonial legacies shape their discipline and strategies to begin addressing them.

This session lays the foundation for the subsequent workshops on classroom participation and assessment, though participants are welcome to attend any or all sessions independently.

Facilitator

Rachelle McKay, Educational Developer, Indigenous Knowledges & Ways of Knowing

*Please note that the B400 classroom is in the basement of the Killam Library. We are aware of, and apologize for, the accessibility barriers associated with this room. If you require the use of an elevator to reach this room, one of the CLT staff will have to access the elevator with you, using their key card. Please let us know in advance so that we can facilitate a smooth and timely transition to the basement.

We also ask that participants be respectful of those with significant allergies and avoid wearing perfume, aftershave, cologne, and highly scented hairspray, soaps, lotions, and shampoos.

(AI Pedagogy) Assessment Re-design, Part II: Nothing in Isolation—Mapping Assessment Ecologies for More Responsive Design

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 13:00:00 GMT

Tuesday, October 14
10–11:20 a.m.
Killam Library, Room B400 and Online
Link to register for the event (opens in new window)

Assessment doesn’t happen in isolation—it unfolds within a complex web of tasks, tools, spaces, and relationships. This session helps participants step back and view their assessment practices and tasks as an “ecological” system. How do different assessments relate to each other? What roles do digital platforms, classroom/campus spaces, and student practices play? Participants will map their own assessment ecologies and identify opportunities to create more coherent, inclusive, and responsive designs, considering GenA.I.’s influence on how students engage with tasks. The goal is to move from isolated assignments to intentional ecosystems that support learning across time and context.

Facilitator

Kate Crane, MA (she/her)
Coordinator for the Faculty Certificate in Teaching and Learning
(acting) Senior Educational Developer (Digital Learning)

Capacity

In-person: 16
Online: 16

Intended Audience

�� and King's instructors

Engaging in Ethical SoTL

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 17:00:00 GMT

Thursday, October 16
2-3:30 pm
Killam Library, Room B400
Link to register for the event (opens in new window)

Practicing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) by conducting research about learning in our classroom comes with a range of ethical considerations. These include those typical to research with human participants, but some additional and unique considerations apply when our own students are our research participants. Knowing how to appropriately apply an ethical lens to SoTL not only protects the learner, but also works to enhance the quality of your SoTL project.

Join us for this workshop where we will cover:

What to expect during the Research Ethics Board (REB) application process,
Important ethical considerations during the SoTL Lifecycle, and
Tips to help you with conducting ethical SoTL.

Facilitator

Kate Thompson
Educational Developer (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning)
Centre for Learning and Teaching

Resilient Classroom Series: Unforgettable Teaching – Building Your Memory Strategies

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 13:30:00 GMT

Wednesday, October 22
10:30 a.m.–12 p.m.
Killam Library, Room B400*
Link to register for the event (opens in new window)

When we think of enhancing memory in the university context, the focus usually is on helping our students learn course content. In this in-person session, we flip the script and focus on how memory impacts the experience of teaching. You will learn the basics of how memory works and how different types of memory are used in teaching. We will then explore factors and conditions that may contribute to memory challenges and may impact your teaching, such as age; lack of sleep; medical conditions (e.g., head injuries, menopause, long COVID); mental health challenges (e.g., chronic stress/burnout, depression, anxiety); and medication side effects. The session co-facilitators will share their own lived experiences with memory and teaching. Sharing your experiences is welcomed, but not required. We will end with collectively brainstorming and sharing strategies for improving memory in the context of your teaching responsibilities. You will use these ideas to begin developing a memory plan of personalized strategies.

Presenters

Daniella Sieukaran, MA (she/her), Senior Educational Developer (Program Development)
Suzanne Le-May Sheffield, PhD (she/her), Director, Centre for Learning and Teaching

Intended Audience

Graduate students
Instructors
TAs/markers/demonstrators

We also ask that participants be respectful of those with significant allergies and avoid wearing perfume, aftershave, cologne, and highly scented hairspray, soaps, lotions, and shampoos.