Faculty Speaker and Discussion Series:

Out of Isolation - Reflections and Lessons Learned

After a period of extended isolation, many faculty are looking to return to campus and to return to in-person and on-campus teaching; others will continue to deliver digitally mediated courses (remote, online, hybrid or dual mode delivery).

Despite these differences in our near futures, we all remain touched -- in various ways -- by our experiences during the pandemic. These experiences have granted us insights about our students, ourselves, and about the process of teaching via digital platforms. For many faculty, teaching in a virtual environment has in fact afforded new approaches or strategies that may continue to shape their teaching practices.

Series and Session Format

We are looking to create a series of spaces for conversation so that faculty can come together and share these experiences, insights, and experiments. This Speaker and Discussion series will commence with a synchronous (same time) session followed by a series of asynchronous recordings to be developed and shared across the academic term. As the series unfolds, we will look to close out this series in a concluding session, with a roundtable which responds to key themes which arise.

In each session faculty presenters will join in conversation with the session host / moderator. We have decided upon this approach to streamline the process for faculty who are interesting in participating.  Sharing of slides or presentation material is welcome but not a requirement.

Call for Proposals

We are looking to faculty to be part of this experience. Are there any experiments, processes, strategies you have developed or utilized when teaching remotely you wish to share? Each presentation is anticipated to be between 10 – 20 minutes long, which can include an opportunity for questions or discussion.  Please review the topics below to see if they spark any ideas, but please feel welcome to propose ideas beyond this list.

Topic or themes to consider:

• “New thing(s) I tried which worked ..”

• Accessibility and inclusion

• Class community and the learning environment

• Improving student engagement/ learning retention

• Health and wellness

• Effectiveness of course and/or learning activity

• Responsive or roundtable course design

Please register your interest by contacting Paul Maher (paul.maher@smu.ca) in the Studio by email, along with a short description (up to 1 paragraph) on your proposed topic.