21st Century Teaching and Learning - Visual

Here's the visual we've been using at the Centre presentations this week.   It provides a framework for us as we hit the 13-14 academic year at a sprint pace.   We'll discuss this more at our next EET meeting, and in the meantime, we'll work on getting a podcast done that provides more detail on the visual. 

  Thanks, Darcie, for your work on this.

EET Newsletter - 1st edition

On Monday we sent the first edition of the EET newsletter to the instructor list serv and to all the Management Forum members.   As of this morning, we've had 329 views already.   Amazing!

Thanks to the EET leaders group for their leadership on this initiative and to Rebecca and Darcie for their incredible media support.    We'll be prioritizing future content for this newsletter at our EET leader's meetings, so pass your ideas and updates along.

Staffing Updates

Welcome to our two new Instructional Designers.   Both Kyle and Mark have started work, so stop by TE3218 and say hello:

Kyle Snowdon comes from a small town outside Toronto, Ontario. He has a B.A. (Hons) from Carleton University, a B.Ed from Trent University, and recently completed his M.Ed from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. In his spare time Kyle enjoys traveling, sports, and the outdoors.

Mark Matsalla coming from Invermere, BC is married with three children. He comes from an elementary/middle school/high school teaching background and is interested in experiential learning. He got his BFA and B.Ed from U of L and his Masters from U of C. For his midlife crisis, he decided to start playing hockey. He also speaks fluent Saskatchewan.

And Jessica has left to focus on her Masters degree.   It's possible that Jessica may still do some contract formatting for us, but it will depend on her other commitments, which include Teaching Assistant and Research Assistant responsibilities in addition to her work on her thesis.  Jessica has been a valuable member of our team, and we're already missing her. 

We'll be advertising soon for a replacement formatter (temporary position from now until December).  If you know of someone with the right skill set and who would be a good fit on the team, please pass this info along.

The advertisement for the AV Technologist position is still on the LC site.   We're waiting for the right person.  Again, if you know of someone who would be a good fit for this position and the AV department, let them know about the opportunity

Universal Design for Learning - Relevance to EET

I messed up on the timing around this message about the relevance of the Universal Design workshops that many of us attended last week.  The relevance was clear in my mind, but I didn’t communicate it, so my apologies.

It’s important that all of us in EET have at least a foundational knowledge of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) for a couple of reasons:

• We are anticipating that UDL will be part of the Academic Transformation Strategy that will be developed in follow up to the spring college-wide strategic planning we participated in.  Accessibility Services has plans for increasing awareness of UDL across campus, but most specifically with instructors in course design (LMS, website, assignment design, handouts, etc.) and course delivery.
• EET staff provide a lot of front line support for both new and experienced instructors.   We should be modeling UDL in our language when we are talking with instructors, demonstrating it in materials we develop (for the LMS, websites, handouts (digital and print), integrating it into course and program redesigns, and encouraging instructors to follow UDL principles as well.

Please take the time to ensure you have at least a foundational knowledge of UDL because it’s something we’ll need to be current on as we support the development of the Academic Transformation Strategy.