Event Schedule & Registration
Schedule is subject to change. Recordings of some presentations will be available after the event.
*includes student presenters
Wednesday, May 5th
1:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Opening of Celebrate 2021! & Leaders' Panel Presentation: Reflections Over the Pandemic - with Spirit River Striped Wolf, Dr. Tim Rahilly, and Dr. Elizabeth Evans
Moderated by Christian Cook
1:30 pm - 2:30 pm
Keynote: Culturally Responsive Teaching and Mindset
Kate Sweeney
Each of us brings our own set of meaning making schemes, identities, cultures, and individual experiences to every situation we encounter. These impact the way we respond to others as well as the perceptions others may have of us. We often see the world through our own cultural lens and this lens shapes the reality that we perceive, which may be entirely different from someone else’s reality of the same situation. How can educators ensure we bring the mindset and tools to the classroom that allows us to consider multiple ways of adjusting style and content to meet different cultural and identity expectations that impact the way students approach different learning situations?
Kate Sweeney Biography
Kate Sweeney is an educator and a communication and leadership expert. As an educator, she has taught communication courses at Columbia University, Baruch College, NYC College of Technology and Borough of Manhattan Community College. As a consultant, she has taught communication and leadership skills to senior management and executive leadership at Fortune 500 companies around the world.
Kate spent 12 years in the United States Army as a Chinese, Italian, and French linguist. Having lived and worked in countries as diverse as Japan, China, India, Italy and France, she used her language and cross-cultural communication skills to liaise effectively with embassies and diplomats worldwide. In the United States, Kate worked for the Department of Defense, training military personnel in tactical and strategic leadership and communications skills.
Kate holds a B.S. in International Relations from the University of Maryland, an M.S. in International Management from the University of Maryland, and an M.A. in Adult Learning and Leadership from Columbia University’s Teachers College. She is currently a doctoral candidate in Adult Learning at Columbia University Teachers College, where her research is focused on the psychosocial factors that impact student success in community college settings. She is fluent in Italian and conversant in Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish.
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Distinguished Faculty Panel & Awards
Join us as we celebrate our Distinguished Faculty Award recipients! The 2020 award winners will be giving a panel presentation, followed by the announcement of this year’s DFA recipients by Mike Quinn, Vice-Provost and Associate Vice President, Academic.
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Virtual Social
Moderated by Brad Mahon & Stephen Price
Join your colleagues for some informal online socializing! Pick a themed breakout room or hop from room to room. Each room will have a “Theme” and someone there to get the banter going:
Most epic Teaching Triumphs and Funny (or not) Fails from this past year
The Student Experience - what are your biggest takeaways as an educator? as a student? and what ideas do you have moving forward to make the student experience the best possible
Take a Risk - what’s the biggest “risk” you took in your teaching and what did you learn?
Thursday, May 6th
9:00 am - 9:30 am
Keynote: Survivor Love Letter Campaign at MRU: Collaborative Approaches Creating New Possibilities
Sarah Armstrong, Logan Brisson, Cari Ionson, Bob Lambert, Sara McCaffrey, Courtney Warren
The Survivor Love Letter Campaign engages the MRU community in conveying messages of support for survivors of sexual violence. This year, partnerships across campus services, with SAMRU and students were formed to bring this campaign to campus for Sexual Violence Awareness Month in May.
This presentation will highlight the collaborative learning and innovation that took place as a result of these partnerships and celebrate the possibilities of experiential and peer-to-peer learning, social change, and activism when student voice is centered and supported by subject-matter expertise and resources.
10:00 am - 10:30 am
Teaching Trade during Covid: Conducting a WTO Simulation through Remote Delivery
Greg Anderson, Duane Bratt, Chris Kukucha, David Sabiston
In Fall 2020, all universities in Alberta, like many in North America, went with remote delivery of classes due to covid-19 restrictions. This provided teaching challenges, but also opportunities. Professors at three Alberta universities teaching similar undergraduate courses in international political economy, decided to use the challenges/opportunities of covid-19 restrictions to experiment with a World Trade Organization (WTO) simulation across the three campuses through remote delivery. Simulations are often a very active teaching tool in political science, but what was unusual was doing the simulation and background preparation through remote delivery. This paper assesses how effective the experiment was. It traces the origins/evolution of the idea, the learning objectives for the students, preparation that the professors did to design the WTO simulation, and the experience of the actual simulation. It addresses the challenges (technological, timing, assignments, grading, student anxiety, etc) that were faced. In addition, it identifies the steps that were taken to reduce and mitigate the challenges. It also acknowledges the mistakes that were made by the professors in designing and implementing the assignment. This analysis is informed by the materials that the professors prepared, their thoughts on the experience, as well as the feedback from participating students. It provides lessons for future online simulations.
Change Mindset a Key Requirement of Sustainment
Dr. Evelyn Brisibe
Change management is key to introducing, implementing and sustaining the results of projects and mindset in any organization. The effects of change are sometimes underestimated when introducing, implementing or sustaining a solution that requires radical change in the way instructors are required to manage the virtual class room in a pandemic era.
As a professional that has witnessed 3 major shifts in management and focus around the implementation and sustainment of solutions, I will be presenting how change management beliefs and tactics have kept me focused on the goal and ultimate prize of keeping students engaged throughout the course delivery.
Connecting Education & The Real World
Ken King
This presentation is designed to talk about how learning in post-secondary education can be much more connected to outcomes in the real world by building more creativity and innovation into our assessments. In about 15 minutes, the goal is to compel and create thought processes that changes how we approach training students in a way that sets MRU apart.
Resurrecting a Dead Manuscript: A Student-Focused Writing Experience*
Robert Mazury, Meaghan Peters, Carrie Scherzer, Jeremy Trenchuk
This is the story of a collaborative writing project in Psychology. A professor had a manuscript sitting on her desk marked as resubmit. It sat, and sat, and sat some more until she had a team of intrepid young scholars who were looking for research experience. Together, this group has reworked the entire manuscript - the students have been responsible for reviewing the literature, as well as working together to edit the original paper. The group met semi-regularly to make sure everyone was on track to get the manuscript re-submitted. Meetings were semi-formal focused on both project development and professional development. Together the group helped each other learn new concepts, as well as learn from the professor about the manuscript writing process. The manuscript is currently undergoing revisions based on reviewer feedback from a journal submission earlier this year. In this presentation, we will share both the professor and students’ perspectives on this unique collaboration.
Pop-Quiz with a Twist: Reflections of Using Two-Stage Pop Quizzes in a Business Course
Dr. Uthpala Senarathne Tennakoon
Pop quizzes are commonly used as a mechanism to keep students connected to the class and the content. The presentation introduces “pop-quiz with a twist” (PQT), an enhanced version of pop quizzes with two-stage assessment. Two-stage assessments are utilized as a way to introduce collaborative learning and formative assessment in exams, where students complete the same assessment individually, and as part of a team. The approach is known to improve performance and motivation, reduce test anxiety, and positively viewed by students. Compared to a traditional two-stage model, the PQT approach is enhanced with self-grading with immediate feedback by the instructor. This presentation will examine the instructor’s reflections and student perceptions of implementing the PQT approach in content-heavy undergraduate business courses. There is strong suggestions indicating that the PQT approach leads to high student engagement, better learning outcomes, and higher content retention. Challenges to implementing approach and future direction are also discussed.
10:45 am - 11:15 am
Electronics and computer programming in unexpected places: Curricular integration in the Maker Studio*
Audrey Burch, Liam Eisenburg, Kerry Harmer, Mariangel Ramirez, Tim Taylor
Join the faculty and students who have used the Maker Studio in the past year to learn how electronics and computer programming are being incorporated into curricula. Maker Studio staff will explain how they have assisted students online in Environmental Science and Computer Information Systems in creating a variety of innovative projects as part of coursework. You will be able to see the projects created and learn how you can get involved in a curricula collaboration with the Maker Studio.
Designing and Developing Virtual Reality Learning Spaces
Anthony Chaston
In the Fall 2021 semester I will begin teaching a new course, PSYC4408 – The Digital Frontier: Perception, Virtual Reality and AI in Psychology. This course will be delivered entirely in virtual reality, in a Virtual Learning Space that I have developed specifically for this course. When students log in, class will include presentations at our virtual outdoor amphitheatre, discussions, guest speakers and breakout groupwork. Each area in the learning space will be customized to support the lessons and activities that are scheduled for that day’s class. During this presentation I will discuss the process of developing Virtual Learning Spaces from both software & instructions design perspectives. I will also discuss the current state of teaching in Virtual Reality and some aspects of people and space management that are unique to teaching in VR.
What Access and Inclusion Students Taught Me during
Covid-19
Covid-19
Janne Holmgren, Ann Wade
Dr. Janne Holmgren (Faculty; Justice Studies) and Ann Wade (Access Advisor; Access and Inclusion Services) collaborate to discuss the diversity of Access and Inclusion students and how understanding the barriers they face can inform teaching style and increase student participation, engagement and empowerment. Ann will speak to the diverse needs of students served through Access and Inclusion Services. Janne will provide insight into how teaching in the virtual context helped her see the true needs of her students, and how this deeper understanding led her to re-assess and adjust her teaching style to better accommodate their needs.
Remote Teaching: Challenges and Opportunities -
Extended double session 10:45 am - 12:30 pm
Extended double session 10:45 am - 12:30 pm
Trevor Day, Cheryl Techentin, Amanda Veinotte
A moderated panel discussion celebrating the creative instructional delivery methods used by instructors from diverse areas at Mount Royal to overcome some of the unique challenges presented by remote delivery. Organized by members of the TLC sub-committee on the Future of Online Learning, the panel will be followed immediately by a lunchtime roundtable discussion with panelists. This session includes instructors from Arts, Math, Chemistry, Business, Nursing, as well as a Lab instructor to capture a broad range of instructional delivery styles. A student representative will also be part of the panel. Panel members will be asked to respond to three questions: 1) What was the greatest challenge faced by your area; 2) How did you overcome it, and 3) What (if anything) will you carry over from this experience to your instructional delivery going forward?
11:30 am - 12:30 pm
Lunchtime Roundtables
Looking for some lunch buddies? Join students and colleagues for an informal lunchtime discussion led by our presenters: Presenters will speak and lead an open discussion for a minimum of 20 min, with the option to continue the conversation throughout the lunch hour. Share your perspective, ask questions or simply listen in.
Expanding Our Creative Capacity: Teaching Creativity in the Online Learning Environment
AnneMarie Dorland
In this round table session, we’ll explore the possibilities and challenges of developing our student’s creative capacities in an online environment. What happens when we move our creative courses outside of the studio course, and into the online space? And how might we teach creativity differently in the virtual world?
This round table session will focus on what teaching creativity online might look like across disciplines here at MRU, how we might use creative capacity development exercises in an experiential learning classroom, and what enhancing the creative capacities of our students might enable us to do differently in classes across campus.
To get us started, I’ll share student reflections from a 2021 team-based and creativity-focused studio course that was taught online. Then, we’ll work together to develop a bank of new and useful ways in which we might adapt the way we teach creativity, creative process and creative problem solving practices to support the development of divergent thinking skills and critical cognitive abilities in our own learning communities.
They Were Loved: Telling the stories of those we’ve lost to COVID-19
Angela Lackey, Kate Mackenzie, Archie McLean
Since May, journalism students have been a part of a national partnership between MacLean’s magazine, Carleton University’s future of journalism project and the Mindset Social Innovation Foundation to tell the stories of people who have died from COVID-19.
Working entirely online, students have found family members of people who have died, conducted difficult interviews and wrote and edited the stories for publication. The experience has been overwhelmingly positive for students, though profoundly difficult at times.
In this session we will discuss the project and its impact on those involved.
Theory into Practice: Implementation of Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education
Rahim Pira
Technology in the Classroom course for educational assistants provides a theoretical and a practical exposure on the benefits and challenges of integrating emerging technologies in the classroom for teaching and learning. One of the major topics that is covered in this course is how Universal Design for Learning (UDL) can be integrated in the classroom through various educational technologies. As an instructor for this course for three consecutive years, I have had opportunities to teach the theoretical foundations of UDL and implement this research-based, educational framework in the course. Aligned with UDL’s three principles – multiple means of representation, engagement, and action and expression – the implementation of UDL in this course created a rich learning environment through provision of multiple learning opportunities. These opportunities were created in multiple forms: representing the course content using different modalities, engaging students with the course content through small group and classroom wide collaborations, and allowing students to express their learning experiences via prior experiences and opinions about educational technologies in the classroom.
12:45 pm - 1:15 pm
Kids Mental Help: Course Based Community Outreach*
Carrie Scherzer, Lindsey Scott
In this presentation, we will be sharing our experiences as both professor and student creating a website to disseminate information about children’s mental health disorders. The information comes, in part, from the Atypical Child Development (PSYC 4451) class at MRU. Students in that class create educational brochures about different disorders, and through the support of a Teaching and Learning Enhancement Grant in 2019-2020, a Psychology student has been working alongside the course instructor to create a website to have these brochures reach the intended public audiences. The student will speak to her experiences, both as a student in the course and working on the website. Further information about how this assignment came to be and came to life will also be explored.
Teaching with Learning Technology: the good, the bad, and the future
AnneMarie Dorland, Donna Dumont
Over the last several years the Principles of Marketing course (Mktg 2150) has grown to almost 1500 students in the class on an annual basis. It is both a required course and a General Education option. Several years ago we moved to a simulation as a learning and assessment tool for students to apply and learn how the key course concepts interact with each other. We also adopted the textbook adaptive learning technology where students read and complete an online quiz prior to covering the topic in class. The pandemic provided us the opportunity to scaffold on additional learning technologies and to explore the impact of using simulation and asynchronous quizzes in a learning environment.
The Integration of a Community Service Learning Water Project in a Post-Secondary Chemistry Lab
Karen Ho
Community Service Learning (CSL) is an experiential learning approach that integrates community service into student projects and provides diverse learning opportunities to reduce interdisciplinary barriers. A semester-long chemistry curriculum with an integrated CSL intervention was implemented in Analytical Chemistry II to analyze the potential for engagement and positive attitudes toward chemistry as a meaningful undertaking for 22 MRU students in the laboratory as well as for 400 K-12 student partners in the community. Traditionally, introductory science experiments typically involve repeating a cookbook recipe from a lab book, but this CSL project allowed the university and K-12 students to work collaboratively to determine the physical properties, chemical properties, and total dissolved solids in the water from the fountains at the K-12 students' schools.
Surviving/Thriving Disruption: Services in Support of Remote Teaching and Learning
Tiffany Doherty, Kristin Fulton, Anna Nuhn, Andrea Phillipson, Sarah Stephens, Amanda Veinotte, Katharine Barrette (moderator)
This moderated panel discussion will celebrate the creative service delivery opportunities that were generated as a result of the rapid shift to remote delivery in spring 2020. Panel members will include colleagues from three service areas within the Riddell Library and Learning Centre: the Academic Development Centre, Student Learning Services, and the University Library. Panel members will be asked to respond to the following questions: 1) What is the greatest shift that your area was required to make? 2) How were you able to meet the needs of your clients/audience? 3) Where were there challenges or gaps? 4) What (if anything) do you hope will be part of the new normal, for your area, going forward? This presentation will include 15 minutes for the panelist discussion and 15 minutes for audience questions.
1:30 pm - 2:00 pm
Pandemic Makerspace: Programming and feedback data from an online year in the Maker Studio
Kerry Harmer, Erin Wainwright, Stephen Hodder (MacEwan University)
What does an academic library makerspace look like in a pandemic? Join the presenters to learn what online programming has been created and delivered, what new open access resources are now available, what courses we worked with during each semester and how faculty and students have responded to working with the Maker Studio in an online setting. We will share what lessons we have learned and how the lessons learned will inform future practices in the Maker Studio.
The Relationship Between Logic and Science Education in First Year General Education
Mandy Sobhanzadeh, Nick Strzalkowski
Since 2008, MRU has been committed to providing students with capacities for quantitative reasoning and the kind of literacy we have come to associate with the interpretation and assessment of scientific ideas shaping public discourse. After ten years, it was decided to revise the curriculum primarily responsible for supporting this mandate. A notable revision was the addition of a unit on logic in the course “GNED1101 – Scientific and Mathematical Literacy for the Modern World”, MRU’s foundational course on quantitative reasoning. Logic was added to improve students’ critical reasoning and ability to assess arguments, especially those made by practicing scientists. Interviews with students who have completed class activities and discussions about the modified curriculum show a positive impact of studying logic on their learning skills such as problem solving, writing and understanding scientific texts along with everyday life events.
Piecing together our cultural roots*
Dr. Nancy-Angel Doetzel, Aulora Morrow
Some of my best moments teaching were when I held "Share Your Culture" days in some of my classes. Students appeared very happy and proud to share their heritage, which sometimes involved introducing fellow students to their cultural rituals, dance moves, dress codes, and food types. This assignment truly built community within the class and encouraged students to be open about their heritage. I was informed during some "Share Your Culture" days, about ways some students had been mistakenly perceived as "white privileged" based on their physical appearance. As a blond Ojibwa woman, I was able to attempt to step into their moccasins, while we shared common stories.
We chatted about ways we were trying to piece together our cultural roots, and find out more about our Indigenous heritage. Aulora, was one of my students, who is currently working towards piecing together her cultural heritage. Today, we would like to share some of our stories connected with us piecing together our cultural roots.
Meditation in the Classroom: Empirical Observation to Promote Self-Awareness and Mental Health
Brian Nichols
Innovative approaches to pedagogy are being implemented in the new discipline of contemplative studies. This presentation will introduce the field of contemplative studies (CS) along with examples of first person experiential learning techniques I have developed in dialogue with the field of CS and have implemented at MRU. I will share what I have learned from developing and teaching a contemplative studies course since 2015, which has become one of the most popular courses at MRU. While I expected gains in areas like concentration and attention, students consistently report impactful gains in self-reflexivity, self-awareness, and mental health. The presentation will also note important issues and pitfalls in bringing meditation into classrooms.
Friday, May 7th
10:00 am - 10:30 pm
Spark Talks
Get ready to be fired up as colleagues spark your curiosity and imagination with short 5-min, talks. No slides, no questions, just 5 minutes to share one impactful and important thing about teaching and learning! These talks will be hosted by Meg Wilcox and include:
Ken King - “Data-Based Recommendations for Student Success”
Joseph Plant - “How to Get the Most Out of Your MRU Education: the Importance of the Relationship Between Professor and Student"
Monica Pauls - “Navigating a Pandemic: Adjusting the Sails of Fieldwork in Child and Youth Care"
Samanti Kulatilake - “Google Sites for Course E-materials"
Nadine Van Wyk, Julie Booke - “The Ongoing Debate: Group v.s. Individual Projects"
Sally Haney - “Alumni Spotlights!"
10:30 am - 11:00 pm
Capstone Experiences Cultivate Collective Learning*
Dr. Susan Garrow-Oliver, Emma Murphy, Taylor Syrja
In this capstone project students researched, planned and developed an organizational online learning module for employees of a large non profit community agency. Adult learning theories, course development, collaborative writing and application of theories learned in the Bachelor of Child Studies informed the final project outcome. We will share our experiences and learning of this full year capstone project. Together the students and faculty will explore their personal and professional growth through the capstone process along with the benefits to the community agency partner.
An interdisciplinary experience - advocating for art based curriculum in the early years*
Carolyn Byartveit, Michaela Chronik, Sophia Hamrell, Sujood Kharfan, Christina Tortorelli
A panel of 3 students from Child Studies and Social Work will share their experiences of building a high functioning practicum team during
COVID-19.
Supported by two faculty members who acted as "agency" supervisors the students have developed leadership skills that have far reaching impacts.
Completing a literature review to understand the topics, developing arts-based curriculum, facilitating art with a group of 5 year-olds - students' interactions with the children were filmed by the ADC Media Team.
The result is material for the classroom and the child development lab, training of staff in the childcare centre, and education of the community interwoven with an on-line children's art sale in support of the centre:
AND - a paper to publish with a strong advocacy message for the inclusion of arts-based curriculum as part of quality childcare.
An interdisciplinary experience - advocating for art based curriculum in the early years
Experiential learning through an international competition for undergraduate students, photo assignments, and video assignments
Lavinia Moldovan
This presentation will look at how students can extend their learning beyond the course environment by participating in an international economics competition for undergraduate students. The Econ Games competition challenged the students to apply what they learned from classroom content to real-world problems, taught them how to clean and visualize data, provided an opportunity to tell meaningful stories with data and to develop professional skills in the process, and connected likeminded students from 18 universities. The team representing MRU won second place in the competition.
The second part of the presentation looks at how students learn to make connections between their own lived experience and microeconomic theory through photo and video assignments in first and second-year microeconomics courses. The assignments used a competency-oriented approach, encouraging creativity and communication.
The Outline as Precusor to Polished Papers
Terri Baker, Lauren Cross
What happens when we give students a structure to develop their ideas and provide them with earlier, in-depth feedback during their paper-writing process? This presentation will explore the collaboration between Terri Baker and Lauren Cross to facilitate student writing success through the construction of outlines as precursors to two required essays. An outline template from Terri and an SLS workshop on writing and referencing from Lauren provided students with the tools to develop their ideas and integrate their sources. Before writing their final papers, students received feedback on their thesis statements and their organization of supporting points, evidence, and preliminary analysis. Students then reviewed selected outlines in groups, with Lauren and Terri responding to questions and providing additional direction. Whereas this outline tool was developed for composition courses in GNED, we suggest that this scaffolded approach to supporting student writing could offer benefits across the disciplines.
Undergraduate Research as a Fulcrum for Leveraging Change
Barb Davies, Cordelia Snowdon
The Catamount Fellowship is a cohort-based learning experience for MRU students committed to building a more just and sustainable future for all. The Fellowship combines community-partnered research with transformational learning, challenging students to dive into social innovation frameworks, experiential learning, and deep listening with community. Students explore the root causes of complex ecological, social, economic, and cultural issues affecting communities in Calgary and area, defined by community-partnered organizations. Students build meaningful connections with a broader community of changemakers while exploring their own voice, agency and identity as an emerging changemaker.
The challenge for each student, and for the team delivering the program, is to balance and intertwine undergraduate scholarly research within the context of the community's needs while developing a changemaker mindset. The tensions that emerge are many such as, the leadership growth of the student and the practical real-time needs of the community, or between the research discipline imposed by faculty mentors and the need to cultivate a systems lens in approaching complex issues. These tensions stretch students, and can be life changing. But how do we provide a supportive learning environment to stretch students, but not to the breaking point?
11:15 am - 12:00 pm
Final Reflection & Closing Remarks
Christian Cook (Academic Director, ADC) and Katharine Barrette (Associate Dean, Public Services, Library)
To close out Celebrate!, join Christian and Katharine to capture just some of the celebration-worthy moments of the past incredible year. We'll reflect over the Celebrate! event, field questions from you, and share our recent journeys in teaching and learning. Participants will be invited to engage in an (optional) closing exercise to support momentum going forward.