Opening remarks and keynote introduction by
Dr. Karim Dharamsi, Vice-Provost Academic

Keynote by Dr. Samanti Kulatilake, 2024 3M National Teaching Fellow, and Distinguished Faculty Award recipient.

An exploration of the joy, the impact, and the power of experiential learning that spark our curiosity to become lifelong learners.

Immersive Collaboration: Applying Technology to Inform Student Engagement

Keir Stuhlmiller

The Immersive Collaboration presentation reviews the use of the Library Immersion Studio in specific Interior Design Systems classes. The immersive environment allows for a variety of formats that enhance student engagement with technical course content, and link technical information to design methodology. The focus of these sessions is collaboration, debate, and open discussion to cultivate individual comprehension and critical analysis skills. Both the presentation content, student engagement formats, and resulting student reflections will be presented.

Keywords: Experiential learning, collaboration, Immersion Lab

Musings on Teaching and Learning

Ademola Adesola

Reflecting on one’s teaching practice can and does yield some compelling insights that aid improvement and encourage more understanding of how to ensure an excellent learning experience for students. In a recent musing on teaching and learning, I concretized some ideas about how I understand my roles as an educator and what I expect of my students. Those musings are what I seek to share in this presentation. It is my hope that the reflections will inspire productive conversations and insights that will further enrich our appreciation of what it means to be teachers and learners. 

Keywords: Teaching, learning (experience), reflection

Deterministic Teaching and Learning: Compassion in a Causal Classroom 

Nick Strzalkowski

This presentation introduces deterministic teaching, a pedagogical framework grounded in the belief that students do not choose their strengths, struggles, or motivations. Drawing on the distinction between first- and second-order desires and the broader philosophy of determinism, I explore how instructors can shape students’ desire to learn, even when those desires are not freely chosen. Central to this approach is the recognition that luck is a powerful force in educational outcomes, making compassionate teaching a necessary and productive response. Deterministic teaching reframes struggle as morally neutral, success as the product of genetic and environmental factors, and instruction as a causal intervention. Education becomes a way to maximize luck through compassionate pedagogy that expands the range of thoughts and actions available to students. The strategies I offer are actionable for all instructors but may (hopefully) challenge assumptions about free will.

Keywords: Teaching philosophy, compassionate pedagogy, student motivation, determinism

Introduction to REFLECT: A Tool for your Teaching and Learning Journey by the 2022 3M National Teaching Fellows

Pamini Thangarajah

As the 3M 2022 Cohort, we have developed a novel online tool and visualization to support postsecondary teachers titled REFLECT (Reflective Exploration Framework for Learning and Engagement in Critical Teaching). During the development of this tool, we conducted twenty-two semi-structured interviews focused on supportive tool aspects, barriers to meaningful reflection, accessibility, and equity, diversity, and inclusion framing. This tool has been developed with several guiding principles, including helping teachers talk about their teaching practice in multidimensional, formative ways; supporting colleagues in reflecting on, and reporting on (if desired) their teaching, articulating strengths and growth areas; being useful to both novice and experienced instructors; emphasizing that context matters in both teaching practice and reflection; and moving beyond traditional metrics of evaluation such as student evaluations of teaching.

Keywords: Critical reflection, dimensions of teaching, tool

Prompting Possibility: AI Tools and the Future of Business Communication

Kris Hans

This session shares insights from MGMT 3210 – Business Communication Theory and Practice, where generative AI writing tools like ChatGPT and Co-Pilot have been integrated into course design. Funded by a Teaching and Learning Enhancement Grant (TLEG), the project includes asynchronous learning modules on prompt writing, ethical AI use, and enhancing professional communication. Drawing on student feedback and survey data, the session will highlight key takeaways, practical challenges, and opportunities for AI integration in the classroom. A brief presentation will be followed by an open discussion on how AI is reshaping pedagogy and student engagement across disciplines.

Keywords: AI in education, business communication, artificial intelligence, prompt engineering, digital literacy

Student Storytelling - Transforming Teaching, Learning, and Assessment in Higher Education 

Karen Ho, Alfie Chen

Storytelling, a profoundly human activity, holds transformative potential for teaching, learning, and assessment. When students use storytelling to contextualize their experiences through various mediums, they engage more deeply with disciplinary knowledge and develop a stronger sense of personal connection to their learning. Although not yet mainstream in assessment practice, research indicates that storytelling can support the explanation of complex concepts and foster deeper, transferable learning outcomes. Storytelling-based assessments also promote reflection and personalization, allowing students to demonstrate understanding in meaningful and creative ways. In addition, storytelling can bridge academic learning with real-world applications, enhancing students' readiness for professional environments—one of the core principles of work-integrated learning. This oral presentation will offer practical strategies for designing, implementing, and grading storytelling pedagogies and assessments, providing attendees with tools to enrich student engagement and learning in diverse Higher Education settings.

Keywords: Storytelling, reflection, teaching and learning, higher education, assessment

Expanding Leadership Education: AI-Enabled Role Plays and Student-Faculty Co-Design

Leda Stawnychko

This presentation explores how AI-enhanced role plays—co-created with undergraduate students under the Students-as-Partners model—are transforming leadership education at MRU. Supported by a TLEG grant, the project uses generative AI to simulate real-world leadership scenarios such as negotiating, giving and receiving performance feedback, and managing conflict. These immersive, tech-enabled tools foster emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and decision-making skills in psychologically safe environments. 

The session will highlight both the collaborative design process with students and the development of the AI-integrated role plays. Attendees will gain insight into how SaP can be meaningfully integrated into curriculum design and how AI can support inclusive, high-impact learning. Practical strategies and lessons learned will be shared to inspire participants to implement similar innovations in their own courses.

Keywords: Technology-enhanced pedagogy, experiential learning, leadership education,students-as-partners, emotional intelligence.

Humanizing Pathophysiology: An Emancipatory Pedagogy Approach 

Sarah Nixon

A PowerPoint presentation emphasizing the value of storytelling and case study integration in content-heavy courses such as pathophysiology. This presentation serves as a reminder to keep a person at the heart of the material we teach—especially in nursing education, where connecting learned concepts to real individuals is essential. As we work to cultivate empathetic, culturally aware, and confident nurses, it’s critical that our teaching includes diverse human stories. This presentation offers an approach that incorporates the principles of emancipatory pedagogy and the culturally relevant practice of storytelling to engage students meaningfully as they explore the lived experience of a unique individual and the complex medical condition they face. 

Keywords: Human centered, culturally relevant, storytelling

Art as Advocacy: Innovative Assessment in Contemporary Issues 

Chelan McCallion, Maureen Cullen 

This presentation highlights an innovative assessment from a 4th-year Bachelor of Child Studies course focused on contemporary issues affecting children and youth. Through a multimodal assignment, students create an original visual art piece serving as a visual metaphor for a chosen issue. Accompanied by a scholarly artist statement, the project fosters critical engagement with complex topics like systemic inequity, identity, digital safety, trauma and resilience. This pedagogical approach blends creative expression, encouraging deep reflection through historical, theoretical, and cultural lenses. The final class culminates in an immersive digital art gallery in the Immersion Studio, promoting professional practice, advocacy, and change-making. This presentation will be of interest to faculty exploring alternative assessments that engage students intellectually, emotionally, and socially, while aligning with MRU’s commitment to dynamic and inclusive teaching and learning.

Keywords: Innovative, reflective, advocacy, inclusive, experiential 

Iinnii Sacred Space Matters on D2L – The Scholarship of Teaching & Learning from a Blackfoot Odyssey

Dr. Christopher Grignard, Joe Eagle Tail Feathers (Iitsooahp’potah), Khethwen Woo

Our SoTL project explores the student experience with new curriculum we developed and designed for D2L Brightspace called Blackfoot Odyssey. We asked students to reflect on their learning from the digital lodge that features a tipi design, films on sacred sites as experienced by Eagle Tail Feathers, and the buffalo (iinnii)! Our SoTL team will share our research findings, noting the effective use of an indigenized LMS to transform education.

Keywords: SoTL, D2L Brightspace, Indigenization & Decolonization, Experiential Learning, Blackfoot Odyssey

Ungrading: Faculty and student experiences from the child studies classroom 

Jill Thompson, Joesel Camano

What happens when we challenge traditional grading structures through the lens of child studies? Join us, a student and faculty member, as we share our experiences with ungrading. Grounded in our intersecting identities and perspectives, we explore how ungrading opened space for deeper reflection, mutual trust, and discomfort, both pedagogically and personally. Together, we will reflect on power, vulnerability, and the tensions of doing things differently in institutions built for standardization. Participants will be invited into the conversation and reflection, with space to consider how their own identities and teaching/learning practices show up in systems of evaluation. This session is for anyone curious about co-creating more relational and reflective assessment practices in their classrooms. Hint: grading is “easier” but ungrading can be transformative! 

Keywords: Ungrading

How to Leverage Peer Coaching to Boost Team Dynamics and Leadership Skills

Fiona Robinson

In this session, we’ll explore innovative strategies to enhance group projects through peer coaching, focusing on the development of leadership skills, resume-building experience, and team dynamics. By encouraging horizontal coaching—where students coach each other instead of receiving top-down instruction from the professor—we can foster a more collaborative, supportive learning environment. We’ll introduce the Coach Controller, a tool designed to promote meaningful peer feedback and guide students in their roles as coaches, helping them engage more deeply with the material.

With limited classroom time, we’ll also discuss how to leverage student resources, such as peer leadership, to manage large groups and ensure all students receive attention. This session will provide practical insights on how to reignite team projects, overcome challenges like groupthink, and cultivate essential skills for both students and faculty.

Keywords: Peer coaching, team dynamics, leadership skills, group projects, engagement

Professional learning through instruction in a free after-school literacy program  

Jodi Nickel, Jessica Cuillerier, Jenna Jansen, Eryn Coughlin

Two teacher candidates, a consultant, and a faculty member collaborated to provide literacy support in a free after-school tutoring program. Applying an autoethnographic approach, it explores how the team interacted with the context and learned to work in this complex environment. They juggled attendance challenges and institutional constraints; they worked tirelessly to foster relationships, support engagement and encourage the learners. This powerful work-integrated learning experience helped team members to develop independence and become responsive to managing complex learning needs. Further, it confirmed their commitment to supporting learners who are furthest from opportunity to achieve their fundamental right: the ability to read. 

Keywords: Work-integrated learning, literacy, mentorship, schools

Interdisciplinary Game Development: Highlights from an AUArts-MRU partnership

Apoorve Chokshi, Charles Hepler, Nick Johnson (Alberta University of the Arts)

In the early years of video games, individual game developers often completed all game components: art, code, sound, and game design. Contemporary video games are often produced by a multidisciplinary core team (i.e. art, code, etc.) plus people on supporting teams (i.e. testing, marketing, localization). For many courses at Mount Royal University (MRU) and Alberta University of the Arts (AUArts), this breadth and depth of experience are missing, especially when it comes to the multitude of disciplines where students have expertise.

Last year, Nick, Charles, and Apoorve created a learning experience where some students from AUArts and MRU collaborated on building video games through courses at their respective institutions. Students voluntarily formed interdisciplinary teams of arts students from AUArts with computing and non-computing students from MRU to conceptualize and build a video game. We will highlight our students’ challenges and successes, and we will discuss the future of our collaboration.

Keywords: Interdisciplinary collaboration, game design, student experience

Students as Changemakers: Undergraduate Community-Engaged Learning

Cordelia Snowdon-Lawley, Barb Rallison

The Catamount Fellowship and Student Changemaker Certificate are two of several initiatives offered through the Institute for Community Prosperity that build a bridge between campus and community in service to a more just, sustainable and equitable world for all. We provide immersive learning opportunities for students and the broader community to build their confidence and capacity to lead transformational change in their own communities. Join us as we unpack our recent Catamount program redesign and highlight its future potential - plus learn about how faculty can become a part of this transformational learning journey. 

Keywords: Changemaking, catamount, community-engaged

Mind the Gap: Understanding Perceptions of Student Academic Skills

Kristin Fulton, Cory Willard

In March 2024, Student Learning Services conducted a survey of MRU students to better understand their academic needs. The survey focused on students’ thinking and communication skills as well as their learning and help-seeking behaviours. The goal of this presentation is to share the survey results and provide some insight into what we learned about student needs and their perceptions of their own learning. The results have implications for how faculty and academic staff might approach student learning around skills such as pulling meaningful information from course materials, analyzing ideas and information, verbal class participation, and group work, as well as learning behaviours such as completing course readings and note taking. Additionally, comparing the results of our Student Needs Survey with the results of our 2023 Faculty Survey reveals some meaningful areas of alignment and divergence between how faculty and students view their experiences with these learning skills and behaviours.

Keywords: Learning, student needs, student services, help-seeking, academic skills

Community Engagement in Teaching & Learning with the Institute for Community Prosperity 

Barb Rallison

Join the Institute for Community Prosperity to learn about classroom and teaching opportunities through an array of community projects underway with the Institute. You’ll come away from the session with an understanding of our process for engaging faculty and new ideas for how to integrate tangible real-world issues impacting the community into the classroom. 

The Institute for Community Prosperity at MRU is a hub of social innovation, systems learning and community engagement that bridges the knowledge, wisdom and experience of community with academic learning and scholarly insight. The Institute brings together community, students and faculty from across disciplines, sectors and backgrounds to tackle the complex social and ecological challenges of our time. 

Keywords: Community engagement, real-world projects, community service learning

Academic Buoyancy, Student Mental Health and Achievement

Cheryl Techentin, Amanda Chernetski

Academic buoyancy refers to a student’s ability to bounce back after encountering academic challenges, such as difficult course content, tight deadlines, receiving a lower grade or negative feedback on an assessment. This talk will first highlight our study examining the interaction between academic buoyancy, student attitudes toward their possible achievements and growth and their mental health outcomes. The results of the study suggest that academic buoyancy plays a key role in predicting a student’s mindset (fixed or growth), hope (a student’s belief in their ability to achieve their goals), and mental health outcomes. The second part of this study will discuss ways, as instructors, that we might help students reframe their academic struggles as growth opportunities rather than as failures or disappointments. 

Keywords: Academic buoyancy, mental health, teaching growth mindset

Intersectional Reciprocity 

Jared McNabb, Elder Roy Bear Chief, Gio Dolcecore

This collective autoethnographic project is grounded in postcolonial theory, critical postmodernism, and feminism. It centers an Indigenous Bachelor of Social Work student who engages in cultural learning through storytelling, ceremony, and relationship with Elder Roy Bear Chief. Rooted in Blackfoot (Siksika) teachings, the project addresses the challenges faced by Indigenous and 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals navigating intersectional identities in spaces that may not fully affirm both. Guided by two questions—what post-secondary institutions can learn from traditional Indigenous teaching and mentorship, and whether reciprocity between Indigenous and queer communities can deepen understanding of Knowledge Keepers’ roles—the research emphasizes reciprocity as mutual respect, benefit, and honoring of Indigenous knowledge. Through a decolonizing lens, it aims to uplift community-based knowledge, promote self-determination, and challenge dominant academic paradigms. Ultimately, the project demonstrates how cultural-based learning supports identity, tradition, and systemic change within post-secondary institutions through the intersection of Indigenous and queer worldviews.

Keywords: Practicum, Indigenous, Social Work, Post-Secondary, 2SLGBTQIA+

Using AI to navigate ethical dilemmas

Jill Thompson

In the first year of the program, Child and Youth Care students are required to write a paper about an ethical dilemma. In the last few years I noticed students started using AI to write these papers. As a result, I changed the assignment to purposefully engage with AI while exploring ethical dilemmas. Join me in this 5 minute lightening talk where I share how I changed the assessment and the impact it had in the classroom and on the assignment.   

Ready to Learn - Activities to engage students 

Sarah Hamilton 

This lightning talk will introduce strategies that were used in EDUC-3108 (Teaching Mathematics) to engage students in collaborative games and activities to ensure all students were "ready to learn" and encourage positive experiences in teaching and learning mathematics. Data collected through a student survey and written journaling indicate that students perceived these activities to positively impact their feelings towards teaching and learning mathematics and reduce mathematical anxiety for pre-service teachers in the B.Ed. program.  

Instructor and Student Experiences in the Flexible Learning Lab at MRU

Michele Wellsby, Jose Guillermo Gomez Castro

The past two years I have had the opportunity to teach a fourth-year advanced topics Psychology course in the Flexible Learning Lab in the Academic Development Centre at MRU. Teaching in this classroom has been a wonderful opportunity to enhance my students’ learning and create a stronger sense of community in the classroom. This presentation highlights aspects of my course design and features of the classroom that make the Flexible Learning Lab an ideal learning space. I will also be joined by a former student who will speak about his experiences taking a class in the Flexible Learning Lab and how it impacted his learning.   

From Classroom to Community: Creating Client Engagements for Capstone Success

AnneMarie Dorland

In this lightning talk presentation, I’ll share five quick, practical insights that will help participants design and implement community-engaged capstone projects that connect undergraduate students with real-world clients.  Drawing from my experience designing and facilitating client-based engagements in marketing and branding courses, I’ll outline strategies for identifying and partnering with community organizations, developing project scopes that align with course learning outcomes, and supporting students as they navigate the complexities of professional collaboration. Whether you’re new to this kind of experiential learning or looking to find new ways to use client engagement to enhance student learning, this presentation will offer action oriented approaches that bridge the gap between academic knowledge and professional practice in the classroom—and that will help your students build the skills, confidence, and networks they need to thrive after graduation.