What are Teaching Squares?
Teaching Squares attempts to enhance teaching and build community through a structured, non-evaluative process of classroom observation and shared reflection.
A Teaching Square consists of four faculty participants (ideally from different disciplines) who:
*Observe at least one class taught by each Square Partner (a total of 3 observations)
*Reflect on the class observation experience
*Share reflections with Square Partners
*Share Square observations with all participants as a whole
Your Teaching Squares experience offers you the opportunity to enhance your own teaching by observing your Square Partners in an actual classroom situation.
By participating in the Teaching Squares Project you will have an opportunity to:
* observe, analyze and celebrate good teaching
*increase your understanding of and appreciation for the work of colleagues
*experience the joy and confusion of being a student
•*formulate a plan for enhancing your own teaching based on your observations and reflections and the shared reflections of your Square Partners.
Project Timeline
The Teaching Squares project extends over a period of several weeks. Setting dates in advance allows you to complete all components tasks with a minimal disruption to your normal schedule and without much administration.
Square Organizational Responsibilities
Each Square can set its own rules for operating. We have included our suggestions below.
You and your Square Partners will need to determine the:
1. Amount of notice required for a classroom visit
Since the purpose of Teaching Squares is to observe you Square Partners in their “natural” state, we suggest that 24 hours notice be given. A bit more notice guarantees that your Square Partner can return your email and confirm your visit.
2. Role of the visiting professor
We best fulfill our Teaching Squares goal by restricting our role to that of an observer. Most students are very curious about the presence of a visitor in the classroom. Feel free to introduce the visiting professor and explain the purpose for their visit and their role (observer or participant) in the class session.
3. Information exchange
The class that your Partner visits should be as “normal” as possible. The visiting Partner should understand that he/she may have missed some background information critical to understanding that day’s material. Some Squares prefer to exchange course information prior to the classroom visit or to deliver this information to the visiting professor at the time of the classroom visit.
5. Classroom visit duration
Class times can vary considerably. Observing an entire class session from start to finish offers the best (and least disruptive) experience for you, your Square Partner, and the students. If scheduling conflicts do not allow you to stay for an entire class, discuss with your Square Partner the least disruptive means of joining and leaving the class. We think that a visit of no less than an hour is required in order to adequately sample the classroom experience.
6. Square Share time and location
Your Square Share should occur before the final All Squares Celebration. We have found that setting the Square Share date at the organizational meeting greatly reduces both the time devoted to Square administration and the likelihood of a scheduling conflict. We strongly urge you to set your Square Share date as soon as possible and let facilitators know when the date is.
We strongly encourage you to consider conducting your Square Share in a relaxing location free from the possibility of interruption, perhaps even off campus.
The Square Share
After completing your classroom visits, you will need to organize your reflections to share with your colleagues.
Your Teaching Squares experience offers you the opportunity to improve your own teaching by observing your Square Partners in an actual classroom situation. It is NOT an invitation to offer feedback to improve your Partners’ teaching.
Keep your reflections positive and personal. Offering opinions (even positive ones) or direct observations on a Square Partner’s teaching creates a judgmental climate and undermines the trust necessary to the success of the Teaching Squares experience.
These questions may be helpful in shaping feedback:
1) What did you observe that you might use to make your own teaching more effective?
2) About Teaching Squares
• What are some specific things you liked about the project?
• What are some suggestions for improving the project?
3) How did your participation in Teaching Squares give you a greater appreciation of?
• Our students? Our colleagues? Our school (s)? The teaching profession?
To register, please email Roberta Burke, Faculty Development.
Adapted from Truckee Meadows Community CollegePage
March 16th, 2010
After the Storm: Newcomer Youth Surviving Trauma
Hamilton receives thousands of newcomers every year, many of whom are refugees. What made these refugees leave their homes to seek asylum in Canada? War and human rights abuses. It is assumed that half of all refugees have directly experienced detention, torture or war trauma.
How do these horrible experiences affect young newcomers? How do they move on with their lives, having felt what they have felt and seen what they have seen? The short answer is that most draw on their strength, dignity and hope to build new lives. However, the memories and feelings continue to intrude, sometimes when they should be paying attention in class, or when they try to sleep at night.
In the student-made documentary, After the Storm: Newcomer Youth Surviving Trauma, young newcomers tell the painful stories of their first countries and describe how the trauma has affected them. They also share the ways in which they cope. The documentary also features interviews with psychiatrists who work with war-affected children and youth and with Marina Nemat, the author of The Prisoner of Tehran.
The documentary will have its first public screening on Monday, March 29th at 2:00 p.m. in the McIntyre Theatre at the Fennell Campus of Mohawk College. All are welcome.
The documentary has been produced by the students of the LINC for Youth Video Project, a Citizenship and Immigration Canada-funded program to help young newcomers learn English through making videos. By working together on projects of interest to them, students develop the language and group-work skills they need to enter and succeed at college. LINC for Youth is a free program that is open to landed immigrants and Convention refugees. A new session starts on Monday, April 5th. For more information, contact Mary Anne Peters at 905-575-1212 x3414 or mary-anne.peters@mohawkcollege.ca.
March 12th, 2010
This is a reminder that eLearning Services (of the Centre for Teaching & Learning) offers specialized eLearning workshops to departments and other groups by request. If your team would benefit from a custom session, let us know and we will design and deliver a session just for you.
On occasion, and when space allows, we will open these sessions to the larger College community. One such set of workshops is scheduled for next Thursday, March 18, when we will offer our two primary ‘building block’ sessions for new users of eLearn@Mohawk. Between 9:30 and 12:00, we will begin with An Introduction to eLearn@Mohawk, which provides a broad overview of the system and its capabilities. Between 1:00- 3:30, we will continue with Configuring a New Course in eLearn@Mohawk, delving deeper into course-related tools and the construction of learning spaces. While neither workshop is a prerequisite for the other, we strongly suggest that the introductory session is a good first step for all new users.
Registration is not required. One way to help prepare for these sessions is to view the online videos available at eLearn.mohawkcollege.ca, specifically A Look at an Active Course, The Organization-Level Homepage and Navbar, and Customizing the Navbar and Homepage.
We hope to see you next Thursday in i204, at the Fennell campus.
A. Connery, C.T.L.
March 12th, 2010
College level learning does occur outside of the classroom through work experience, independent study and other life experiences. Experience may be the best teacher, but how does the teacher assess learning acquired outside of the classroom for the purpose of awarding credit?
PLAR is a process that is designed to allow students to earn college credit for learning outside of formal education. (Formal education is handled through an exemption process.)
There are two common methods of assessment: 1) challenge and 2) portfolio.
Ideally, assessors want to select the method that best allows students to demonstrate achievement of the learning outcomes for a given course.
A “challenge process” is a method of assessment (exam, simulation, case study, assignment, structured interview) that is designed by the faculty and administered to the student.
A “portfolio” is evidence of learning (description of learning, work samples, reference letters, transcripts) compiled by the learner and submitted to the faculty for review.
Grading
Ministry policy requires that faculty make every effort to award an actual percentage grade; where that is not possible, the faculty should award a “CR” Credit. Challenge processes are often favoured by faculty as they are easier to award a grade; where as a portfolio of learning can be much more difficult to grade.
In a perfect setting, the student would be able to choose the method of assessment that best suits him or her or a PLAR process would be built into the course. Some faculty do offer an assessment process (exemption testing) in the first week of class, thus allowing advanced students to earn credit without incurring any additional costs or repeating learning unnecessarily.
It is important to design a valid and fair assessment process following principles of best practice in PLAR.
If you would like more information on designing an assessment process for a course, contact Roberta Burke, Faculty Development in the Centre for Teaching and Learning.
Resources on PLAR including an “Assessor Checklist” can be found on the Centre for Teaching and Learning Website, http://www.mohawkcollege.ca/Explore/QualityResearch/CTL/teachingresources/plar.html
March 5th, 2010
No matter where we are in the organization, innovation depends on leading from within.
This framework of competencies for college leaders was developed in recognition that well prepared leaders are crucial to the success of community colleges and their students. It can be used by an individual to chart their personal leadership progress, or on a departmental or institutional level to guide our professional development.
Why not read through, check off your strengths, and target what you want to work on?
Go here to view
Centre for Teaching and Learning, Cate Walker Hammond
February 26th, 2010
Innovation so often starts with the question What If? More often than not, innovation consists of looking at what is, and seeing how it can be leveraged to make something even better. Pranav Mistry demonstrates his Sixth Sense - a wearable device with a projection screen that paves the way for profound, data-rich interaction with our environment.
Go here to view presentation.
Centre for Teaching and Learning, Cate Walker Hammond
February 19th, 2010
Are you looking for an online count down timer to use in class? E.ggTimer is as simple and easy as it gets. To start a timer on E.ggTimer, all you have to do is type the URL http://e.ggtimer.com and then in plain English append to it the time you need counted down. For example for 10 minutes you wound enter http://e.ggtimer.com/10minutes.
The tool will also make a sound when the countdown is over so you can easily have the timer tab running in the background while you continue to work on other tasks. If you give your students 10 minutes to discuss a topic or solve a problem, put the timer on the screen and it will watch the time for you (and your students) while you are free to circulate among the students.
Centre for Teaching and Learning
February 17th, 2010
Advancing Learning, the 16th annual E.T.C. conference (formerly This is IT!) will be hosted by Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning between May 26- 28th, 2010. This is the premiere eLearning conference in the province, offering high quality professional development for those who live teaching and learning with technology every day.
This year’s theme, Let’s Get Creative! draws upon the notion that we as educators have an important role in preparing students to be active contributors in a society that is currently driven by a creative economy.
For more information or to submit a proposal, visit the conference website here.
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There is still time to nominate individuals or groups for the two E.T.C. Awards presented at the conference. For more information or to access the nomination forms for both the Innovative Teaching with Technology Award or the Impact Award, visit the E.T.C. website at http://etccommittee.ca, and click on Awards.
…posted by Andrew Connery, e-Learning Services, C.T.L.
February 15th, 2010
The Western Region Colleges invite graduates (you may remember it as ‘Ridgetown Teacher Camp’) of CEDP to join us for “Phase 4” of the College Educator Development Program (CEDP) May 26, 27, 28, 2010 at Ridgetown Campus of the University of Guelph.
Phase 4 is a teaching and learning forum for faculty and by faculty. A forum for educators to meet, share, explore and ‘talk teaching’. The theme is “Thriving in Times of Change!”
We encourage you to submit presentation proposals. The success of the forum depends on the contributions and generosity of colleagues willing to share in reflecting and learning from our collective practice.
Registration for this forum will be limited; presenters will be “at the front of the line!” Please do consider attending and presenting at this forum.
The deadline for proposals is March 12, 2009. You can download a copy of the brochure http://spin.mohawkcollege.ca/ctlr/docs/CEDPPhase4_Proposals.pdf
Please contact Roberta Burke, Faculty Development for more information.
February 12th, 2010
Don Tapscott, author of titles such as
*Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World
*Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation
*Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
believes in the value of mentoring. Reverse mentoring to be specific; his mentor is 23 years old. Don also shares insight from his survey of 11,000 people in 10 countries, focusing particularly on this 8 million strong generation of Millennials.
The largest group ever to enter the workforce or higher education, Tapscott acknowledges their unique experience with social media will change the way we work. Tapscott believes you need to do more than focus on your customers – you need to engage them and co-innovate customized, products, experiences, and jobs.
Go here to view presentation.
Centre for Teaching and Learning, Cate Walker Hammond
February 5th, 2010
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