Teaching Excellence Explored at STLHE Conferences
From June 8 through 11, 2005, the University of PEI, Charlottetown was the gracious host of the Society for Teaching and Learning In Higher Education (STLHE) 2005 Conference, “A Fine Balance: The Student Experience of Learning,” featuring keynote speakers Dr. Alastair Summerlee, President of the University of Guelph and Dr. Maryellen Weimer, editor of The Teaching Professor. The hospitality of UPEI, the down-home Acadian kitchen party, and the lunch discussions that overflowed onto the campus lawns offered many opportunities to network and share teaching strategies.
For those who don’t already know it, STLHE conferences are the Canadian conference for academics who share a passion for teaching. STLHE’s annual conference specializes in hands-on, interactive involvement among audience and speakers, where presenters from all disciplines share what works in fostering a lifelong dedication to learning.
For those who don’t already know it, STLHE conferences are the Canadian conference for academics who share a passion for teaching.
It is a singular and invigorating experience to be surrounded by like-minded colleagues from widely varying disciplines who want to share innovative classroom approaches, who actually want to talk about teaching, who want to discuss creating and marking assignments, and grading inquiry-based learning situations. This set of colleagues appreciates that there is much feedback to be obtained from interaction with students, feedback that cannot be garnered from course evaluation forms. 2005 marked my third attendance at an STLHE conference, but I continue to be amazed at the commonality of pedagogical issues across disciplines. Attendance is a welcome opportunity to break out of the sheltered sphere of discipline-specific academic conferences.
It is surprising to me how few faculty members have attended, or even heard of, an STLHE conference, as well as how few avail themselves of the resources offered by STLHE. For those interested, there is a website, a newsletter, and an electronic forum. STLHE presents the 3M Teaching Fellowships Program, which honours the best in teaching and raises the bar for all who teach, the Christopher Knapper Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as the Alan Blizzard Award for collaborative projects that improve student learning. This year’s recipients of the Alan Blizzard Award, from McMaster University’s BHSc Programme, discussed “Skill Development with Students and Explicit Integration Across Four Years of the Curriculum” and then challenged the audience with an interactive exercise to engage in an inquiry-based learning experience to demonstrate how students experience inquiry-based learning in four years of classes.
...we explored the learning opportunities for social work students who participated in a student-initiated, student/faculty produced one-hour radio show for University of Windsor campus radio (CJAM FM91.5) entitled “Accessible Communities.”
The paper I presented on behalf of our student-faculty team (Dr. Donald Leslie, Frank Dipierdomenico, Chantelle Rostowicz, and Sarah Teichman) entitled “Good Morning Listeners: Welcome to Accessible Communities” was focused on teaching innovation. In it, we explored the learning opportunities for social work students who participated in a student-initiated, student/faculty produced one-hour radio show for University of Windsor campus radio (CJAM FM91.5) entitled “Accessible Communities.” The show invited community agencies, university programmes, and faculty to share their work in the areas of accessibility and disabilities. The innovation, using campus radio as part of a field placement, demonstrated radio as a rich yet underused source of learning opportunities for students. The students involved gained teamwork and broadcasting skills, learned various technical aspects of running a radio show, were involved in programme development, and obtained on-air “live” interviewing experience. Having non-media students involved in radio as part of academic work was an extraordinary learning experience, the potential of which has been sadly neglected. We believe we created one of the few field-settings using radio as a vehicle for learning.
...as long as teaching is part of university expectations, we should all be encouraged to seek innovative ways to aim for excellence. Satisfied students mean satisfied alumni.
STLHE Conference 2006, Knowledge and Its Communities, will be held at Victoria College, University of Toronto, June 14 through 17, 2006, and will offer another wonderful opportunity to celebrate teaching excellence. Perhaps in some departments at the University of Windsor, particularly for junior faculty-members, a focus on teaching will make attendance at this conference a valued activity. When I tried to promote it, I was asked, “Will this count for tenure?” That I cannot answer, but I do know that as long as teaching is part of university expectations, we should all be encouraged to seek innovative ways to aim for excellence. Satisfied students mean satisfied alumni. These often return later to take additional courses and pursue further degrees and, in years to come, support the institution in a variety of ways.
I thank the Centre for Flexible Learning for its generous support, which enabled me to attend the STLHE 2005 conference as well as present a teaching innovation on behalf of the School of Social Work, University of Windsor and I hope next year’s conference will see record attendance from University of Windsor teaching faculty.
Laura E. Taylor MSW, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Work, University of Manitoba at Thompson
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