Tim Lougheed
Hundreds of post-secondary instructors from across Canada descended upon the University at the end of February, spending three days learning for themselves just how profoundly information technology is changing their profession.
The occasion was the 20th annual Teaching, Learning and Technology Conference, an event spearheaded by academic publisher McGraw-Hill Ryerson. The gathering also represented the official launch of the Institute for the Advancement of Teaching in Higher Education.
The institute is leading one of two key initiatives supported by a $1.2 million grant from the Canadian Network for the Advancement of Research, Industry and Education (CANARIE). That initiative is a Web site called www.facultydevelopment.ca, which offers professional development resources for teachers in higher education.
The other is www.e-kit.info, a Web-based resource to support online teaching and learning which is soon to be launched on campus.
Facultydevelopment.ca was developed by Carleton University psychologist Tim Pychyl, who has held a prestigious 3M Teaching Fellowship, and by Aline Germain-Rutherford, director of the Centre for University Teaching.
“We wanted to design something that makes sense in terms of pedagogical thinking,” said Germain-Rutherford in a workshop to introduce conference participants to the site. “We really have to better understand how learning and teaching happen.”
The site includes video clips and other contributions from many different instructors, reflecting on different aspects of their work, along with tools to help participants get a better sense of their own teaching activities. According to Germain-Rutherford, the interactive experience with the Web site should itself be a form of experiential learning.
The need for such resources has been driven by the increasing use and capability of online systems in education. Whereas even few years ago, many faculty members might not have appreciated how creating a Web site for a course they were teaching might be useful, students and instructors have come to expect this kind of online presence.
On the University of Ottawa campus alone, upward of 1,000 professors now employ e-learning in such ways, said Christian Blanchette, director of Teaching and Learning Support Services. More than 600 faculty have also attended workshops on the use of innovative pedagogy and technology.
Blanchette is one of the principal actors in the development of the e-kit. This tool is intended to solve problems and foster best practices for online education, using ideas and specific materials provided by a community of users who will create and share the resources of the e-kit.
The primary question facing educators is how they can use information technology to enable innovation. “Many people across Canada are working on this issue. None of us has the answer. We’re exploring here how to do this,” said Blanchette.
The presentation was one of more than 40 held during the conference, which dealt with matters such as using technology to cope with large class sizes, managing e-mail exchanges with students, and tailoring courses to make use of specific e-learning strategies. According to Petra Cooper, president of McGraw-Hill Ryerson’s higher education division, this diversity is well reflected in the character of the new institute.
“We think of the institute as tiny seedlings that have the potential to grow in many directions,” she said, adding that the goals set new standards for partnerships between private firms and public educational institutions. “Ultimately they will become a powerful force in shaping the higher educational experience in this country.”
