About the MicroCourse:
Positionality refers to the dynamic relationship between an individual and their various personal and social identities, including gender, race, class, ethnicity, ability, and place. As facilitators, developing a positionality statement becomes a critical self-reflective practice that shows how your biases, histories, and intersectionality influence your teaching. Embracing this process not only models reflexivity but also becomes a powerful strategy for fostering student success (Harrington, 2020). In this Facilitating Learning Online (FLO) MicroCourse, we will explore positionality statements and their role in the context of teaching and learning. We will also examine personal, place-based, and social identities and reflect how these layers influence your teaching practices.
Through interactive activities, we will learn how to develop and effectively integrate positionality statements into teaching approaches, fostering a more inclusive and self-reflective learning environment. While most of the learning will happen asynchronously, we have one synchronous session planned on Wednesday, December 6, at 10:00–11:30 a.m. PT.
By the end of the course, you will be able to:
- Explore the definition of positionality and discuss the role of a positionality statement in teaching and learning.
- Gain a deeper understanding of your personal, place-based, and social identities and how these layers impact your teaching and learning practices.
- Develop positionality statements when teaching and learning in a digital age.
- Discuss strategies to integrate the practice of positionality into teaching and learning to enhance your facilitating skills and promote a welcoming and inclusive teaching practice.
Register now!
About the Facilitators:
Gwen Nguyen (she/her) is a learning and teaching advisor at BCcampus. Prior to BCcampus, Gwen worked as a learning experience designer at the University of Victoria, supporting educators with developing and delivering courses in all the modes: face to face, hybrid, and online. She has also worked as a university lecturer and researcher at the University of Victoria and the Kanazawa Institute of Technology in Japan. Gwen holds a PhD in education studies and an MA in applied linguistics. Her research interests include poetry inquiry as a reflection practice in education, digital pedagogies in higher education, and participatory action research. Gwen has experience with positionality as an instructor and researcher.
Britt Dzioba (she/her) is an advisor on the Learning and Teaching team at BCcampus and holds a Master of Education, specializing in adult learning. Her graduate research focused on digital literacy education in community-based programs. As a researcher working with community partners, Britt has invested a lot of time into thinking about her positionality and incorporating it into her academic and professional work. You can read more about Britt’s approach to positionality in her blog post “Bringing the Practice of Positionality into Teaching and Learning.”
Session Description:
This FLO Friday session will build on several earlier BCcampus conversations about positionality. The University of British Columbia defines positionality as the dynamic relationship between an individual and their various personal and social 
identities, including gender, race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, and place, among others. In this session you will discuss and evaluate the pedagogical role of your positionality statement. You will then develop and share a student-focused reflective activity that connects your positionality statement to the aim of helping students recognize and reflect on their own and their peers’ backgrounds and perspectives.
By the end of this session, you will be able to
- Reflect on the pedagogical possibilities for your positionality statement.
- Adapt a simple reflective exercise to promote student recognition of positionalities.
Register now!
This notice is to inform you that this session will be recorded, archived, and made available publicly on BCcampus.ca. By participating in this session, you acknowledge that your participation in this session will be recorded and the recording will be made available openly.
About the Facilitator:
Bhuvinder Singh Vaid (he/him/his) is a philosopher of education and an educational developer at the Centre for Teaching Excellence at Capilano University. Bhuvinder’s nearly two decades of work in higher education and consultancy with subject-matter experts are informed by his recognition that teaching and learning exist as uniquely relational practices that are not easily standardized. This understanding has informed his work studying the positionality of seemingly straightforward educational concepts such as safe spaces, efficiency, free speech, and Coast Salish canoe stories. You can reach him at bhuvindervaid@capilanou.ca.
About the Series
Discover the BCcampus FLO EdTech Sandbox Series, an initiative that empowers educators in B.C.’s post-secondary institutions to explore innovative teaching tools through a safe online environment. In these two-hour livestream webinars, expert leaders will introduce and demonstrate cutting-edge, open, and free or low-cost educational technology tools, allowing you to experiment and gather exciting ideas for teaching activities. Our mission is to foster digital teaching innovation, encouraging faculty and staff to embrace emerging technologies with curiosity and openness, ultimately enhancing the learning experience for all.
By actively participating in these sandbox sessions, you will delve into hands-on experimentation with tools, collaborate with fellow educators to review their features, gain valuable insights into teaching activities, and discover ways to integrate these tools into your courses. If you’re unable to attend, recorded webinars of the presentations and written reviews of the tools will be available on our site after the event.
About the Session
Sticky notes are a go-to tool for many teachers, whether they’re paper, digital, or in a hybrid application. They’re easy to use and help ensure all learners have a voice — especially those less comfortable speaking in a group. The focus of this FLO EdTech Sandbox session is the use of Sticky Notes in a digital whiteboard environment like Miro. You will try several key pedagogical functions: generating and sharing ideas, sorting and re-sorting ideas and information, and eliciting feedback from and interaction with one another.
About the Facilitator
Dr. John Churchley’s (he/him) career has spanned all levels of education in music, leadership/management, and teacher education. He worked in various K–12 roles in School District 73, Kamloops/Thompson, including as music teacher, principal, and assistant superintendent. He had a second career as principal lecturer at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) in the School of Education and at the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching as an educational developer. Along the way he developed and taught online courses for TRU Open Learning. His focus on learning and teaching has continued in his retirement as he supervises teacher candidates for TRU and the University of Victoria, inspects B.C. Offshore Schools for the Ministry of Education and Child Care, and records educational songs for fun.
Register now!
Other sessions in this series:
- Session 1: September 13, 2023, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.—Mattermost, Ian Linkletter (BCIT)
- Session 2: October 11, 2023, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.— WordPress/Podcasting, Brenna Clarke Gray (TRU)
- Session 3: November 15, 2023, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.— Padlet, Lisa Gedak (KPU)
- Session 5: February 14, 2024, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.— H5P, John Cheng (UBC)
Session Description:
This workshop explores the digital well-being competency in the B.C. Post-Secondary Digital Literacy Framework, which discusses the need to be aware of your digital identity and intentional about creating and managing your online identity. But doing so requires a constant tension between authenticity and anonymity. You want to present your true self but also be cautious about interacting with others. This workshop is designed to explore these challenges and uncover shared insights into striking a balance in a way that aligns with your values and goals.
In this FLO Friday session, you will:
- Explore different aspects of online identity and how they impact self-image.
- Navigate the push and pull between authenticity and anonymity in your online identity.
- Develop strategies for managing your online identity in a way that supports your values and goals.
Register now!
This notice is to inform you that this session will be recorded, archived, and made available publicly on BCcampus.ca. By participating in this session, you acknowledge that your participation in this session will be recorded and the recording will be made available openly.
About the Facilitator:
Taruna Goel (she/her) is a learning and development professional with over 23 years of experience in adult education, workplace training, and performance improvement. She has designed custom learning experiences (classroom, e-learning, and blended) for Fortune 500 companies, government organizations, and industry associations in Canada and abroad. She currently works with North Pacific in Vancouver, where she designs competency-based occupational standards, certification, and assessment frameworks and ways to recognize prior learning programs for technical and non-technical occupations. Taruna is an instructor at the University of Victoria, a FLO facilitator with BCcampus, and a board director at the Immigrant Services Society of B.C.
X: @write2tg
LinkedIn: tarunagoel
Email: tarunagoel@live.ca
About the FLO MicroCourse:
Despite the recent growth in online and hybrid modes of teaching, many learning management systems lack simple and elegant ways for students to share, collaborate on, and discuss their multimedia assignments. Join this free one-week Facilitating Learning Online (FLO) MicroCourse to learn about different methods for managing media collections in hybrid learning environments.
In this course you will explore platforms such as WordPress, GitHub, SPLOTs, and Notion and focus on enhancing participant engagement and fostering a sense of community by:
- Examining simple tools for sharing media
- Contributing simple multimedia works such as text, images, and documents to different platforms
- Developing a space to facilitate student collaboration
- Creating a gallery or portfolio to showcase student work
While most of the learning will happen asynchronously, we have one synchronous session planned on January 30, 2024, from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m., and on February 2, 2024, from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.
Register now!
About the Facilitator:
Jason Toal (he/him) is a creative educator and visual practitioner. From the sketch book to the webpage, from the classroom to the boardroom, he facilitates learning experiences on visual practice, educational technology, media, and more. A self-proclaimed “OG” from the SCoPE community, he is the person to ask if you are curious what the acronym stands for or why it has upper- and lowercase letters.
Discover the BCcampus FLO EdTech Sandbox Series, an initiative that empowers educators in B.C.’s post-secondary institutions to explore innovative teaching tools through a safe online environment. In these two-hour livestream webinars, expert leaders will introduce and demonstrate cutting-edge, open, and free or low-cost educational technology tools, allowing you to experiment and gather exciting ideas for teaching activities. Our mission is to foster digital teaching innovation, encouraging faculty and staff to embrace emerging technologies with curiosity and openness, ultimately enhancing the learning experience for all.
By actively participating in these sandbox sessions, you will delve into hands-on experimentation with tools, collaborate with fellow educators to review their features, gain valuable insights into teaching activities, and discover ways to integrate these tools into your courses. If you’re unable to attend, recorded webinars of the presentations and written reviews of the tools will be available on our site after the event.
About the Session
H5P is an open-source, community-driven platform that allows you to build and share dynamic and interactive HTML teaching and learning content like quizzes, videos, and presentations. H5P interactions can enhance learning experiences and help students achieve learning outcomes.
This hands-on session will explore common H5P applications such as formative quizzes, time lines, presentations, images with clickable hotspots, and interactive videos, all aimed at enhancing teaching and learning online. Learn how to build H5P interactions, publish them on websites or learning management systems, and share them with your network.
By the end of this session, you will be able to:
- Explain H5P and how it can be used in teaching and learning.
- Assess the suitability of various H5P content types for different learning contexts.
- Build, publish, and share H5P content relevant to your context.
About the Facilitator
John Cheng (he/him) is a learning designer at the University of British Columbia who has been supporting teaching and learning for more than eight years. His interests, expertise, and experimentation lie in leveraging technology to foster active and experiential learning. This spans a range of educational technology tools, from learning management systems and course authoring tools to video production and gamified assessments. He is also passionate about the transformative potential of inclusive and accessible pedagogies to inform course design. In his free time, he can be found taking photos with his old SLR camera or learning how to make layered cakes.
Register now!
Other sessions in this series:
- Session 1: September 13, 2023, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.— Mattermost, Ian Linkletter (BCIT)
- Session 2: October 11, 2023, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.— WordPress/Podcasting, Brenna Clarke Gray (TRU)
- Session 3: November 15, 2023, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.— Padlet, Lisa Gedak (KPU)
- Session 4: January 10, 2024, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.— Sticky Notes, John Churchley (TRU)