Events Archive

Digital literacy skills, including using various technologies and critically evaluating digital sources and information, are essential for today’s graduates. Educators must also possess these skills to incorporate digital tools and technologies that support learners effectively, help learners find relevant information, and identify gaps in their digital skill development. Amid a pandemic, with so many new and emerging technologies available, it is natural to feel overwhelmed. To create a further challenge, few professional development opportunities exist that support cultivating digital literacy skills, which can leave you scrambling to support your learners.

By the end of this three-hour experiential learning, you will be able to:

• Evaluate your digital literacy skills for teaching and learning.
• Identify areas for growth and development.
• Consider strategies to increase your digital literacy.

This three-hour experiential lab will be fully interactive with individual and group activities. No pre-reading or pre-course activities are required; all participation time is situated within the session’s parameters. Participants will be asked to consider reflecting on their learnings post-session.

Your FLO Lab facilitator, Lisa Gedak (she/her), is a teaching and learning strategist, post-secondary educator, and instructional designer who specializes in the intersection of pedagogy with technology and learning in online spaces. Lisa is passionate about learner-centred education and lifelong learning; her research is situated in a K–12 context and examines the experiences of school communities during the pandemic. Additionally, Lisa is an appreciative inquiry facilitator who values building on individuals’ and groups’ strengths to positively impact the future.

This event is free. To ensure we have an inclusive and welcoming environment for all, we’ve added registration to all our sessions.

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.

Researchers in the social sciences are often required to explore and explain their positionality (Gary & Homes, 2020). A positionality statement is an opportunity for the researcher to acknowledge where they approach the research, what biases they have, and how their worldview is formed. This same practice should be extended to facilitators. For facilitators, developing a positionality statement is a critical self-reflective practice that shows how biases, histories, and intersectionality influence teaching practices. Join us early next year for our FLO Lab on positionality statements. Over two sessions we will 

• Discuss what a positionality statement means for your work in teaching and learning.  
• Gain a deeper understanding of your own personal, place-based, and social identities and how these layers impact your teaching and learning practices.  
• Practice developing and sharing positionality statements as a facilitator in the digital transformation era.  

The first part of the workshop will offer an introduction to positionality statements in teaching and learning in a digital realm. The second part will be an invitation to engage in this practice through the arts. Both sessions will involve lectures and activities for you to engage in ongoing discussions and work to create your own positionality statements to enhance your facilitating skills.  

Holmes, A. G. D. (2020). Researcher positionality — A consideration of its influence and place in qualitative research — A new researcher guide. Shanlax International Journal of Education, 8(4), 1–10.  

PART 1: Introduction to Positionality Statements (January 11, 2023, 10:00–11:30 a.m.)  

PART 2: An Arts-Based Approach to Positionality Statements (February 15, 2023, 10:00–11:30 a.m.)  

Learning Outcomes:  

By the end of this FLO Lab series, you will be able to  

• Understand the meaning of positionality and why it is an important practice for both facilitators and learners to engage in.  
• Identify some techniques for robustly engaging in this reflective practice.  
• Create a positionality statement or art piece that reflects your worldview and intersectionality.  

Facilitators:  

Gwen Nguyen (she/her) is currently a learning and teaching advisor at BCcampus. Before she joined BCcampus, Gwen worked as a learning experience designer at the University of Victoria, supporting educators with developing and delivering courses in all modes—face-to-face, hybrid, and online. She has also worked as a university lecturer and researcher at the University of Victoria and 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 reflective practice in education, digital pedagogies in teaching a second language, and participatory action research. Gwen has experience with positionality as an instructor and researcher on a regular basis.  

Britt Dzioba (she/her) works as the learning and teaching coordinator at BCcampus. Outside work, Britt is completing her master of education at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses 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 positionality into her academic and professional work.  

This Lab has a non-refundable registration fee of $25.

Registration is now closed.

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. 

Session Description:

But I Am Not An artist: Arts-Based Research In the Social Sciences and Humanities

Throughout history art-making has been an instrument of knowledge creation and dissemination, whether making marks on the world or simply creating aesthetic interventions that signal a person, object, artifact, action, event, or phenomenon as uniquely valuable, sacred, or life-sustaining. Art is how members of every society and civilization render visual narratives of things cherished and tales often remembered. This is because art tells stories, reflects realities, and inspires alternative dreams. Art brings joy and happiness, but it can also disrupt and astonish us.

Pause! Can you imagine a world without the arts? What if we could use the arts to tackle social phenomena such as inequalities and social and environmental injustices? What if we could use the arts for teaching and learning and as a research practice in the social sciences? Arts-based research is a participatory research practice that connects embodied visual literacy to more traditional academic research practices in social sciences, through which art forms are used to generate, interpret, or communicate research knowledge. Arts-based research is for educators, practitioners, non-professional trained artists, policymakers, community leaders, and social scientists.

Using the field of informal education as our territory for exploration, this lecture will introduce you to contemporary discourses on arts-based research by showing you concrete examples from Brazil, South Africa, and Jordan.

In this session we will answer the following questions:

• Where do I start?
• What do I need?
• What does it look like?
• How does art become data?

Facilitator:

Bruno de Oliveira Jayme, PhD, is a long story: a queer activist, an arts animator, and a critical educator. He is becoming an artist everyday through his connections, interconnections, and misconnections in the worlds. He thinks he is a verb. The dirty streets of São Paulo, the uncomfortable comfortable Canadian life, and the politics of social movements in Latin America inform Bruno’s art education practices. He has a funny accent from the same place he was born and raised, Brasil (with s). Bruno is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba. He works at the edge of “What’s next?” Arts–based research, community museums, community art, critical pedagogy, and transformative learning are the things that make him alive. Following John Dewey, Bruno cannot imagine social change without the arts, because the arts surface stories that have been untold, under-told, wrongly told, and suppressed through colonization. His teaching and research are informed by, constructed on, and mediated through the arts in a post-modern sense. Can you imagine a world without the arts?

More About This Series:

BCcampus is happy to be hosting a spring 2023 Research Speaker Series that offers all BCcampus research fellows and scholars across post-secondary institutions in B.C. an opportunity to learn and share your knowledge and advocacy on research methods, approaches, and pedagogies regarding accessibility; access; equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI); and Indigenous engagement in teaching and learning. These livestream webinars, which typically take place on Thursdays once every three weeks, allow you to hear about new research directly from researchers involved and give you a chance to ask questions about the meaning and interpretation of their findings. If you are unable to attend, recorded webinars of presentations will be made available within a week of the event.

What you’ll take away:

• Broaden your knowledge and research skills/capacity in the B.C. post-secondary context.
• Learn more about research, Indigenizing research, EDI in research, decolonizing research, and accessibility.
• Be inspired to participate in research communities of practice or explore the themes in your studies or work.
• Connect with academics and community members who share your interests.

Other events in this series:

• January 26, 2023 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Erin Fields, Creating and Managing Your Academic Profile
• March 9, 2023 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. – Dr. Afsaneh Sharif, Inclusive and Accessible Research

This event is free. To ensure we have an inclusive and welcoming environment for all, we’ve added registration to all our sessions.

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.

Join us for a conversation with Dr. Tony Bates, author of Teaching in the Digital Age.

Tony is the guest speaker for the February 2023 BCcampus Online Book Club – The Open Edition. You do not need to be a member of the book club to attend this session.

Register now!

The BCcampus Online Book Club started as a community-driven project by a group of volunteer post-secondary educators interested in opportunities to connect with colleagues on topics of professional interest in teaching and learning.  The guidelines for this book club are that it is open, informal, and fun — an easy way for participants to share ideas and strategies and take what we learn to practice.

Related events:

• BCcampus Online Book Club: A Conversation with Dr. Seanna Takacs and Junsong Zhang on January 31, 2023
• BCcampus Online Book Club: A Conversation with Parm Gill and Dave Smulders on March 28, 2023

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. 

Learn about competencies, one of the core components of micro-credentials, from experts in the field. Keynote speaker Lena Patterson from Toronto Metropolitan University will explore why competencies are at the core of micro-credentials. International competency expert Dennis Green will describe what competencies are, including how to write competency statements and how to build competency frameworks. In addition, panelists from two institutions and their industry partners (including employers) will share how they worked together to identify and meet competency needs, how learning design is impacted by a competency-based approach, and how micro-credentials are recognized by employers. Engage in interactive exercises throughout the day and get to the core of micro-credentials in B.C.

Schedule

Micro-Credentials: Competency at the Core is an online event over Zoom on Wednesday, February 22, 2023, 8:30 a.m.– 3:30 p.m. PT.

Keynote Speaker

Lena Patterson, MA, EdD

Lena (she/her) is the program director of Micro-credentials and Business Development at the Chang School of Continuing Education at Toronto Metropolitan University, where she serves continuing education learners through competency-based assessment and recognition carried out through a newly established micro-credential strategy and portfolio. She has 11 years of experience in higher education and non-profit leadership focused on open education, online and technology-enabled teaching and learning, education and industry pathways, and micro-credentials.

Prior to joining the Chang School, Lena was senior director of programs and stakeholder relations at eCampusOntario, where she led the design and implementation of the eCampusOntario Micro-credential Principles and Framework and popularized the framework for system application through pilot funding, research, and community engagement. She co-authored a series of discussion papers on the topic, including “Is the Future Micro? Unbundling Learning for Access and Flexibility.”

In the fall of 2021 Lena completed her doctorate at Western University in educational leadership with an emphasis on non-profit leadership and ambidextrous learning organizations. She is the proud president of the board at Open Education Global, co-president of the Ontario Council for University Lifelong Learning, and co-founder of Microcredentials Sans Frontières, an open international network dedicated to cultivating a deeper understanding of the design, development, delivery, and effectiveness of micro-credential opportunities across the learning lifespan.

Dennis Green

Dennis (he/him) founded South Arm Training and Development in 2019 after 30 years of working in the tourism and hospitality industry in both operational and strategic workforce development roles. He’s passionate about the intersection of work, technology, and learning. Since forming South Arm Training and Development, he has focused on competency framework development, prior skill recognition, and training and certification strategies with organizations across Canada and internationally.

Dennis is co-author of the eCampusOntario Open Competency Toolkit and has over 15 years of experience developing competency-based standards, training, and assessment approaches across a wide range of organizations and industries. He recently acted as the lead technical editor and member of the executive committee for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association’s Recommended Practices for Competency Development standard and continues to collaborate with international experts on competency development and competency-based education.

This event is free. To ensure we have an inclusive and welcoming environment for all, we’ve added registration to all our sessions.

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.

In the past two years, linguistic justice, or the decolonization of language, has emerged as an important dimension for equity and inclusion. In this workshop, our facilitators will use context-specific examples to introduce assessment strategies for linguistic justice. Participants will engage in mini-activities to develop an understanding of linguistic justice concepts and macro-level strategies useful for planning assessment practices. These assessment strategies will be exemplified using writing-intensive assignments and pedagogical contexts.

Learning objectives:

• Develop an understanding of linguistic justice concepts and contexts.
• Apply linguistic justice concepts to assessment strategies.
• Exemplify macro- and micro-level assessment strategies.

FLO Facilitators

Anita Chaudhuri is an assistant professor of teaching in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus. Her research in the area of identity constructions of language learners and their development in writing and communication has been published in TESOL Quarterly, BC TEAL Journal, and Writing & Pedagogy and as a chapter contribution in Affect, Embodiment, and Place in Critical Literacy: Assembling Theory and Practice. She is also interested in how pedagogical practices such as writing across curriculum and culturally sustaining pedagogy impact curriculum development and the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Jordan Stouck is an associate professor of teaching in the Faculty of Critical and Creative Studies at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus. She has taught composition for the past 18 years at both UBC and the University of Lethbridge and served as director of UBC’s Centre for Scholarly Communication (2013–2014) and as associate dean (2019–2022). She is the co-author of two Canadian editions of the composition textbook Writing Today.

This event is free. To ensure we have an inclusive and welcoming environment for all, we’ve added registration to all our sessions.

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.

Educative approaches to academic integrity at post-secondary institutions have received much attention with pandemic-related adaptations to teaching and learning practices. For example, initiatives have emerged that support content development, syllabus language, best practices, self-learning modules, and policy revision.

This panel discussion will use the lens of an educative approach to share views on some of these

 developments, comment on current circumstances, and articulate future directions. The panelists will represent numerous disciplines and administrative roles.

The agenda for this two-hour event is as follows:

• Introduction: Toward an educative approach
• Contract cheating
• Technology and academic integrity
• Equity, diversity, and inclusion and academic integrity policy language
• Q&A

This event is free. To ensure we have an inclusive and welcoming environment for all, we’ve added registration to all our sessions.

Registration Coming Soon!

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. 

Have you wondered how to use technology to support your well-being? Do you know how to course-correct when technologies impact your physical, mental, or emotional health? Are you comfortable with setting some healthy boundaries with digital technologies?

As online facilitators, not only do we need to use technologies purposefully to support our well-being as a model for our learners, but also we must keep learning how to enforce digital wellness programs to help our learners navigate digital spaces effectively and healthily. In this one-hour workshop, we will

• Explore the topic of digital well-being in higher education and what it means to become more digitally aware and digitally healthy.
• Reflect on some digital tools and the PERMA framework to promote well-being in remote teaching.
• Discuss ways to integrate digital wellness into teaching and learning.

By the end of this workshop, you will be able to

• Develop your understanding of the meaning and dimensions of digital well-being.
• Explore and reflect together on some digital tools and the PERMA model in promoting well-being in online teaching.
• Identify some techniques to integrate digital wellness into your teaching and learning discussions.

Facilitator:

Dr. 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, online, etc. 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 recent research interests include poetry inquiry as a reflection practice in education, digital literacy and digital pedagogies, and participatory action research.

This event is free. To ensure we have an inclusive and welcoming environment for all, we’ve added registration to all our sessions.

Registration is coming soon!

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.