Develop Your Teaching
Welcome to Develop Your Teaching!
If you’re a graduate student or postdoctoral fellow looking for teaching support or simply curious about exploring what teaching has to offer, you’re in the right place.
Develop Your Teaching, in partnership with ASPIRE, offers workshops and training opportunities to help you develop pedagogical knowledge and transferable teaching skills for the classroom and the workplace. Our programming addresses various aspects of teaching and learning including student engagement, inclusive teaching, feedback practices and instructional facilitation skills.
In addition to skill development, Develop Your Teaching programming also provides students and postdoctoral fellows an opportunity to explore the world of teaching and learning from experienced staff and colleagues who will share their knowledge and reflect on their teaching experiences.
Our services are multi-campus, flexible and free to Golden Hawks.
Workshops and Events
These events and workshops serve as not only professional development resources, but as a chance to expand your understanding of various pedagogical approaches, build a cross-disciplinary community, and share knowledge with peers and professional staff and faculty.
Programming
Want to spark student interest, motivation and collaboration? This workshop will identify five practical things you can do as a teacher or teaching assistant on the first day (or any day thereafter) to establish a classroom climate that invites students to get the most out of your course. Students form an impression of you and your expectations on your first day of class. This is your opportunity to learn how to rock that first impression!
Didn’t connect with your students on the first day? These tips can be utilized beyond the first day as well. The strategies provided are equally helpful as ongoing tools to implement, reflect on, and revise throughout the term.
Upcoming sessions:
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Does the room go quiet when you ask questions? Do you see blank stares when you try to get students talking? Knowing how to actively engage your students to enhance their learning is an important skill. This workshop will introduce you to some strategies to both ignite and sustain student engagement.
Upcoming sessions:
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For teaching assistants, recognizing how and when to provide feedback to learners can be a tricky task. Concerns about how much and the quality of the feedback provided is fundamental to students success. In this introductory session, participants will spend time exploring the complexity of providing guidance to learners as a TA and explore the idea of feedforward to support ongoing student development.
Upcoming session:
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You taught, now what? You’ve spent the past semester or two teaching in various capacities (teaching assistant, instructional assistant, lab coordinator, course instructor, etc.). So where do you go from here? How do you take the knowledge and experience that you’ve gained from teaching this year and carry it forward to your next teaching opportunity?
Come reflect on your teaching and debrief with us. We can talk through what went really well, areas that you’d like to improve and swap teaching stories. In joining this session, graduate students will also have the opportunity to connect with their peers across campus and learn from one another.
Upcoming Session:
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Taking centre stage for teaching or conference presentations can be nerve-wracking! Michael Daly from Teaching Excellence and Innovation discusses presentation skills that can take you from the classroom to Zoom, to the conference stage, including warm-up, rehearsal and tech tips.
Explore ways to use technology to increase inclusivity, vocal techniques to enhance engagement and practical advice for maximizing the impact you have while you teach or present, explore tips and strategies that can help you be more dynamic in the classroom or on the conference stage.
After watching the recording, come try out some classroom techniques with technology at one of Educational Development's monthly companion hands-on teaching and technology workshops.
Facilitator: Michael Daly, Teaching Excellence and Innovation
Watch Now: This recording is online and available to watch by Laurier students.
Develop Your Teaching Spotlight Series
After many years as a student, learning to teach can feel intimidating. The best way to develop your teaching is by learning from others and reflecting on your teaching practice.
This series for Laurier graduate students will feature educational developers and instructors who will share their knowledge and experiences about teaching and learning. Each session will introduce you to a different speaker and a different realm of teaching and learning so you can reflect on your own teaching – both where you are and where you’d like to be. Questions and discussions are encouraged.
Stay tuned for more announcements about upcoming spotlight series talks!
GTA Training – Best Practices in Teaching
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This self-paced certificate provides foundational knowledge in key areas of teaching and learning through three self-paced instructional videos. In the first video, you will learn strategies for your first day with students, including how to create an inclusive classroom environment. The second video will provide strategies on how to engage students so they are actively involved in the learning process. The third video will provide strategies on how to both give and receive feedback. Although the main audience is teaching assistants, the instructional videos will provide a useful starting point for anyone looking for foundational teaching support.
Registration for this certificate can be completed through the self-registration portal in MyLearningSpace
- Identify strategies to build an inclusive classroom community in your own teaching context
- Define Student Engagement and distinguish it from compliance
- Identify strategies that you can adopt in your class to encourage student engagement
- Identify strategies to provide effective feedback to students
- Recognize the benefits of receiving feedback on your teaching
To complete the certificate, participants must watch all three videos and complete a “3-2-1” reflection quiz on the information and strategies provided in the video presentations.
Topics:
- The First Day
- Engaging Your Students
- Assessment and Feedback
It is anticipated that each module will take approximately 15-20 mins to complete. The certificate is self-paced.