2018 Langara Academic Plan Mini-Conference

Lawrence Hill will describe his journey into the writing life and his development as a writer. He will discuss his most recent novels (The Illegal and The Book of Negroes), situate them in the context of Black history and social upheaval in Canada, and meditate on migration, dislocation, belonging, and the search for identity and home.

Through simple theatre activities, conference participants will voluntarily explore the interface between employees and students and create 'Images'. Collectively, participants engage with the issues in a creative, embodied discussion of empathy and sense of belonging between employees and students. Participants will take away insights at individual and group levels.

Stop by for lunch and talk with members of the international education team. Representatives from recruitment, admissions, student services, homestay, short term contract groups, and exchange will be onsite to answer your questions and provide guidance for support.

What do these phrases mean? They are some of the key components woven into the curriculum currently being integrated into BC’s high schools. They will shape how our future students learn and their expectations of their college classes.  This interactive workshop will highlight the rationale for, and the significant changes in, BC’s new curriculum for high school/secondary students. The workshop will include information about new course offerings, the infusion of Aboriginal Ways of Knowing, Graduation Requirements and assessment and reporting practices.

Maureen Stanger has been an educator/administrator for 30 years, with experience in Ontario and British Columbia. For the past 8 years she has been the Principal of the North Vancouver Distributed Learning School as well as overseeing onsite alternate programs at the six North Vancouver Secondary Schools.

Moving towards Open Pedagogy in Teaching

Marianne Gianacopoulos, Instructor with the Business Management program within the Langara School of Management, will discuss her desire to move away from the traditional lecture based approach to teaching, towards a more student defined and driven classroom experience, where the focus is on 21st Century skills, the 4 C's and multi-literacy development for today's career oriented graduates. A current student will also attend and speak about their experience within this teaching and learning environment.

What Is Peer Supported Learning offered at Langara?

Peer Supported Learning is an academic student support program that provides anonymous, voluntary and structured study sessions to students. All students in PSL supported sections are invited and encouraged to participate.  During Peer+ study sessions trained near–peer facilitators encourage student-from-student learning. Internationally, PSL has been demonstrated to improve student grades, and equip students with lifelong learning skills.

Ideas for the Multi-Modal Classroom

Considering augmenting your classroom lectures with additional modes of instruction like summary videos or narrated slides to support student learning?  John Falcus from Langara’s School of Management will present useful tools like Adobe Premier Pro and advanced features of Power Point to effectively create videos and narrated slides that you can update and change as your course does.

Adapting assessment processes within a community of learning approach for domestic, international and Indigenous students

Use intercultural communication tools to get to know your student’s ambitions, approaches/conceptions of learning and how they reason with both their minds and hearts. In the past couple of years, I’ve used a combination of circles, journals and customized assignments in our Aboriginal Studies classes that often generates a greater sense of connection, contribution and celebration in class. This community of learning approach might be useful to compliment your assessment process for domestic, international and Indigenous students alike.

Dr. Diana Brecher will speak about a five-factor model of resilience (mindfulness, gratitude, optimism, self-compassion, and grit) developed by her for Ryerson University's ThriveRU initiative, a training program for faculty, staff and students.  She will focus on the model as a tool for individuals, as well as its integration into the curriculum, student development and leadership.  This is a webcast session that will be a combination of lecture, short video clips and experiential exercises.

Dr. Diana Brecher is a clinical psychologist who has been with Ryerson University’s Centre for Student Development and Counselling (CSDC) since 1991. As adjunct faculty in the Ryerson Psychology Department, she has taught several graduate level courses in CBT and clinical supervision to graduate students and mental health professionals through the Chang School.  Her current role is to train students, faculty, and staff in her 5 Factor Model of Resilience.

There has been a dramatic shift in student demographics over the last few years at Langara College. Along that change are some new realities in the classroom and in support services for students that have become a challenging part of our landscape. Join us for a peer to peer conversation on what kinds of supports and best practices can better equip you in supporting students and the promotion of a healthy teaching environment. The workshop will be in two parts:

1. Recognizing and Responding to Student Distress

   The Counselling Department will help participants recognize the signs and symptoms of student distress, and provide concrete tools and resources to respond appropriately.   Real life scenarios will be used to illustrate Counselling Services' processes and to provide participants with future distress management strategies.  Participants will be encouraged to actively engage in experiential exercises to fine turn relevant communication skills.

2. Dialogue on best practices and supports

   Participants will get the opportunity to share and talk about supports needed for faculty and staff to meet a range of challenges such as disparity in academic pre-requisite skills, high failure rates, and students in distress.

Rick Ouellet and Musqueam Elder Gail Sparrow will highlight the importance of knowing about the college’s relationship with Musqueam and the significance of snəw̓eyəɬ leləm̓. Faculty will also learn about the resources available to them. The goal of this session is to identify ways to insure that our relationship with Musqueam becomes widely known across the college.

Rick Ouellet will be illuminating the importance of including Indigenous content across all course curriculum at the college. The recent post-secondary sector move to incorporate Indigenous perspectives and the issues that have emerged in national discourse will be discussed at this session.

Students and instructors at Langara are varied in age, experience, language, culture, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender. Unfortunately, this diversity can lead to a sense of isolation which can be a contributing factor in student attrition, particularly in the first year of study.¹ Inclusive pedagogy refers to teaching approaches that address the needs of diverse students. These approaches can help all students feel that they belong and are safe and supported in their learning. Inclusive pedagogy also supports rigorous academic work and deep learning by all students. In this session, we will look at strategies including applying universal design principles to course design, using formative assessment and offering choice to help students succeed.

This is an interactive session on how post-secondary institutions can develop and incorporate solutions to enable a better future for all. It will explore insights into how higher education institutions have harnessed and leveraged their assets (financial, physical, relational, research and education) to build social innovations that positively impact communities and advance societal well-being. The workshop participants will have an opportunity to identify potential and current strategies that Langara can adopt or expand and, in particular, discuss the role students can play in this important work.

Coro Strandberg is a national expert in social purpose in higher education. Her nationally acclaimed paper, Maximizing the Capacities of Advanced Education Institutions to Build Social Infrastructure for Canadian Communities, has had significant influence in the PSE sector.

Research Projects at Langara with a Sustainability Theme

Langara researchers and students will describe innovative projects that approach solutions to environmental issues. Come enjoy a chat about manure and worms! Doing research at Langara will be discussed in general as well.

Creating Applied Curriculum

Come and discuss how to develop applied assignments, projects and entire courses.

Half of the session will be a presentation of how some existing courses present applied content and half will be open discussion on how such content might be developed in your course!

APAG 1: Teaching and Learning