Mingle in the Harry Hickman Lobby/Foyer.

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Facilitators: Robin Hicks, Gerry Gourlay | Location: Harry Hickman Building 105

This is the introduction and welcome session for all graduate students and Teaching Assistants (both graduate and undergraduate) to the Fall 2022 TA Conference. We will be joined by the Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies, the 2022-2023 Teaching Assistant Consultant cohort, and you will have a chance to meet other students from all across campus. We look forward to welcoming you to the TA Conference and sharing a bit about teaching at UVic.

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Facilitator: Gerry Gourlay | Location: Harry Hickman Building 105

Congratulations on being awarded a TA position – you are now a teacher! Are you excited? Nervous? This introductory workshop will familiarize you to the differences between learning and teaching (this also refers to TAs who are primarily markers), but also between what it means to be a student and what it means to be a teacher. Participants will gain experience taking on a teaching role and will have an opportunity to practice self-reflection – an integral part of being a successful teacher. 

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Facilitator: Sarah Jones | Location: Harry Hickman Building 116 

When was the last time you felt someone really listened to what you were saying? Feeling like you’re being heard as you describe an issue can make a huge difference to how you feel about the outcome. In this workshop you will learn how to show students you’re really listening to what they have to say and practice clear communication skills to ensure your message is getting across. This workshop will be a mix of presentation, group participation, and one-on-one role playing. 

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Facilitator: Jessica Rourke | Location: Harry Hickman Building 128 

Some conversations with students can be difficult (especially when they challenge your assessment of their work!). In this workshop, we’ll discuss some of the challenges you’ve encountered or are worried you might encounter, and work on building some strategies to help navigate those difficult conversations (whether via email or face-to-face). 

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Facilitator: Technology Integrated Learning | Location: Harry Hickman Building 110

This session will provide you with an overview of the Learning Technology Ecosystem at UVic. This session will include an introduction to Brightspace, ECHO360, Crowdmark, Zoom, Teams and classroom recording. After the session, you will be able to navigate these technologies, support your instructors in their use, and know where to get further help 

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Facilitator: Inba Kehoe | Location: Harry Hickman Building 116

This workshop is open to anyone distributing course materials, coursepacks and manuals on Brightspace or Library Course Reserves. We share tools and tips to ensure your course is copyright compliant, whether through online delivery or face to face lectures. 

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Facilitators: Emily Evans and Craig Eby, two Senior Inclusion Facilitators at UVic | Location: Harry Hickman Building 110

Join STEPS Forward, the UVic Initiative for Inclusive Post-Secondary Education for an engaging workshop on the value of inclusive experiences for UVic’s diverse learners. STEPS Forward is an initiative to create an opportunity for students with developmental disabilities to participate in all aspects of campus life. Together we will explore aspects of inclusive post-secondary education and guiding principles and practices that can be applied to all learners. Participants will leave with the understanding of how a sense of belonging and engagement in valued experiences hold instructional power and are essential to inclusive classrooms. Participants will get the opportunity to learn about practical strategies to create an inclusive classroom for all learning styles, key benchmarks and ways to measure how inclusive a classroom is for students, and to participate in open discussions about student centered scenarios. Our focus is to build the capacity of all members of our campus community to benefit from and contribute to an inclusive post-secondary experience, register for our workshop to learn how.  

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Facilitator: Jessica Rourke | Location: Harry Hickman Building 128 

In this interactive workshop, we’ll try share, discuss, and try out strategies you’ve utilized to help you stay on top of your TA tasks (all the while managing all the other things you have going on in your life!). Arrive ready to share 2 – 3 strategies you’ve found beneficial in helping you stay organized and motivated! 

Find your rooms for the different workshops.

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Facilitators: TIL Learning Experience Designers – Accessibility and Centre for Accessible Learning (CAL) Staff | Location: David Strong Building C130

Canadian post-secondary institutions have increasingly been recognizing the importance of student diversity for innovation and prosperity. As a result, university and college campuses today have students with a range of abilities, and from a variety of socioeconomic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. With such diversity in enrolment, it is important for post-secondary educators to thoughtfully consider this diversity in enrolment while developing their courses so that the knowledge and skills that they share are accessible to all learners. Since teaching assistants (TAs) provide necessary support for course delivery, and may be the first point of contact for students in some courses, they should be able to support learners with different kinds of lived experiences, perspectives, strengths, and challenges. With this skill set, TAs can create a sense of belongingness among students, encouraging them to express their ideas, thoughts, needs, and concerns without hesitation. 

In this 90-minute synchronous in-person workshop, TAs will be presented with concepts including diversity (in its various forms), strengths-based approach, and accessibility, and discuss why they matter. Through information sharing and interactive activities, we will introduce TAs to frameworks (POUR and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). We’ll also share examples of how TAs can apply these frameworks to support the creation of accessible learning environments and experiences in any of the roles that they may have (e.g., teaching a section, grading assessments, facilitating labs or tutorials).  

Participating TAs will also be introduced to campus resources such as Learning and Teaching Support and Innovation (LTSI) and the Centre for Accessible Learning (CAL) which they can turn to for receiving guidance and support as they work with diverse learners. By having TAs participate in case-study collaboration, discussion, and reflection they will come away from the session with the ability to practically apply these frameworks to the work that they will be doing in their TA role. 

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Facilitator: Stephanie Taylor | Location: David Strong Building C128

How do I mark students’ work, when I’ve only recently graduated myself? How can I give each student meaningful feedback, when I have a whole stack of papers to grade? This hands-on session will explore these questions and more. I will speak mainly about marking essays and small written assignments in humanities disciplines.    

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Facilitator: Billy Strean | Location: Clearihue A221 

Students formulate impressions about the instructor and the course very quickly. The cliché that you only have one chance to make a first impression holds some truth. You have an opportunity to create your learning environment by design. This session will review some of the essential concerns that students bring to your first class and some suggestions about how to address those effectively to set yourself and your students off to a “first class” start. 

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Facilitators: Theresa Lundy, Cecilia Rose, and the Global Community Student Advisory Council | Location: Harry Hickman Building 128

This workshop will highlight the various resources and supports provided by the International Centre for Students (ICS). Experienced international students will join the facilitators to share their stories of their social and academic transition to Canada and UVic. Domestic and international TAs will have the opportunity to work through group activities and real-life scenarios that focus on supporting international students. This will provide opportunities for discussion, reflection, and exploration of the international student experience at UVic. By the end of this session, you will gain a better understanding of the unique set of challenges that international students may face and strategies for supporting these students in your classroom.  

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Facilitators: Violeta Iosub and Mehraveh Seyedalikhani | Location: Clearihue A330 

This workshop will introduce the different roles that, TAs teaching science courses, can encounter. As instructors in the Department of Chemistry at UVic, the facilitators will focus on the roles and responsibilities associated with teaching laboratories and tutorials in the Department of Chemistry (we trust that some of these are shared by other sciences, and you will benefit from the workshop even if you are not a Chemistry TA).
 

You will learn about TA expectations (e.g., grading, office hours, content delivery strategies, problem-solving scaffolding) from faculty and senior laboratory instructors, but also about the types of support available to help you grow into an effective TA. 

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Facilitator: Jenna Mehlmann | Location: Harry Hickman Building 128

Teaching as a graduate student is nerve wracking, but what about as an undergraduate student? In this introductory ‘Survival Guide’ workshop, we will discuss a broad range of topics to ensure that you not only survive – but thrive – in the classroom! Discussion points include interacting with student peers, supporting student wellness, inclusivity, grading, time management, and much, much more! 

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Facilitators: Petranella Daviel and Kim Dias | Location: Cornett A125 

When marking creative work, we can sometimes feel conflicted about the feedback we’re giving — that it’s based in personal taste, departmental norms, or cultural biases, and may not be serving our students’ unique voices and visions. This workshop introduces Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process as an adaptable template to help shape your feedback. The Process is used to guide constructive dialogues and curiosity-based questions to serve the artist’s work, and their vision for that work. In this workshop, we will learn and practice the steps of the original Process, discuss its applicability across rubrics and oral and written feedback, and collaboratively brainstorm strategies of adapting it to various TA scenarios. 

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Facilitators: Hannah Brown and Iman Fadaei | Location: Cornett A225      

Internationally the classroom context and environment can vary vastly. Stepping into the Canadian classroom as a TA can cause multiple challenges, including culture shock. This workshop will help you recognize the signs of culture shock, start the journey of building cultural awareness, and provide you with skills to allow you to undertake self-care in an international context. 

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Facilitator: Patrick von Aderkas | Location: MacLaurin D288 

Kindness pedagogy sounds vague, but it is a calculated way to reduce microaggressions and macroaggressions. Some effort needs to be spent on creating a particular tone in the class and lab. This is particularly important in large courses. Just how this can be achieved, and how you can make it work for you will be the subject of this session. The advantages are that with a little bit of care and planning, the first encounter with your students will reduce their anxiety. The advantage is that you will have created a context in which problems can be identified and solved quickly. Get it right and student performance improves, too. Come and find out! 

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Facilitators: Centre for Academic Communication Team  | Location: Cornett A125

This session explores the many ways that the Centre for Academic Communication (CAC) can be a useful resource for undergraduate and graduate students. We will give you a tour of our services and walk you through our most popular online support: how we offer students written feedback on their drafts. We will also explain ways the CAC can support graduate students in all fields and at all stages of their degrees. 

Find your rooms for the different workshops.

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Facilitator: Xue Ma | Location: Harry Hickman Building 128

Being a TA can be stressful sometimes, especially when you are simultaneously carrying other personal responsibilities that require you to make time for everything. This workshop will walk you through the common stressors you may face as a TA through reflective and interactive group activities. Through learning tips on time management, and resources on care and well-being you can access on campus, you will walk away with practical strategies that support your well-being, as well as new considerations on how self-compassion may help us grow. 

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Facilitator: Stephanie Taylor | Location: Clearihue A330 

This hands-on workshop will focus on the steps of planning and executing a lesson, following the “BOPPPS Model” (Bridge, Outcomes, Pre-assessment, Participation, Post-assessment, Summary). Following this model automatically incorporates active learning into your lesson, which will help students to be more engaged in the learning process. I will speak about lesson planning in the contexts of tutorials and guest lectures. 

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Facilitators: Iman Fadaei and Hannah Brown | Location: Clearihue A326 

Why we are here? We often forget to contemplate why we are in the classroom in the first place. In this workshop, we will discuss the concept of education and learning more broadly, as well as the ways that a classroom can stand out as a creative place to give rise to learning. We will discuss how to create openness for the seekers of learning in our classrooms as international TAs. 

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Facilitator: Trefor Bazett | Location: Harry Hickman Building 128

In this session we will reflect on the power of reflection. Specifically, we will explore how we can improve as a teacher over the course of a semester through a series of critical reflective activities. We will interactively explore several types of reflective activities and discuss how you can incorporate the lessons learned into your teaching practice and identity. 

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Facilitator: Laura Dutton | Location: Cornett A225 

In this session we will discuss the experiential nature of studio arts courses and explore strategies for supporting students in their creative process. We will discuss ways of fostering an engaging critique environment, develop skills for providing generous and constructive criticism on the spot, look at strategies and rubrics for assessing art projects, and explore tips for lesson and demo planning. The framework of this session will focus on the visual arts studio classroom, but could be applicable to other creative disciplines more generally. 

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Facilitator: Kinga Menu | Location: Harry Hickman Building 128 

Brick wall, backbone, jellyfish (from Barbara Colorosso). Ways to create an inclusive classroom where kindness is not a doormat, where boundaries aren’t iron fists, and flexibility and strength combine to allow for deep learning, engagement, and inspiration.  

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Facilitator: Jenna Mehlmann | Location: MacLaurin D101 

Laboratory science courses have a reputation amongst students for being notoriously difficult and time consuming. For instructors, explaining these complex scientific concepts in an active-learning environment can be equally as challenging. In this workshop, we will discuss how to facilitate laboratory exercises while maintaining student engagement, as well as the knowledge, skills, and characteristics required to successfully make the transition from student to instructor. 

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Facilitator: Lydia Toorenburgh | Location: Clearihue C110

Doing a territory acknowledgement is an important practice that is part of local protocol and calls our attention to the land we are on and the Nations who care for it. In this workshop, you will learn the significance of why we give territory acknowledgements; how to do one properly; and when to give one. You will also learn proper pronunciation of the lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ Nations, and how to formally introduce yourself when you give an acknowledgement. Bring your questions for this interactive session. 

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Facilitator: Rhianna Nagel | Location: Clearihue A317 

In this interactive session we will explore learning and teaching through reflective practice. By the end of the session, you will successfully identify frameworks and methods for bridging between theory and practice, as well as techniques for assessing the resultant learning.   

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Facilitator: Ambreen Hussaini | Location: Harry Hickman Building 128     

Have you ever felt bored and frustrated with dry and non-engaging lectures? What is the importance of active learning in the classroom? Would you like to learn some practical strategies for leading group discussions and facilitating active learning? In this workshop, we will discuss how to lead active learning activities in class. Through guided group discussions and brainstorming activities, we will effectively recognize the importance of active learning and discuss key strategies to promote active learning in class, particularly when leading group discussions. 

Find your rooms for the different workshops.

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Facilitator: Dawn Schell | Location: Cornett A125
In this interactive workshop we will learn about how to respond to students who may be experiencing difficulties.  Through reflection activities and guided discussions, you will acquire tools to identify, respond to and refer yourself or others to helpful resources available on-campus as well as online. 

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Facilitator: Nahia Pipaon-Fernandez | Location: Harry Hickman Building 128 

Starting Grad School is usually the first time TAs face a teaching environment. This can be an unknown environment that you will need to adapt and adjust to. We will discuss the expectations and responsibilities that you will have in your TA role, and we will provide you with the resources to ensure personal success. Through a guided discussion and short case analysis you will get the tools to effectively communicate and provide a high-quality learning experience to your students. 

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Facilitators: Reem Girgrah and Mami Schouten | Location: Cornett A225 

This workshop provides graduate students an awareness and understanding of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and its significance for educational and professional success. This topic area provides an entry point for talking about discrimination, harassment, and sexualized violence prevention. The workshop is interactive with scenarios, discussion and links graduate students to resources and supports. 

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Facilitators: Violeta Iosub and Mehraveh Seyedalikhani | Location: Harry Hickman Building 128

Regardless of your background you have unique perspectives and knowledge that you can share with your students and fellow TAs. In this workshop, we’ll guide you towards identifying the strengths you can use to navigate teaching in an unfamiliar educational setting.

The workshop facilitators were both international TAs. Throughout the years, they’ve learned the importance of focusing on their strengths as educators, and learning from others, to enhance their teaching abilities. They are now in a position in which they can share their experience with you. During the workshop, we will also, collectively, define strategies where your strengths can become assets to help your growth into effective teaching assistants. 

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Facilitator: Esteban Vallejo Toledo / ˈstɛbən   vəˈdʒɛhɔ   tɔˈlɛdɔ / | Location: Clearihue B215

Assessment and marking are not all about grades. Both of them are the most valuable opportunities to gather information on students’ progress and to provide them with constructive feedback regarding a number of learning experiences: from papers and oral presentations to group projects and exams. In this workshop, we will focus on two important topics: 1) how the feedback provided through assessment and marking can create a welcoming learning environment; and 2) how the use of rubrics help students, TAs, and instructors.    

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Facilitators: Petranella Daviel and Kim Dias | Location: Cornett A125

Are you a TA in a field with a “canon” which has remained static for decades, tends not to reflect your students, and is largely free of diverse, contemporary voices? Would you like to learn ways to adapt or supplement lessons and materials to celebrate more inclusive, contemporary works and challenge that canon within your role as a TA? If yes, this hands-on workshop is for you. We will discuss the challenges and value of making changes as a TA, explore the importance of language and expectations surrounding “the canon”, ways to rethink, reconstruct, and reframe the works we centre in our teaching, and generate practical strategies to enable us to be an ally and a resource for our students. 

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Facilitator: Ambreen Hussaini | Location: Cornett A229

Do you know that cultural and emotional intelligence can also play a role in your academic endeavors? In this interactive workshop, we will take a bird’s eye view on the holistic approaches to learning and teaching. Holistic approaches encompass how one’s cognitive behaviors, cultural attitudes, and emotional awareness play an active role in the processes of learning and teaching. Through reflective activities and guided group discussions, we will recognize the multiple models of intelligences (cultural, emotional, cognitive) and discuss strategies to practically employ these approaches in the classroom. 

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Facilitators: Iman Fadaei and Hannah Brown | Location: Cornett A125

How do you approach being a TA alongside being an international student? What does a TA even do? This workshop will look at the various possible responsibilities (such as grading, student communication, and office hours), strategies on how to approach these tasks including time management and cultural expectations, and information on the different avenues of support that are open to you as a TA.