Concordia CTL: educational development for faculty

The problem

Supporting university teaching means working on two clocks at once: topics that move quickly, like generative AI in the classroom, and topics that deserve more sustained attention than a single workshop can give them, like sustainability and contemplative pedagogy. A one-afternoon event rarely changes how someone teaches.

The approach

Much of my work at the Centre for Teaching and Learning went into structures that let faculty learn together over time. I initiated and co-facilitated three multidisciplinary communities of practice — on contemplative pedagogy, Education for Sustainability, and generative AI in the classroom — where faculty from different departments could work through new terrain together.

When the university needed training that worked for in-person and remote participants at the same time, I developed and deployed a hyflex training method: selecting the technology, user-testing it, and supporting the implementation. I researched and designed an evidence-based peer group mentorship program, and co-produced open educational resources on andragogical strategies — an ebook on course design and another on active learning methods, openly available rather than locked inside the institution.

Alongside that: workshop evaluation templates and feedback processes, instructional design consulting for two asynchronous aerospace courses at CIADI, facilitating a collaboration process with eConcordia around online quality standards, and serving on the Committee for Decolonizing and Indigenizing Curriculum and Pedagogy.

What came of it

The work left three communities of practice that kept running on faculty energy, a hyflex training method in active use, a peer mentorship program design, and open textbooks that anyone can use.

Two of the three communities went on to seed new initiatives of their own: a co-edited handbook of contemplative practices in the classroom, and a co-organized symposium on Education for Sustainability.

• Active Learning Editor; moved it from the CTL website into Pressbooks
• Course Design Editor; moved it from the CTL website into Pressbooks
• Demystifying Inclusive Pedagogy Editor; took it from a Word draft to a designed Pressbooks edition
• Contemplative Practices and Pedagogy in the Classroom Co-wrote the winning grant; co-facilitated the faculty interest group behind it
• A Guide to Embedding Education for Sustainability in Higher Education Courses Co-editor