COVID Coffee Chats @UCalgary Maya Anderson

In this episode, Natasha Kenny, senior director of the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, shares with us her insights on this extraordinary story of resilience and perseverance through our transition to online learning. She talks about collaborating with our teaching and learning leaders to create teaching and continuity resources to support academic staff through our transition to online learning. She discusses the difference between emergency remote learning and intentional design of continuous online learning. She chats about the process of creating robust online learning, including intentional thought about how we integrate asynchronous and synchronous learning, how we scaffold learning, how we design meaningful assessments, and how we continue to build relationships in our online teaching and learning environments. 



 

In this episode, Angela Judge-Stasiak, field education coordinator in the Faculty of Social Work, shares with us her insights on how to coordinating and supporting field education experiences in distance learning format. She discusses her thoughts on thinking creatively around field experiences and the benefits of utilizing self-directed practicum to allow students to have meaningful experiences while they connect with peers and the social work community. She stresses the importance of continuing self-directed practicum practices and offering these as an option when we move back into the face to face scenario. 

In this episode, Alex Paquette, doctoral candidate in Bioengineering and Graduate Students Association VP Academic, talks about the challenges of conducting research during COVID without a lab environment, as well as the issues that many graduate students are facing during this time. He shares with us his thoughts on how this situation has brought about many opportunities to think about things differently and inspire graduate students to help others who may be struggling. He chats about the initiatives of GSA to support graduate students and offers assistance to any graduate student who is looking to connect. He hopes that we can take what we have learned from this time and the new, inventive ways of teaching to make learning better for all.

In this episode, Assad Ali Bik, Student's Union VP Student Life , shares with us his thoughts on supporting mental health and well-being of students through COVID 19.  He discusses the challenges for students experiencing fatigue and burn out and chats about the value of peer support. He provides examples of resources that are available to students, including those offered by SU, the Women's Centre, and the Community Hub, and the partnering with the Vice Provost of Library and Cultural Resources to highlight the peer support program.

In this episode, Kerry Black, assistant professor in the Schulich School of Engineering, shares with us her insights into how she has adjusted her courses and learning materials through teaching during the pandemic. She talks about how she has gauged student expectations as well as her own expectations during online learning, and the value of planning ahead to prepare all information for students at the start of the course. She stresses the importance of being empathetic to students and thinking about the barriers that they may face during online learning while providing meaningful and challenging learning experiences. She discusses how she has shifted her assessment practices to be more frequent, low-stakes and qualitative, writing assessments. She illustrated how this shift has allowed her to weave in some of the additional attributes that are needed for graduates such as communication, lifelong learning and the connection to the environment, economic and social factors of engineering through e-portfolios and reflective writing.

In this episode, John Holash, professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology, shares with us his insights on the need for critical review in distance learning. He discusses his process of prerecording lectures, allowing students to interact with the learning material asynchronously, and using synchronous sessions to build a community of learners. He highlights how prerecording his lectures has allowed him to focus students attention on the content and allows him to break material into chunks while adding additional content in between his lectures. He stresses the importance of evaluating assessments and the need for providing frequent lower stakes assessments.