Part-time Teacher Big Time Impact

Keynote Address by Richard Wiggers - 9a.m. to 10a.m.

^{*Please see details below.}

This Mini-Conference is free of charge to all part-time college faculty.

Finding Neverland: The Trials, Tribulations and Treasures of the Part-time Instructor
A significant number of college students are taught by part-time faculty. That part-time faculty is often among the most effective, passionate and engaging instructors that students will encounter.

This address will explore some of the challenges and opportunities available to parttime instructors, including research and other professional development efforts being offered to improve the effectiveness of post secondary teaching and learning.

About Keynote Speaker Richard Wiggers

Over the past three years, Richard Wiggers has managed nearly 100 Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO)
research projects, including those related to Student Services, Work Integrated Learning and Teaching & Learning. In addition
to a recent publication on Teaching and Learning Centres, Richard is also co-producing a manual on how to assess
innovative practices in higher education classrooms and student services. He holds a BA from Carleton University, a Master’s
from the University of Ottawa, and PhD from Georgetown University where he also held a SSHRC doctoral fellowship. In
addition to more than a dozen publications and nearly 100 presentations at academic conferences across North America,
he continues to teach a variety of post secondary courses each year. Other past employers include the federal government, the
Province of New Brunswick, and two private sector education research organizations.

Pick one session from Group One and one session from Group Two
Group One (10:15 to 11:15 a.m.)

Put the Power Back into PowerPoint
Are you and your students tired of text heavy slides? Do you sometimes feel PowerPoint has become PowerPointless? Come and find out how to use some of the new features in PowerPoint 2010 to liven up your presentations. Create exciting slides that are visually appealing and that can help you add interactivity to your class.

Designing Engaging Assignments
Tired of marking that assignment you have given for two semesters in a row? Discouraged by the lack of time and energy your students are putting into their work? Sometimes all you need is a new approach and some colleagues to help inspire you. In this workshop we rethink our approach to evaluation in hands on fashion. Starting from the premise that testing does not necessarily mean tests and that assignments should extend knowledge not just involve its repetition, we consider how to design and develop engaging evaluation procedures. Bring an assignment you would like to revamp to this session, as we workshop new ways of approaching evaluation.

Multimedia Tips and Tools
In this session, we will explore some of the more popular, freely available, multimedia tools one can use to enhance their teaching sessions and online learning modules. With these multimedia tools, you can quickly build fun widgets, photo slideshows, or photo albums and graphic images in a short period of time.

Teaching with Twitter
Twitter has become one of the top social media sites on the internet, but it is much more than just a source of celebrity gossip. Twitter has been voted the #1 teaching application by educators. If you are new to Twitter, this workshop will show you the basics of how twitter works. You will learn how to use Twitter to engage students, communicate with them, and extend your own capabilities as a teacher. This workshop is designed for people with little or no knowledge of Twitter, but all are welcome!

Group Two (11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.)

Evaluation Made Easy
Are you buried in marking papers, projects and presentations? Save time. Ease your stress. Learn how to design assessments that evaluate student performance while furthering learning outcomes. This session will explore the use of rubrics and 1-2-3 in-class exercises. Come and experience this hands-on and informative session.

Polling your Audience: Clickers in the Classroom
Do a real time assessment of your students' understanding, thoughts or opinions. With student response systems such as clickers, faculty can instantly poll their students and display the results to the class in a matter of seconds. Learn how to design specific polling questions beforehand and integrate these questions into your class. (Please bring your cell phone to this session.)

Active Learning
We can’t actually teach students anything! They must engage cognitively, affectively, socially, and physically in order to learn. Demonstration of learning most often occurs outside the classroom, after the fact….when students own their learning and apply it to new situations-this is the ECHO EFFECT! Active Learning is learning by DOING. It accommodates different learning styles, and gives all students the opportunity to talk. Come and enjoy a fun, engaging presentation! Participate in active learning as you discover active learning principles.

Fun Freeware! Freebies for Faculty and Students
In this session, we will explore a number of fun free utilities that you will find useful in your daily teaching routine. These are the real deal - no hobbled half-products or demos – but rather stable software that can help you inside and outside of the classroom.

Register online. 

Registration deadline: Monday, March 19, 2012

Sponsoring Colleges: Humber College and George Brown College.