2025 University of Toronto Teaching & Learning Symposium

olmstead@utoronto.ca

About Kathleen Olmstead

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So far Kathleen Olmstead has created 51 blog entries.

Building student creativity, adaptability, and community by incorporating design thinking and collaboration into the curriculum

2022-05-04T10:13:53-04:00

A part of 8.3 Inquiry on Teaching and Learning Poster + Talk View PDF of poster Michelle French, Professor, Teaching Stream, Physiology Helen Miliotis, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Physiology Rebecca Laposa, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Pharmacology and Toxicology Stavroula Andreopoulos, Professor, Teaching Stream, Biochemistry Michelle Arnot, Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, Pharmacology and Toxicology Many of our undergraduates have either a narrow or vague idea of their career path which often causes stress and feelings of isolation. To broaden student perspectives, promote adaptability and creativity, and build teamwork skills, we took a design thinking approach to develop a course: Research [...]

Building student creativity, adaptability, and community by incorporating design thinking and collaboration into the curriculum2022-05-04T10:13:53-04:00

Fostering research and writing skills in first-year chemistry

2022-05-04T11:41:24-04:00

A part of 3.1 Inquiry on Teaching and Learning Poster + Talk View PDF of poster Kris Kim, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Physical & Environmental Sciences, UTSC Marco Zimmer-De luliis, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Physical & Environmental Sciences, UTSC Nirusha Thavarajah, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Physical & Environmental Sciences, UTSC A writing assignment was designed and introduced into first-year chemistry courses (CHMA10 and CHMA11) at UTSC in Winter 2020. The assignment is rolled out over the first two months of each semester. Students write a 500-word essay on a topic of their choice. A list of topics relevant to [...]

Fostering research and writing skills in first-year chemistry2022-05-04T11:41:24-04:00

Comparing assessments outcomes: in pursuit of equitable & accessible evaluations

2022-05-04T09:43:45-04:00

A part of 8.2 Inquiry on Teaching and Learning Poster + Talk View PDF of poster Elham Marzi, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, ISTEP Assessments and tests are a component of how learning is evaluated. Through the pandemic educators in all levels of learning institutions found themselves in pursuit of assessment approaches that could maintain academic integrity while also accurately assessing student learning and performance remotely. In many cases educators demonstrated creativity paired with adaptive methods and developed pedagogy that provided an accurate measure of student knowledge retention and understanding in the process. In this presentation twelve semesters of courses [...]

Comparing assessments outcomes: in pursuit of equitable & accessible evaluations2022-05-04T09:43:45-04:00

Developing students’ ability to modulate register to different audiences

2022-05-02T15:24:18-04:00

A part of 6.1 Lightning Talk session Nathalie Moon, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Statistical Sciences, FAS Liza Bolton, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Statistical Sciences, Rebecca Christensen, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, PhD Candidate Michael Moon, Department of Statistical Sciences, PhD Candidate Marija Pejcinovska, Department of Statistical Sciences, PhD Candidate One of the learning outcomes for statistics students in the Specialists – Methods and Practice program is to achieve proficiency in communicating statistical ideas to both technical and non-technical audiences. For a practicing statistician, it is not enough to know how to implement and interpret various statistical techniques, [...]

Developing students’ ability to modulate register to different audiences2022-05-02T15:24:18-04:00

Creating Caring Communities Using Alumni Insights: a Graduate-level Informational Interview and Presentation Assignment

2022-05-02T15:19:25-04:00

A part of 6.1 Lightning Talk session Lydia Wilkinson, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education and Practice (ISTEP) Alison McGuigan, Professor, Chemical Engineering, FASE The alumni interview and presentation assignment gives graduate students in our “Research Methods and Project Execution” course an opportunity to connect with an alumnus to learn about their key graduate school experiences and the skills that enabled their success as graduate students and during their transition into a professional career. As such, it is an important vehicle to help our students learn about the valuable skills they are developing [...]

Creating Caring Communities Using Alumni Insights: a Graduate-level Informational Interview and Presentation Assignment2022-05-02T15:19:25-04:00

Communicating Complex Information with Infographics

2022-05-02T15:12:55-04:00

A part of 6.1 Lightning Talk session Ashley Waggoner Denton, Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, Psychology, FAS Infographics present large amounts of information in a compact and easy to understand way, using texts, symbols, colours, and graphic visuals. The creation of an effective infographic requires students to draw on a wide range of skills, including information literacy, communication, and critical and creative thinking skills. In this session I will describe how I have used infographics in two different courses to meet specific course learning outcomes. In one course, students select a data set from the Government of Canada open [...]

Communicating Complex Information with Infographics2022-05-02T15:12:55-04:00

Making Teaching and Learning of Statistics Relevant

2022-05-02T15:02:02-04:00

A part of 5.2 Lightning Talk session Asal Aslemand, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Mathematical and Computational Sciences Motivated by positive effects of incorporating course projects into teaching and learning statistics courses, I included a semester-long collaborative student-generated course project in an online statistics course. Students were randomly assigned to work in small groups (4 to 5 students) within their tutorial section. The course project was scaffolded and encompassed of eight steps to complete throughout the term. The objective of this course project was to provide students with experiential learning opportunity within the course whereby students learned to collaborate [...]

Making Teaching and Learning of Statistics Relevant2022-05-02T15:02:02-04:00

From Isolation to Collaboration – Reimagining Assessment in a Traditional Exam-focussed Environment

2022-05-02T14:50:42-04:00

A part of 5.2 Lightning Talk session Eckhard Schumann, Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, Management, UTM This session is a reflection on a decision to replace traditional exams where students work strictly in isolation, with similar exams, but allowing and encouraging students to actively collaborate during the exam in informal groups. Traditional test and exams have always been a central part of assessment of students specializing in Accounting. The path to becoming a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) includes 3 vigorous 5-hour exams over three days (Common Final Exam - CFE). Although other formats of assessment, including assignments, group projects [...]

From Isolation to Collaboration – Reimagining Assessment in a Traditional Exam-focussed Environment2022-05-02T14:50:42-04:00

A pedagogy for embedding ethical considerations into course content

2022-05-02T14:42:40-04:00

A part of 5.2 Lightning Talk session Diane Horton, Professor, Teaching Stream, Computer Science, FAS David Liu, Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, Computer Science, FAS Sheila McIlraith, Computer Science, Professor, and Associate Director, Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society In this session, we will share a pedagogy we have developed to embed ethical considerations into courses in our discipline, computer science. Training students to identify and reason about ethical issues is important well beyond computer science, and indeed universities have for many years incorporated ethics into their curricula in fields such as biology, medicine and engineering. Rather than [...]

A pedagogy for embedding ethical considerations into course content2022-05-02T14:42:40-04:00

Arts-assisted, Immersive Teaching Strategy for First-year Financial Math and Literacy

2022-05-02T14:36:52-04:00

A part of 4.1 Lightning Talk session Vicki Zhang, Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, Statistical Sciences, FAS I have been championing the pedagogy of narrative mathematics since 2016. In this new first-year seminar course, I deepened this practice by enlisting various forms of media and arts to actively immerse my students in their journey of exploring basic financial math. Students in this course are highly diverse in their academic background, and therefore such a teaching strategy serves two immediate purposes: (1) for students from the humanities, it breaks down the complex financial concepts into less intimidating, relatable human stories; [...]

Arts-assisted, Immersive Teaching Strategy for First-year Financial Math and Literacy2022-05-02T14:36:52-04:00
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