2.6 Open Mic Sessions

2.6.1 SupportingOur Students' Mental Health: Quercus-based Resources for the Classroom
Lauren Brown,Victoria College Vic One Hundred instructor, Health & Wellness, Division ofStudent Life                                                                                                                                     

SustainingResonance: Lessons, Insights, and Impact

Supportingour Students' Mental Health (SOSMH) is a Quercus-based resource hub for facultyand teaching assistants. SOSMH is a response to the increased interest insupporting student mental health and wellbeing. It recognizes that faculty andteaching assistants are often a first point of contact for students who arestruggling and equips them with simple, easy to access information. Byembedding this content right into Quercus instructors no longer need to searchthrough multiple websites and resources. Faculty and TAs have full control overhow much or how little they'd like to share with students. Resources can beshared 1:1 with students who have indicated a particular need, or, with thewhole class by embedding slides or scheduling Quercus announcement or usingvideo resources for mindfulness or movement breaks. In this Open Mic session, Iwill describe the inspiration, collaboration, and iteration process behind thedevelopment of SOSMH and share how to implement this in the classroom andonline. Participants will be encouraged to make suggestions for additionalcontent and implementation.

2.6.2 FromSummative to Formative: Implementing and Refining Two-Stage Exams in a LargeUndergraduate Course
Alice Gao, AssistantProfessor, Teaching Stream, Computer Science, FAS
Marina Tawfik, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Computer Science, FAS        

SustainingResonance: Lessons, Insights, and Impact

Timed,high-stakes assessments are often stressful experiences, leading students tofocus on optimizing grades rather than learning from feedback. Two-stagetesting uses a team-based learning approach to turn summative assessments intoformative learning experiences (Latulipe et al., 2025). In a two-stage test,students first complete the test individually and then complete the same or asimilar test collaboratively with a group of peers. The final test gradereflects performance in both stages, with the individual component carrying themajority of the weight. This two-stage structure offers multiple benefits,including preserving individual accountability, providing immediate feedback,correcting misconceptions in real time, reducing anxiety, and fostering astronger learning community.

However,implementing two-stage testing requires careful design. For example, designingquestions for the group stage is particularly challenging, as they must besufficiently rigorous, promote meaningful discussion and remain feasible withinthe time constraints. Other challenges include deciding on a grading schemethat balances accountability with collaboration and managing logistical detailssuch as timing, group formation, room setup, and coordination. These choicesdirectly shape students’ experience and the pedagogical value of theassessment. 

In thissession, we share our experience implementing two-stage term tests in anupper-year machine learning course. We first outline our implementationprocess, including how we address common design and logistical challenges.Second, we present student survey feedback from our first iteration, reflectingon the implementation challenges and describing adjustments made in subsequentiterations. Finally, we offer recommendations for adapting the format to otherdisciplines, class sizes, and learning environments.

2.6.3 Mindthe Gaps: An online "survival guide" for graduate students
Lori Ross, AssociateProfessor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health               
Soumyaa Subranamium (now alumni, was a student at the time of the work)       

Amplifyingthe Signal: Connection, Engagement, and Civil Discourse          

Research hasindicated that graduate students face disproportionately high rates of poormental health, and a variety of strategies and interventions have beenintroduced on university campuses in an attempt to address this problem.However, most of this research and the related interventions have approachedstudent mental health through a biomedical lens that centers the mental healthsymptoms of individual students without attention to the wider social andstructural context. Recently, our team carried out a research project at threeOntario universities to investigate graduate student mental health from acritical disability studies lens, which instead directs our attention toexamine how the structures and processes of graduate education could be disablingfor students.

Through focusgroups and interviews, we learned from students and faculty how sanism(discrimination associated with one's mental health status) operates onuniversity campuses in ways that intersect with other experiences of structuraloppression such as those associated with race, class, and citizenship statusthrough what we call ""the wellness complex"". In addition,students and faculty shared their strategies for successfully navigatingthrough these oppressive systems.

In this OpenMic presentation, we will share the product of this research: the""Mind the Gaps"" website, an online ""survivalguide"" developed to share these strategies and related resourceswith graduate students across Ontario to support them in navigating graduateeducation. Specifically, we will provide a brief overview of the guide, shareour process of co-developing it, and discuss our plans for future disseminationand expansion of this resource. We will also offer suggestions for how facultymight consider using this resource in their own teaching practice.