Defined as “the capacity to reflect on action so as to engage in a process of continuous learning”, reflective practice, and how one engages in it, is a fundamental component of what makes an education. In this section, I describe the various activities in which I purposefully engage in reflective practice.
Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW)
The ISW is designed for educators to experiment and reflect on their teaching practice. This intensive workshop (24 hours usually over 3 days) is constituted as a community of practice, offered in a dozen countries in over a 100 institutions (see http://iswnetwork.ca).
I took this workshop twice: First at the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology (CTLT) at UBC in June 2009 and second with the Department of Mathematics at UBC in December 2009. In the first case, the participants were graduate students from all over campus, in the second case participants were graduate students and postdocs in the Department of Mathematics only.
This workshop has had a fundamental influence on my practice: it shifted my point of view away from the instructor to the student (student-centred perspective), introduced me to the world of active learning and the concept of learning objectives (along with methodologies for lesson planning, and taxonomies of learning objectives).
In the summer of 2010, I took the Facilitator Development Workshop (FDW) which trained me to be an ISW facilitator and since then I have facilitated the ISW six times (five times at the Department of Mathematics at UBC and once at the Department of Mathematics at the EPFL in Switzerland).
I am also part of the community of practice of ISW facilitators and have attended their yearly professional development days twice and their semi-annual retreat of this community twice.
Peer review
Peer-reviewing is a practice that encourages educators to receive feedback from their peers. In order to make this process effective and fulfilling, UBC hosts a peer-reviewer training workshop and an associated community of practice for reviewers.
In September 2011, I enrolled 4 other graduate students to accompany me into taking this training at the Centre for Teaching Learning and Technology. Our goal was to offer our peer-reviewing services to other graduate students in our department. Since then, I have conducted five requested peer-review from graduate students and postdocs in the Department of Mathematics at UBC.
Workshops offered at the UBC Centre for Teaching Learning and Technology
The Centre for Teaching Learning and Technology offers a wide array of workshops throughout the year and I have taken advantage of those as often as possible. These workshops range in content from conceptual, to applied, to technical and in duration from one hour to three days.
- “Here: Valuing, Recognizing and Acknowledging Place” part of the Classroom Climate: Aboriginal
- Initiatives – October 2011
- Creating successful Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund proposals – May 2011
- Implementing Concurrent Student Feedback in Teaching – May 2011
- Presentation Skills Workshop – April 2011
- Team-Based Learning – May 2010
- Teaching Portfolio – April 2010
- Clickers and peer instruction (EDUcause Webinar) – October 2009
- iClickers Hands-on – September 2009
Teaching Seminar at the UBC Department of Mathematics
Given the growing interest in the department to have a regular meeting to discuss teaching, Steve Bennoun and I took on to organize a teaching seminar. This was held for two terms:
- In Spring 2011, the seminar took on to read and discuss “What the best college teachers do” by Ken Bain.
- In Fall 2011, the seminar read and discussed “Making the connection: Research to practice in undergraduate mathematics education” (MAA Notes #73).
Reading materials
Here are four books on teaching and learning that I consider to have been very influential on my approach as an educator:
- “How learning works: seven researched-based principles for smart teaching” by Ambrose & al.
- “What the best college teachers do” by Ken Bain
- “Making the connection: research to practice in undergraduate mathematics education” (MAA Notes #73).
- “How people learn: brain, mind, experience, and school” by the National Research Council.