Championing collective excellence.
Presenters: Brent Oliver, Christina Tortorelli, Gina Adams, and Marva Ferguson
Location: Palliser Room (main floor by convention lobby)
Increasing
numbers of international students are choosing an education at Mount Royal
University (MRU). The University’s Academic Plan and Strategic Research and
Scholarship Plan identify internationalization as an institutional priority and
acknowledges that extensive supports are required to ensure the success of
international learners. In times of fiscal austerity, the recruitment of
international students has become an increasing source of revenue for Alberta
post-secondaries. Scholarship in this area indicates that the acculturation
process for international students presents challenges including the need for
learners to reconcile complex emotional, social, and academic pressures
(Fischbacher-Smith, M.2015, p7). In this context, thoughtful and intentional
planning to support the success of students is a significant responsibility for
faculty and administration.
In September of 2019, we welcomed an
unprecedented number of international students to the social work program. With
little knowledge or experience in this area, our team set out to explore the
best ways to engage and support this cohort of learners. Identifying a need for
increased pedagogical approaches as our classroom, practicum, and program grew
in their diversity, we initiated a SOTL study to explore the learning
experiences of these students. In the process we moved from problematizing the
issues related to internationalization to exploring ways to creatively engage
international students in our program and recognize the contributions they make
to our learning community.
In this panel presentation, our team will use
our collective experience at MRU as a launching point for a dialogue focused on
creating strategies to support international students studying at MRU. We will
discuss our collective learning in designing and implementing a SOTL project
with a specific focus on creating positive beginnings with international
students, enhancing the learning experience, meeting educational outcomes, and
closing well.
Presenters: Bill Bunn, Celeste MacConnachie, Charles Hepler, Guy Obrecht, and Glen Ryland
Location: Walker Room (second floor)
The
Department of General Education has offered a small number pairs of courses
formatted in what is called a Learning Community. These courses are successful
in a variety of ways. They emphasize to students that individual topics can be
viewed through different lenses brought forth by disparate disciplines. They
are invigorating for teachers in that teachers get to interact with one another
in new ways. These successes bring a number of questions beginning with: how
well can we scale up these kinds of offerings?
Join a group of people who have taught in GNED
learning communities to find out about our experiences and discuss how we can
extend them in the future.
Presenters: Peter Houston and Marty Clark
Location: Dawson/Stewart Room (main floor by convention lobby)
To
fulfill its mandate to support teaching and research at MRU, the Archives and
Special Collections has developed a robust instruction program through which
faculty members can bring their classes to learn about archives and primary
sources. Over the past two years, the program has grown significantly and now
sees classes in a variety of disciplines attending archives sessions to develop
archival research skills by working with unique collections. This session
explores how archivist Peter Houston and instructor Marty Clark acquired and
used a major new collection, the Blaine Canadian Sports History Collection, to
build an interactive archives session and assignment for students in HPED 1010:
Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Sport and Culture, a first year
course in the Department of Health and Physical Education.
The presenters will explain the design of the
archives session and present some preliminary thoughts on how getting students
in the archives to “do” historical research teaches them valuable lessons about
the historical method while meeting course objectives. There will be an
interactive component to this session, as participants will briefly try the
class assignment in which students are asked to find and analyze racialized
representations of Indigenous peoples in Calgary Stampede programs from the
1950s. Participants will also learn about future opportunities to have students
experience archival research through hands-on work in the Archives and Special
Collections.
Presenters: Brenda Lang, Karen Manarin, Lee Easton, Melanie Peacock, Michele Holmgren, Qasim Syed, Rafik Kurji, and Yuhuan Wang
Location: Champion Room (second floor)
Join your colleagues as they reflect on their experiences serving on MRFA committees. Learn how their involvement in the MRFA has impacted their experiences as Association members, how it has connected them to the broader campus community, and how their contributions have built the Association we have today. And, learn about the various opportunities you have to become more involved in the Association.