We describe a detailed program evaluation for a University-wide teaching and learning grants program at a Canadian research-intensive university. This work was designed to determine if the program is driving the types of changes in practice it was designed to support. We administered a survey that included yes/no response and Likert-scale…

Purpose: The study aims to investigate the state of higher education (HE) leadership research after the intensified focus on teaching and learning (TL) in academia. Design/methodology/approach: The authors clarify the use of key concepts in English-medium empirical journal articles published between 2017 and 2021 by analysing 64 publications…

Postsecondary institutions across Canada have implemented various Indigenization strategies. Critical reflection is needed about the development, implementation, and impact of these strategies to ensure they serve more than checked boxes, and that they strive towards institutional decolonization. The purpose of this article is to present the…

Purpose: Considering the different roles universities can perform to contribute to sustainable development, it is through teaching and outreach that they might be able to connect to the academic and local communities the most. The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which energy sustainability is being considered in campus…

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) strategies aim to reduce learning barriers in the classroom for all students and remove the need for students with disabilities to advocate on their own behalf. Leadership in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning has a role to play in advancing inclusive learning cultures in higher education. At the frontline of…

In this reflective writing, the author shares some experiences of learning to teach in higher education, the pathway she has taken on this online adventure, and how her online teaching has been influenced by the pandemic context.

In the recent years since the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's (TRC) report and its recommendations for post-secondary teaching, Canadian universities and the professors who teach in them are seeking to redefine and restructure their teaching practices, course content, and pedagogies in an effort to meet those recommendations.…

Recent years have witnessed the spread of purpose-built active learning classrooms throughout the higher education sector. While these innovative learning spaces are well-suited for a variety of active learning strategies, their lack of a single focal point means they are inconvenient spaces for lecturing. While educational developers often…

With the increased reliance on technology, computer programming has emerged as an essential skill that is interesting to many audiences beyond merely computer scientists. As a result, many students from various disciplines take first-year computer science courses. This led to classrooms with a lot of diversity in student motivation, backgrounds,…

Internal and external drivers have seen institutions of higher education place increasing emphasis on the links between teaching and research in their curricula. Despite the apparent positive trend towards research-oriented undergraduate programs, there are a number of documented challenges or "risks" to incorporating research into…

The number of teaching-focused faculty (TFF) continues to increase, raising concerns about opportunities to engage in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) for academics who are hired to focus on teaching rather than research. Various names for these teaching-focused positions include, but are not limited to: instructional, limited-term…

This paper analyzes the development and implementation of a game-based learning course design framework. Drawing inspiration from task-based learning, the framework is structured around four core gamified elements: narrative assignment design; learner discovery; team-based collaboration and competition; and choice through quests. The intended goal…

In this paper, we focus on the experience of faculty learning to do the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Our two studies uncovered similar threshold concepts in SoTL in two contrasting contexts; one study done in the United Kingdom with teaching-focused academics while the other study, done in North America, focussed on educational…

Online learning continues to evolve from computer-based learning to more focus on mobile learning. With this evolution comes the need to develop (and evaluate) instructional strategies effective in mobile learning. This work-in-progress features a description of four innovative instructional strategies adapted from approaches we developed, used,…

This paper addresses two crucial gaps in the scholarship on the design and execution Simulation-Based Education (SBE) -- the importance of scaffolding in constructing successful simulations for entry-level students and the associated value of social media tools. We examine these issues within three successive iterations of a role-play simulation…