Introducing peerScholar: Supporting Written or Other Qualitative Assignments While Building Skills

As we all consider our online teaching, our first thoughts are often with respect to lecturing online and administering exams online. While those aspects are clearly critical, so too are the assignments we ask students to do to encourage them to engage with the material at a deep level, while perhaps exercising critical or creative thought, and learning communications skills. peerScholar was developed to manage such activities in a way that maximizes students' development of core transferable skills like those just highlighted. It embodies a powerful student-driven process with a strong evidence-base, while being easy to use for both faculty and students.

In this webinar I will introduce you to the peerScholar learning process and will highlight several interesting ways in which it is being used by faculty around the world to enhance skills while deepening content learning. Students enjoy the process and endorse it, as do the faculty who try it. Come find out why, and imagine the ways it could enhance the learning your students experience.

Steve Joordens is a Full Professor of Psychology, and the Director of the Advanced Learning Technologies Lab at the University of Toronto Scarborough (www.altlab.ca). Professor Joordens’ passion for teaching and for innovations in education have resulted in him winning a number of awards at institutional, provincial and national levels including, in 2015, being named a 3M National Teaching Fellow.

Dwayne Paré is the CEO of Cogneeto Inc. and co-creator of peerScholar. He is also a cognitive psychologist, with a focus on the pedagogy of educational technology. With the Cogneeto team, they created and support peerScholar, a technology that allows this formal approach to skill development to be used in virtually every educational context regardless of level or area of instruction. Their research focuses on formal approaches to the development and measurement of transferable skills like critical thought, creative thought, and effective communication.

Register in advance at: https://lakeheadu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYkd-msqjsiGdLTfrqQuMrXDogEy....

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.