Audience: Instructional staff

Description: This workshop will take a deeper dive into some of the tools introduced in the essentials workshop and introduce course tools that promote collaboration, aid in grading and feedback, and monitor student progress. Topics will include creating groups and associating them with the assignment and discussion tools; creating rubrics, grading students with rubrics, and exploring user progress to learn how students progress through and interact with online courses. 

It is recommended that participants have attended the mycourselink/D2L Essentials Skills Workshop or watched the recording of the Essentials Skills workshop before attending this workshop.

This workshop will be delivered through Zoom and will be recorded. The Zoom join link will be provided to registrants before the event.

Audience: Instructional staff

Description: This session will provide an overview of the learning environment and how to use the various tools in mycourselink/D2L to effectively structure your online site to simplify class management and enrich course experiences for students.

This workshop will be delivered through Zoom and will be recorded. The Zoom join link will be provided to registrants before the event.

The 2026 Summer Teaching Institute is a four-day professional learning experience designed to support educators in developing practical, evidence-informed approaches to teaching in higher education.

This year’s Institute will run using a flipped classroom model. Participants will work through the online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education modules asynchronously in myCourselink/D2L at times that fit their schedules. Daily live sessions on Zoom will focus on collaborative discussion, reflection, problem-solving, and applied activities connected to the module content.

The live sessions are intended to create opportunities for participants to:

• Discuss teaching challenges and ideas with colleagues
• Engage in active learning activities
• Reflect on their own disciplinary and teaching contexts
• Explore practical strategies that can be applied directly to their courses and classrooms 
• Build a supportive interdisciplinary teaching community

Formal Recognition

A. Participants who do both of the following will receive professional development badges for their work:

• Complete any of the required Teaching and Learning in Higher Education modules
• Attend the Summer Teaching Institute live sessions for any of the modules they complete

B. Participants who do both of the following will receive the Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Certificate:

• Complete all required Teaching and Learning in Higher Education modules
• Attend all Summer Teaching Institute live sessions

Additional details regarding Zoom access, myCourselink/D2L access, and preparation information will be shared with registered participants before the start of the Institute.

Audience: Instructional staff

Description:

This session will provide an overview of the learning environment and how to use the various tools in mycourselink/D2L to effectively structure your online site to simplify class management and enrich course experiences for students. 

This workshop will be delivered through Zoom and will be recorded.  The Zoom join link will be provided to registrants before the event.

Are you looking for new ways to transform your assignments into engaging, real-world learning opportunities? This workshop introduces the principles of action learning and open pedagogy, two approaches that shift students from passive recipients of knowledge to active creators and problem-solvers. Faculty will explore how to design assignments that foster creativity, collaboration, and public impact while aligning with equity-focused, experiential, and authentic assessment practices. Through examples across disciplines, participants will consider strategies for rethinking assessment design, integrating open educational practices, and enhancing student engagement in meaningful ways.

By the end of this workshop, participants should be able to:

• Analyze examples of creative, student-centered assignments that use action learning and open pedagogy principles across different disciplines.

• Consider at least one assignment idea that incorporates action learning or open pedagogy to promote authentic, collaborative, and publicly impactful learning.

Lakehead University faculty are invited to an informal Tea & Conversation gathering with Joseph Duncan, Indigenous Curriculum Specialist, to connect and engage in relaxed discussion. Cinnamon Cedar Tea and Blueberry Bannock will be provided on Wednesday, February 18^th, from 10:00 am-12:00.

Why join?

• Meet the Indigenous Curriculum Specialist and learn how he can support Indigenous teaching and learning initiatives in your classrooms.
• Relationship-building, co-creating support and connections.
• Learn about support for Indigenization, decolonization, and reconciliation in teaching and learning.
• Share ideas, questions, and needs related to: Faculty workshops and professional learning.
• Course and program curriculum development
• Navigating Indigenous content in the classroom
• Land-based, experiential, and community-engaged learning
• Help shape future faculty requested workshops and training

What to expect

• Open, informal conversation, creating and bridging Indigenous pedagogy in classes.
• A welcoming, relationship building space for Instructors to network and understand ways of knowing using indigenous land-based pedagogy.

Date: Wednesday, February 18, 2026

Time: 10:00 am-12:00 pm

Location: Chancellor Paterson Library, Thunder Bay Campus,

5^th floor, Teaching commons Department boardroom 5014C

This session offers faculty and staff the opportunity to explore how to create meaningful Land Acknowledgements that demonstrate responsibility and personal understanding.

Participants will learn to construct thoughtful Land Acknowledgements that meaningfully connect their presentations or speeches to the Territory, while reflecting the principles of relationship building and reconciliation.

Teaching with AI Community of Practice (CoP) - Teaching About AI: Examining How to Build Critical AI Literacy Among Students

The rapid rise of AI in education presents both opportunities and challenges for how we teach and how students learn. For educators, this means navigating two key areas: teaching with AI—helping students explore and use AI tools in meaningful ways—and teaching about AI—encouraging critical thinking about its societal, ethical, and educational implications. (Searson, Langran, and Trumble, 2024).

As AI becomes more embedded in daily life, it’s important to thoughtfully consider how these tools fit into our classrooms. Avoiding AI altogether or relying solely on traditional methods can unintentionally widen the digital divide, leaving some students with more access and familiarity than others. By exploring balanced, inclusive approaches, we can better support all learners.

We invite you to join the Teaching Commons’ Teaching with AI Community of Practice (CoP). Last semester, we focused on Teaching with AI and sharing ideas, strategies, and examples to enhance learning. This semester, we’ll shift to Teaching about AI, examining how to build critical AI literacy among students.

References: Searson, M. Langran, E., Trumble J. (Eds). (2024). Exploring new horizons: Generative artificial intelligence and teacher education. Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). https://www.learntechlib.org/p/223928/ 

Looking both back towards the recently completed courses and forward towards the coming Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter terms, this session outlines principles of course design that prioritize instructor well-being, including modular content, efficient assessment design, integrating student-led activities, and strategies to reduce the burden of repeated course preparation and updates.

This session outlines strategies for connecting with colleagues, establishing peer mentorship relationships, and leveraging faculty communities for shared support, professional development, problem-solving, and stress reduction. 

Some of the options presented (with guiding resources) include communities of practice (connecting with existing CoPs and developing more), mentoring relationships, teaching triangles/squares, discussion and reflection circles, other peer observation groups and practices as well as in-department/faculty and cross-departmental/faculties opportunities with some suggestions on how to initiate each.