This session presents the rationale and strategies for building an “I love me file” or a “refuge file” of positive (self)reinforcement through the gathering and curating of positive feedback artifacts, reflection pieces, concrete examples of your successes in the classroom, with your students, in your career, and in your professional life, etc.

These resources – and this file – can become an emotional sanctuary to revisit after a bad class, a rude comment, a failed classroom experiment, or other professional setback that can’t help but feel personal and cut deep, especially when a highly invested instructor is tired and over-stretched. These stored artifacts can not only boost your morale and remind you of your excellence, but they can also contribute in practical ways – and greatly simplify – the process of assembling or updating your dossier for PTR, your files for awards, etc. 

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  noin 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). This semester, we’ll focus on Teaching with AI and sharing ideas, strategies, and examples to enhance learning. In the winter 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/ 

This workshop will take participants through the phases of creating and grading assessments in the quiz tool. Topics will include: 

• setting up questions in the various formats;

• setting the timing settings of the quiz; 

• setting up special access times for specific students writing at a different time, or who are allowed extra time to write; 

• previewing the quiz as the students will see it; 

• viewing the results and statistics of the quiz; 

• grading any questions that were not automatically graded; 

• making the grades available to students.  

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

This session introduces key ideas and practices for making online learning both more active and more effective: engaging student attention, having students “do something” as they learn, using the flipped classroom model, adapting active-learning strategies, and/or offering more authentic learning experiences. 

Participants will discover a variety of easy-to-use engagement triggers for lecture segments as well as specific activities for students in their online classes to make learning more interactive. They will briefly consider the “flipped classroom” model and be invited to explore the Online Instructional Activities Index to see how a range of learning strategies can be used in online teaching to craft authentic learning experiences and assessments. 

Note: Most of these resources are equally useful for teaching in the on-campus classroom.

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

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.

Audience: Instructional staff 

The Teaching Commons is pleased to invite you to this year’s Annual Summer Teaching Institute, taking place over three half-day sessions between June 23-25th. Our 2025 theme is:
Working Towards Essential Requirements.

This year's Institute is designed to offer an engaging, hands-on experience focused on deepening our shared understanding of the interconnectedness between program learning outcomes, course learning outcomes, course-level assessment practices, and essential requirements, with a particular focus on accessibility and inclusive design.

We encourage colleagues from the same academic unit to attend in pairs so that collaborative work can meaningfully translate back to your programs. Because the sessions are scaffolded toward shared goals and outcomes, we ask that participants commit to attending all three half-days.

Please bring the following materials with you to guide your participation and activities:

• Your program-level learning outcomes
• Learning outcomes and assessments from 2–4 required courses in your program (across varied year levels)
• Course syllabi, if available

Please note, the Summer Teaching Institute is not an evaluation of your current assessment practices. Rather, it is an opportunity to reflect, collaborate, and better understand how intentional alignment across outcomes, assessments, and essential requirements can help us create more coherent, accessible, and meaningful learning experiences for students.

Please see the agenda below. More information and details will be provided closer to the week of the Summer Institute.  This event will be held via Zoom.

We look forward to learning with you this summer!

Join us for a collaborative session exploring how generative AI is reshaping teaching and assessment in higher education. Together, we will discuss Leon Furze’s AI Assessment Scale and consider how it might be adapted for an institutional context. We’ll also engage with Jiahui Lou’s (2024) article, "A critical review of GenAI policies in higher education assessment: a call to reconsider the ‘originality’ of students’ work," to ground our discussion in a critical academic framework. This session is open to all Lakehead University faculty and staff who are GenAI novices or experienced users - all input is welcomed and encouraged!

Session Outcomes:

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Discuss the spectrum of AI use in assessment via the AI Assessment Scale.

• Reflect on Lou’s critique of originality and its implications.

• Examine how the AI Assessment Scale might be used at an institutional level.

• Identify supports needed for teaching and learning for effective AI Assessment Scale integration.

Pre-session Work:

Please come to the session having reviewed and read the following:

• Lou, Jiahui. (2024). A critical review of GenAI policies in higher education assessment: a call to reconsider the “originality” of students’ work. https://doi-org.ezproxy.lakeheadu.ca/10.1080/02602938.2024.2309963 (you may need to login to the Lakehead Library to access)

• Leon Furze’s AI Assessment Scale: https://leonfurze.com/2024/08/28/updating-the-ai-assessment-scale/ 

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.

Explore the evolving Teacher-AI-Student dynamic with Dr. Fridolin Ting, an expert in technology-enhanced active learning in STEM education, Senior Lecturer for The Education University of Hong Kong, and former Associate Professor for the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Lakehead University. This community of practice session will explore AI-integrated teaching strategies supported by AI tools like YoChatGPT in personalized and active learning environments. Learn how to harness AI to foster collaboration and active learning, support student agency, and enhance cognitive engagement in your classrooms.

Key Highlights:

• The good, bad, and ugly of generative AI in education.
• The limitations of current AI tools and how to overcome them.
• How to implement personalized and active learning pedagogies using YoChatGPT in STEM and beyond.
• Strategies for integrating generative AI into your learning and teaching to support, not undermine, critical thinking and student growth.
• Some evidence of improved student learning outcomes from 2024-25 Fall Semester pilots.

Learning Outcomes:
By the end of this session, participants should be able to:

• Analyze the role of AI in the modern educational landscape and its impact on teaching practices.
• Implement strategies for integrating AI tools into personalized and active learning pedagogies.
• Identify potential pitfalls of generative AI in education and develop safeguards to mitigate them.
• Utilize AI platforms like YoChatGPT to enhance collaboration and critical thinking in their courses.
• Reflect on the ethical and pedagogical implications of the Teacher-AI-Student relationship.

Presenter’s Abstract: In this CoP workshop, I will share our progress on UNESCO's recommendation for fostering human-centered and pedagogically appropriate relationships among students, AI, and teachers by implementing collaborative learning through the innovative YoChatGPT platform, which integrates multimodal large language models within an online backchannel environment.  We will discuss current limitations of AI platforms in education and describe how YoChatGPT solves these problems to enable educators to implement both personalized and active learning strategies effectively. We will demonstrate practical applications through various pedagogical approaches including collaborative storytelling, design thinking, inquiry-based learning, and modified peer instruction. By fostering a dynamic teacher-AI-student relationship while maintaining human-in-the-loop decision-making at its core, YoChatGPT! represents a significant step forward in integrating AI into educational practices thoughtfully and effectively.

Please note that the Community of Practice is limited to 25 spaces. Spots are limited - register today!