Plan

 

Getting Started

Whether you’re new to teach­ing or it’s been a while since you’ve taught, this sec­tion guides you through the impor­tant first steps toward cre­at­ing inclu­sive and engag­ing learn­ing spaces.

Prin­ci­ples of Learn­ing
Before plan­ning a course and/or a class, we need to remind our­selves of how learn­ing works. Lovett et al. (2023) pro­vide eight research-based prin­ci­ples of learn­ing along with teach­ing strate­gies we can imple­ment to sup­port stu­dents across these prin­ci­ples.

Course Out­lines
The course out­line is an essen­tial doc­u­ment. It is both a con­tract with stu­dents and a vital com­mu­ni­ca­tion tool. Course out­lines set the tone of a course and let stu­dents know what to expect and who we are as instruc­tors. This page out­lines the col­lege’s pol­i­cy on course out­lines, along with strate­gies for cre­at­ing inclu­sive and acces­si­ble course out­lines

First Day(s) of Class­es
First impres­sions count. Stu­dents often decide whether or not to con­tin­ue with a class based on this first expe­ri­ence. Explore quick tips for cre­at­ing a wel­com­ing and engag­ing first day of class

Cre­at­ing Account­able Spaces through Effec­tive Class­room Man­age­ment
As instruc­tors, it’s our respon­si­bil­i­ty to ensure all stu­dents feel wel­come in the learn­ing space. Co-cre­at­ing with stu­dents from the out­set, guide­lines on how every­one will come togeth­er, com­mu­ni­cates to stu­dents that their voic­es mat­ter.

Fac­ul­ty Resources
New to North Island Col­lege? This page pro­vides use­ful resources to get you start­ed.

Design and Align Learning

Some of us have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate a course from scratch; most of us inher­it an exist­ing course. Either way, it’s impor­tant we approach design­ing and align­ing learn­ing with inten­tion. To begin, under­stand­ing the impli­ca­tions of how the course will be taught is an impor­tant start­ing point.

Teach­ing Modal­i­ties - In this sec­tion, we explore the oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges of dif­fer­ent dig­i­tal modal­i­ties

Learn­ing Out­comes — Reflect­ing on learn­ing out­comes (LOs) allows us to align the ‘what’ (con­tent) and the ‘how’ (ped­a­gogy) with how we assess stu­dent learn­ing. Estab­lish­ing clear learn­ing out­comes pro­vides the basis for course design. To pro­vide clar­i­ty and align­ment of grad­ed course work, you may wish to include a sim­ple align­ment chart in your course out­line. This chart helps tie togeth­er learn­ing out­comes, eval­u­a­tion, and the use of AI. This is called “con­struc­tive align­ment,” when all parts of a course are inten­tion­al­ly aligned and work togeth­er to sup­port qual­i­ty stu­dent learn­ing.

Course Design - Course design and redesign are ongo­ing process­es. They require con­tin­u­al reflec­tion and a focus on how to ensure our cours­es are learn­er-cen­tered. In this sec­tion, we explore a process called back­ward design.

Les­son Plan­ning — Ulti­mate­ly, effec­tive les­son plan­ning is cru­cial for suc­cess­ful course deliv­ery. If we don’t have a plan for each class, how do we know our stu­dents are meet­ing the course learn­ing out­comes? Equal­ly, plan­ning each class enables us to con­tin­u­al­ly reflect on how we have designed our course, mak­ing tweaks and adjust­ments along the way as we get to know the stu­dents tak­ing this iter­a­tion of the course.

Pedagogies

Com­mu­ni­ty-Based Learn­ing

High Impact Prac­tices

Metacog­ni­tion

Reflec­tive Prac­tice

Socrat­ic Method

Thresh­old Con­cepts

Peer Obser­va­tion

Indigenous Pedagogies

Decol­o­niza­tion, Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion & Indi­g­e­niza­tion — We can­not cre­ate tru­ly inclu­sive and engag­ing teach­ing and learn­ing spaces with­out address­ing the his­tor­i­cal and ongo­ing effects of colo­nial­ism. Under­stand­ing past harms in the con­text of cur­rent efforts toward decol­o­niza­tion, rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, and Indi­g­e­niza­tion in Cana­di­an post-sec­ondary edu­ca­tion is a life­long jour­ney. This sec­tion explains what decol­o­niza­tion, rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, and Indi­g­e­niza­tion mean in the con­text of edu­ca­tion.

Indige­nous Open Resources and Guides — If you’re not sure where to start in rethink­ing course con­tent, assess­ment, and ped­a­gog­i­cal approach­es, take a look at the resources and guides in this sec­tion.

Decol­o­niza­tion, Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion & Indi­g­e­niza­tion In Prac­tice — It can be hard to know where to begin adapt­ing our ped­a­gog­i­cal prac­tices. Draw­ing on the Open Resources and Guides above, this sec­tion offers some brief exam­ples across var­i­ous sub­ject areas.

Col­lab­o­ra­tive Online Indige­nous Inter­cul­tur­al Learn­ing (CO[I]IL) — Many of us include col­lab­o­ra­tive projects in our class­es. CO[I]IL is an approach to online projects that inter­weaves Indige­nous and inter­cul­tur­al perspectives.This sec­tion explains the guid­ing prin­ci­ples of CO[I]IL projects, with tips on how to get start­ed and

Inclusive Teaching and Learning

Diverse Learn­ing and Stu­dents (Edit and update)

Inclu­sive Teach­ing and Learn­ing (Edit — this is just a page of links to oth­er sites)

Inter­cul­tur­al Flu­en­cy (Include link to Bright­space Course Engag­ing Inter­cul­tur­al Under­stand­ing & Engage­ment when com­plete)

Sup­port­ing EAL Stu­dents

Ped­a­go­gies of Care and Kind­ness

UDL (Cre­ate a page and incl. Mak­ing Dig­i­tal Class­room Acces­si­ble for All & Dig­i­tal Exams for Stu­dents with Dis­abil­i­ties)