by Jen Wrye, Teaching and Learning Faculty Developer Last spring, two groups of faculty at NIC participated in the Centre for Teaching and Learning Innovation’s inaugural Team-based Learning (TBL) Course Redesign Institute. The sessions focused on the principles of team-based learning, as well as student learning, engagement, and metacognitive skills more generally. I had a…
By Katherine Carpenter, Teaching and Learning Faculty Developer, Centre for Teaching and Learning Innovation, North Island College “Time pressure rewards students who think fast and shallow — and punishes those who think slow and deep,” Adam Grant Using timed tests as way to assess learning has been under scrutiny for some time. While summative assessments…
Assessment is an essential dimension of our learning experiences. In addition to determining and certifying the degree to which learning outcomes have been met, assessment “directs attention to what is important. It acts as an incentive for study. And it has a powerful effect on what students do and how they do it.” (Boud &…
As of January 2024, North Island College is now using Kaltura Virtual Classroom for all instructional activity (online courses, blended courses and virtual office hours). Every Brightspace course has its own persistent and automatic virtual environment. Instructors and students can create their own persistent rooms for non-Brightspace course use via NIC MediaSpace – such as…
Instructors require four kinds of knowledge to be an effective educator. College and university instructors most often come to the position without strengths in all four knowledge areas. When instructors are building their professional development plan they should consider a balanced approach of all four components and a variety of formats such as conferences, workshops,…
Sexual Violence is something that has an impact on our entire community; according to Statistics Canada, 71% of Canadian post-secondary students experienced unwanted sexualized behavior in 2019. Further, according to the Canadian Labour Congress, nearly 50% of workers have experienced sexual harassment and/or sexual violence in 2018 and 2019. This is a significant challenge for…
As of January 1, 2023, NIC is instituting a 2-year Brightspace course and Kaltura video retention process to protect and streamline course and student data as well as provide organized and efficient collections of courses and videos. This also applies to BlueJeans recordings of online classes. Per a NIC Policy 1-05 NIC is only required…
“Technology Integrations into Brightspace” NIC’s Approval Process for Technology Integrations for Digital Learning Environments (Brightspace) There is a new decision-making process involved in approving a third-party technology integration (e.g., a textbook publisher, web tool, social media platform) for connection into NIC’s digital learning environment – Brightspace. Instructor requests for integrating/adding in/making a connection link within…
North Island College has set up Brightspace to allow students and instructors to add in their pronouns, preferred names and traditional names so that we can respectfully communicate with each other in the digital world. Pronouns Log in to Brightspace at https://mycourses.nic.bc.ca Click on your personal menu (where your name appears in the top right…
For many of you the term is coming to a close, classes have ended, will be ending soon or you are winding down a recent unit or module. One of the most impactful books I have ever read is called, “Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher” by Stephen Brookfield. The first edition of this book came…
