This interactive workshop aimed to provide faculty and teaching assistants with practical advice and classroom techniques to help improve student writing across the disciplines, particularly at the undergraduate level. The session briefly reviewed the development of written expression as an essential goal of a university education, and offered some theoretical perspectives on the importance of stimulating enhanced student writing. Emphasis was placed, however, on participant exploration and assessment of sample assignments and techniques distributed by the workshop leaders.

Improving Student Writing:
Exploring Assignments and Techniques

A Learning Management System (LMS) can be a lifeline or a noose for students who use the internet for learning. How can instructors create an effective CLEW class site which leaves students asking for more? In this workshop, participants explored the Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education, and saw real examples of how these Principles are implemented in two CLEW sites. Presenters covered effective pedagogical principles for undergraduate education, and discussed how these might translate into an innovative, effective course site that enhances the student experience in a collaborative exciting environment.

Implementing the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education into a CLEW Website

How can instructors identify suicidal, demanding, verbally aggressive, violent, or physically destructive students? How would an instructor intervene? How and when would it be appropriate to refer a student to the support groups on campus? What are the privacy and confidentiality issues surrounding these situations?

Through case studies, role-playing, and dialogue, this session offered instructors the opportunity to clarify their roles and responsibilities in effectively supporting at-risk students.

- Identifying Students at Risk: What is my Role?
- Identifying and Referring Students in Distress
- Discussing Trauma in Class

How can instructors structure their feedback so that it motivates students to learn? How can instructors help their students give and receive constructive feedback effectively?

Presenters, Michael Potter, program coordinator in the Centre for Teaching and Learning, and Jill Singleton-Jackson, faculty member in the Department of Psychology presented a two-part workshop where, first, participants practiced constructive, developmental feedback techniques that they can use with undergraduate and graduate students; and second, participants learned how to incorporate peer review – students critiquing students – into courses. When planned and managed carefully, peer review can deepen and expand student learning, while balancing instructors’ workload.

Students, particularly those in first year, sometimes ignore crucial stages of the writing process, such as prewriting. Instructors can help students learn specific techniques to facilitate the writing process, including listing, clustering/mind mapping, Q & A, split-page format, and free writing. Presenters explored writing assessment with an emphasis on proactive approaches to ensure that marking is efficient and manageable. Presenters also discussed the resources on campus that help instructors design assignments for deeper student learning.

- Improving Student Writing
- The Detail Factory
- The Detail Factory Sheet
- Prewriting Strategies for Faculty
- Pre-Writing Activity
- Outlines from Various Universities
- Glossary of Prewriting Terms
- References for Prewriting

Millennial, digital native, neomillennial, net generation, generation Y, generation whatever – these are some of the many terms used by the popular media to describe today’s elementary, secondary, and post-secondary students across North America.

Presenter, Michael K. Barbour, Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology at Wayne State University explored these labels, their characteristics, and the research behind these claims in order to determine what instructors really know about today's students, and specifically, how that affects what instructors do in the classroom.

Teaching portfolios are effective ways of documenting and communicating with others (e.g., job search committees or tenure and promotion committees) about teaching practice. An increasing number of Canadian universities require that job applicants describe their teaching experiences. Even when job ads do not explicitly state a requirement to submit a teaching portfolio, many applicants still do as portfolios can offer a competitive advantage. Overall, the teaching portfolio is becoming an important aspect of the tenure and promotion evaluation process.