The Teaching Commons unit in the Office of the Vice-Provost Teaching & Learning has introduced a Certificate in Artificial Intelligence Pedagogies (essentials) that focuses on understanding the fundamentals of GenAI. Meanwhile, the Certificate in Artificial Intelligence Pedagogies (leadership) supports faculty in guiding AI use among peers in their Faculty or department.

“There is so much change happening so quickly with AI. It’s easy to feel completely overwhelmed,” says educational developer Robin Sutherland-Harris, who created the programs. “These programs offer a coherent curricular framework with curated resources and collaborative exercises that provide a pathway through this chaos.”

The first certificate is a 20-hour program that packages existing AI training modules and gives faculty credit for those they’ve previously completed. Key among them is AI & Education, a six- to eight-hour course Sutherland-Harris teaches that explores AI’s implications for course policies, teaching strategies and assessment practice. Meanwhile, the three-day AI Intensive consists of workshops, webinars and guest speakers focused on responding to the challenges AI poses for assessment practices.

“These are two really robust offerings that, on their own, can take people quite a way to figuring out how to make decisions about AI use and what is appropriate in their own classroom setting,” Sutherland-Harris says.

Participants must also select three of 10 shorter workshops from two categories: a) practical AI pedagogies and b) applying a critical lens to the technology. Those who take three workshops in one category receive a specialist’s badge. The essentials certificate also requires completing a capstone project and attending an AI-related community engagement event at York, such as a hack-a-thon, conference or panel discussion.

Faculty members who earn the essentials certificate qualify to take part in the 15-hour AI Leadership certificate. It requires completing three additional workshops from either or both the practical pedagogies and critical lens categories. Those who complete five workshops from one category will earn an additional specialist’s badge.

The leadership program’s capstone project requires creating an AI-related teaching resource to share on the Teaching Commons website. Participants also contribute their AI expertise to the community by speaking at a professional development event on the subject.

Sutherland-Harris has been tracking the fast-evolving AI domain since ChatGPT first emerged three years ago. She co-leads York’s Generative AI Pedagogy Community of Practice, involving 241 faculty members, and another on GenAI in education through the Council of Ontario Educational Developers. She also follows pedagogical practices at other institutions, monitors technology news and regularly talks with York faculty about their AI use. These activities help her keep the AI training materials current and relevant.

“I am always updating and renewing the learning materials to stay responsive to what faculty should know,” she says.

Sutherland-Harris appreciates that how faculty use AI in their courses will depend on their discipline and teaching style and has tailored the program to diverse needs and interests.

“These certificates are not only for people who are enthusiastic about using AI. They are also for people who are cautious about using AI for principled ideological or pedagogical reasons,” she says. “Either way, there is a need to be informed, strategic and thoughtful about AI and to consider its implications for pedagogy.”

With files from Sharon Aschaiek

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Instructors and professors can upload a course’s syllabus and content to AI Course Assistant, a generative AI (GenAI) tool available within the eClass learning management system. Students can interact with the tool's chatbot to ask questions about assignments, deadlines and even course content. Students receive instant answers, reducing the need for faculty to repeat course information available in the syllabus.

“The goal with AI Assistant is to cut down on some of the stresses faculty typically have in answering students’ common questions and make it easier for students to get the information they need quickly,” says Patrick Thibaudeau, director of IT innovation and academic technologies within UIT.

Thibaudeau and his team built the tool using technology developed for a pilot project by professors Donald Ipperciel of the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and Pooja Vashisth of the . Instructors can upload course materials in diverse file formats – text and PDF documents, spreadsheets, presentations, images, audio and video. They also can add a Microsoft Word document of typical course questions and accompanying answers that the tool scans for information. Thibaudeau says AI Assistant produces extremely accurate replies, and as instructors continue to add information to it, its results will continue to improve.

One feature of AI Assistant designed particularly to benefit student learning is AI Learning Companion. Functioning as a private tutor and study coach, the tool allows students to generate quizzes of 10 multiple choice questions to assess their knowledge on different course topics. Students can also tailor the difficulty level to match their learning needs.

The tool is designed to progressively challenge students: the more answers they get right, the harder the questions become. Professors can also create customized quizzes for students within AI Learning Companion that include short-answer and essay-style questions.

After completing a quiz, students receive results and qualitative feedback, including suggestions for areas that can be improved.

“The tests can be adapted to wherever students are in their learning journey, so that they can advance their knowledge at their own pace,” says Vidur Kalive, AI architect lead within UIT.

Another AI tool UIT is working on is Instructional Design Ideas, which will help faculty design courses by creating educational materials based on course content such as a syllabus, lecture notes, discussion topics, reading recommendations, learning activities, assignments and tests. Thibaudeau and Kalive have demonstrated a prototype to various instructors from diverse Faculties and are using that feedback to refine the tool. They plan to launch it within eClass in May 2026.

These AI technologies are powered by �첥��Ƶ’s Automated University Response Assistant (YU AURA) platform, which means all uploaded content is confined to York’s computer servers, ensuring privacy.

“They are all being developed ethically and responsibly within the York bubble, which helps faculty members feel at ease about using them,” Kalive says.

Thibaudeau and Kalive are collaborating with Student Services, the Teaching Commons within the Office of the Vice-Provost Teaching & Learning and other York units to raise awareness about available AI tools. UIT offers guidelines and a template that professors and instructors can use to shape the language and format of their syllabi to be compatible with machine-learning techniques. Details on how to add and use AI Assistant and AI Learning Companion are available through an .

As AI technology continues to impact teaching and learning in higher education, Thibaudeau says it’s vital for York to embrace its potential in a way that centres the pedagogical expertise of instructors.

“We have an incredible opportunity to use AI to enhance the way education happens at York,” Thibaudeau says. “It can allow instructors to focus on their core work of teaching while cutting down on some administrative stresses and inefficiencies and support the way students learn.”

With files from Sharon Aschaiek

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As teaching is not a static practice but an evolving craft that requires continuous adaptation, TiF has sought to serve as a platform since 2013 to navigate the ways in which teaching shapes and is shaped by broader societal and educational shifts.

The conference serves as a collaborative initiative, inviting educators to explore the practical and philosophical aspects of pedagogy by sharing first-hand successes, engaging with innovative teaching strategies and critically reflecting on the evolving landscape of higher education.

It also had another key goal. “This is an opportunity to come together for those who support teaching and learning work across our community,” says Mandy Frake, interim director of Teaching Commons.

With current challenges in the education sector, Frake says that opportunity seemed more important than ever going into the 2025 iteration of the conference to be held on May 8 at �첥��Ƶ’s Keele Campus, within the Life Sciences Building.

That’s why organizers decided to take a different approach to the roundtables that will be part of its schedule this year.

TiF is inviting faculty members and graduate students to submit proposals to lead a facilitated, and strategically informal, roundtable discussion. The sessions will be 30 minutes each and can be done through multiple formats: open dialogue with colleagues, sharing of experiences or pedagogical strategies, discussing an article or book related to teaching and more.

The goal is for facilitators and participants to connect in informal conversations that provide them with the chance to engage in communal dialogues that they may not get to have in their everyday work.

Participants will be provided with a list of roundtables and related topics, allowing them to pick and choose where they want to be involved. “You’re going to sit at a table or a topic of your choosing. You're going to talk with colleagues for half an hour. Then you can get up and move on to the next one,” says Frake. “It's very fluid. It’s entirely designed for participants to engage and have good conversation with colleagues.”

Among the topics that Teaching Commons suggests could be explored include e-learning and digital pedagogy, experiential education, sustainable development goals in teaching, decolonization and Indigenization in pedagogy, as well as equitable, accessible and inclusive teaching. However, Frake calls these “gently suggested topics” and encourages those who submit proposals to remain open to exploring what is of interest to them and others.

"The roundtable sessions will be a mainstay of TiF 2025 as we believe that there is more to learn together as a community of scholarly teachers than we could possibly do on our own," says Frake. "Additionally, we will be exploring other aspects of 21st century learning through keynotes, workshops and panel sessions. TiF is an opportunity to celebrate the important work of teaching and learning at York and we hope to see many members of our community on May 8."

Proposals for roundtable sessions must be submitted by April 4 at 11:45 p.m.

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Her job is to support faculty with pedagogical advancement, and with her academic background in researching large language models and natural language processing, she was a natural match for helping teachers integrate GenAI into their classrooms.

“There were some apprehensions around academic integrity and things like that,” says Sutherland-Harris. “I was really eager to start framing the conversation as one that had deep pedagogical considerations, that it wasn't just about enforcing academic integrity or about a new technology, but it was more complex.”

She thinks no one fully comprehended some of the challenges AI would present, including difficulties faculty would face in preparing students to use AI effectively.

“I really wanted to make sure we were having some space for a pedagogical conversation,” she says. “I just started doing things with faculty where I could, to make spaces for those discussions. And now it is almost the entirety of my portfolio at the Teaching Commons.”

Sutherland-Harris now teaches a course for faculty called “AI and Education,” addressing challenges such as policy-making, ethical use and integrating AI into teaching. The course can count toward a Certificate of Proficiency in Teaching for eLearning. She also co-leads York’s AI Community of Practice, and has seen it grow to more than 200 members, which she believes is a reflection of the growing interest in AI education.

According to Sutherland-Harris, business professors are more likely to embrace this new technology because of their students’ interest in the private sector, where GenAI is being experimented with the most. An excellent example of that, she says, is Andrew Sarta’s class assignment presented at a recent conference.

Sarta is an assistant professor in the School of Administrative Studies in York’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS). In his first use of AI in his teaching, Sarta combined AI and virtual reality (VR) in a course at York’s new Markham Campus that focuses on training students in creativity and innovation.

Sarta’s second-year students were asked to work in groups and choose one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, then develop a business venture that could address their chosen goal. Examples included achieving gender equality, reducing poverty and building sustainable cities. The students used VR headsets to meander through the Oculus Wander app in pre-designated locations where they might find inspiration to solve their problem. They then used ChatGPT, the GenAI chatbot, for supplemental research.

“If you're sitting at your desk all day, if you're talking to the same people all the time, it's difficult to understand what other people's problems are and how you might solve those problems,” Sarta explains. “The idea behind VR was to mimic that experience, to get the students out of their space to explore different environments where they might be inspired by something.”

The VR portion of the assignment was a hit. Students were excited about their immersive VR experiences and requested more of them and more dynamic environments to better understand local issues. Sarta plans to make the VR experience even more interactive in future.

Surprisingly, Sarta’s students found their own intuition and traditional research methods more effective than ChatGPT for problem identification. Going forward, he will teach students how to more effectively use large language models.

Heather Lynn Garrett, a course director and contract faculty member in the LA&PS Department of Sociology, is also experimenting with GenAI. She does not allow students to use AI in her classes, but she has used ChatGPT in her second-year research methods course for a unit on qualitative data analysis.

Garrett explains the process: she used ChatGPT to generate coding categories from interview transcripts. Students then generated themes from transcripts, coded them manually, then compared their results with the AI-generated codes.

And in the ultimate question of man versus machine, man won this round. Despite ChatGPT’s initial success in producing 29 categories, it struggled to reduce them to six and often hallucinated content, meaning it made up the answer. The students’ manual work was far superior.

“I came up with the exercise because I want my students to be critical producers and consumers,” Garrett says. “When they did their reflections on it, they were happy to have had the opportunity to compare ChatGPT to what they could do. If I had just said, ‘Use ChatGPT to do it,’ they wouldn't have had the opportunity to have tried to do it themselves first.”

Garrett says she plans to continue exploring and integrating AI into her teaching, always balancing its benefits with the need for critical thinking.

Sutherland-Harris says it’s no surprise that teachers can’t just introduce something with GenAI into their classroom with the assumption students will immediately understand it or see its value.

“It's a thing that we all have to learn about and learn how to use together – which is, I think, a really rich pedagogical space.”

With files from Julie Carl

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On March 27, TC will host Teaching & Learning Day, which will offer a series of workshops exploring some of the leading subjects in pedagogy – including artificial intelligence (AI) and experiential education.

The sessions share no common theme and will look at – among other things – how educators can create teaching strategies to support students in becoming informed about generative AI, how to help students benefit from opportunities for critical reflection while engaging in experiential education activities, and how well-being of both students and instructors can be integrated into teaching experiences.

What TC is hoping to achieve with the initiative is a morning of in-person professional development experiences that are more informal than might be the norm. In particular, the aim is to have Teaching & Learning Day not only advance understanding and discussions about pedagogy but to also facilitate conversations and connections among its attendees.

“The workshops are being facilitated by our educational developers, but the wisdom sharing among participants is where a lot of the deeper learning can happen,” said Mandy Frake-Mistak, interim director of the Teaching Commons.

Promoting those opportunities for inter-colleague conversation and learning is a major reason TC wanted to host its professional workshops all at once as a series.

“It’s often tough for people to find time and space in their day for workshops, and if they’re working off campus, they may not want to commute for a 1.5-hour workshop,” said Frake-Mistak. “If we hold a series at once, it allows people to stay for one or stay for all of them.”

Matthew Dunleavy, the educational developer who first proposed the event, says York has always been a commuter campus where people come and go. By bringing people together in person, he hopes they’ll have the opportunity to connect with colleagues and have unexpected conversations with unfamiliar people.

“I’m a big proponent of all the things that happen in liminal spaces around formal offerings,” Dunleavy said. “Here, conversations can bleed into the hallways, just because people are together for a longer event. In spaces for transition, conversations happen and new ideas might emerge or cross-pollination might result.”

The workshops will take place in the Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Building, and their titles and details are as follows:

• Critical Reflection as a Learned/Learning Activity, 9 to 10:30 a.m.
• Critical Digital Literacy and Generative AI: A Conversation, 9 to 10:30 a.m.
• Strategies for Meaningful Feedback on Student Reflection, 10:30 a.m. to noon
• , 11 a.m. to noon
• , 1 to 2 p.m.

For more information about the Teaching Commons and its initiatives, visit their website.

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On March 14, the Teaching Commons will host the second of a series of workshops in partnership with Nona Robinson, vice-provost students. Titled “Effective Classroom Facilitation: Managing disruptions, addressing controversial topics and supporting equity-deserving students,” this virtual session will offer concrete tools, strategies and resources for facilitating productive conversations in the classroom.

“I’m always happy to work with faculty members on student support, inclusion, and preventing and managing conflict” says Robinson. “I know this can be a source of stress for many of us, and this is a great opportunity for colleagues to share experiences and helpful ideas.”&�Բ�����;

The session accompanies a new Facilitating Dialogue and Challenging Conversations in the Classroom resource site, also referred to as a toolkit, housed on the Teaching Commons website. and led by educational developer Shani Kipang.

“One of the goals has been to help members of the University community revisit commonly used terms like ‘safety’ and ‘comfort,’ and to think critically and collaboratively about what it means and looks like to build accountable spaces," says Kipang, who has worked with the Teaching Commons over the past year to support initiatives in decolonizing, equity, diversity and inclusion (DEDI).

The toolkit provides a range of resources to support productive dialogue and collaborative learning in the classroom. Included in it are topic-specific resources such as strategies for facilitating discussion, addressing harm and creating community guidelines.

"Our hope is to help instructors walk into the classroom with clear goals and responsive strategies, so students can be motivated to engage and have the sense that it will be worthwhile,” she explains. “We want to help instructors address unanticipated situations with intention, and to support meaningful and carefully guided opportunities for learners to engage with critical issues in ways that shape how they learn and work and interact in the world.”

In addition to the March 14 workshop, the Teaching Commons offers a variety of other opportunities to explore strategies for teaching in times of crisis and integrating DEDI-informed pedagogies. Among these are a workshop series on trauma-informed pedagogies and a DEDI community of practice – a space where teachers can come together to learn, share, and question a wide array of topics related to DEDI in teaching and learning.

In partnership with York's Centre for Human Rights, Equity & Inclusion and faculty co-facilitators, these initiatives are led by Ameera Ali, an educational developer in the Teaching Commons with a portfolio focused on equity, diversity and inclusion.

“These offerings invite folks to come together to collectively reflect on and discuss various aspects of trauma, race, disability, gender, wellness, belonging and more,” she says. “And through this work, building understanding in these areas, we can better support meaningful dialogue and connection within the classroom.”

For more information on resources and upcoming sessions, visit the Teaching Commons website or contact them via email at teaching@yorku.ca.

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Mandy Frake-Mistak, the Teaching Commons’ interim director, and her team are seeking presenters for the two-day conference, which will be held in person this year on May 8 and 9. The theme for this year’s conference is Engaged Teaching in Times of Crisis and proposals are due on Feb. 29.

In addition to crisis-related presentations, there are opportunities for presentations about Academic Innovation Fund projects and experiential education/work-integrated learning. Presenters may speak individually, in teams or as panel members, and all faculty and graduate students are encouraged to consider taking part.

“Based on feedback from the Task Force on the Future of Pedagogy, we know that faculty members want more opportunities to communicate about what they’re doing in the classroom, and TiF will continue to be a great place for that to happen,” says Chloë Brushwood Rose, vice-provost teaching learning. “However, we also want to offer opportunities for conversations around philosophical and critical issues in teaching and learning, not only about practices. We want to highlight people who are thinking in interesting ways and from a range of perspectives about teaching and learning, especially in complex times."

People are grappling with conflicts in the classroom and conflicts in the world simultaneously, explains Brushwood Rose. The role of the University, she believes, should be to provide a space to talk about pedagogy more broadly.

Frake-Mistak shares that view.

“When we see crisis on a global scale, we can’t help but bring it home, and it shapes how we process information and our dealings with our peers,” she says. “We are trying to support people through this. It’s one thing to share resources, but what about what happens in the classroom?”

And that is where TiF comes in.

The conference will also feature TiF Reads, a panel reminiscent of the popular Canada Reads competition on CBC Radio. Presenters can champion a teaching- or learning-related book, journal article or other resource that inspired them during the past year and attendees will vote for a winner.

“TiF has been a mainstay on our calendar since 2013 and we want to champion it so it is continually growing and getting better,” says Frake-Mistak. “We want to recognize the community who have dedicated their livelihoods to teaching and learning; there are so many unsung heroes. It’s an opportunity to bring people together to champion teaching and learning and propel it forward.”

Brushwood Rose agrees.

“We look forward to TiF being as well attended and energizing as ever.”

Take this opportunity to fill out .

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Participants in the Teaching Commons’ program at �첥��Ƶ got a glimpse of the commonalities and differences in teaching practice at another institution thanks to a collaboration with a similar group at the University of Guelph during the Fall 2023 term.

Reading for Teaching is an informal opportunity for colleagues from across campus who are interested in reading and talking about teaching. A type of book club that focuses on works dealing with pedagogy, the program is the brainchild of educational developer Lisa Endersby and teaching and learning librarian Scott McLaren.

The two started the group pre-pandemic in 2019, building on early iterations of a Teaching Commons Journal Club facilitated by Endersby, and it has been running in the fall and winter terms ever since.

Members read works, both fiction and non-fiction, related to teaching and meet monthly to discuss the ideas set forth in the reading and how they relate to each individual’s experiences in the classroom.

Earlier this year, Endersby discovered that educational development colleagues at the University of Guelph in the Office of Teaching & Learning ran a similar group, and she suggested collaborating. She and McLaren talked with the two Guelph group leaders – educational developers Jenn Reniers and Christie Stewart – and tested the waters this fall.

“One of the strengths of the group is that it brings people together from across the University and allows discussion among people at all levels of the profession, from teaching assistants to tenured, full professors,” McLaren said. “By reaching out to another institution, it takes the group to another level, making it even more diverse.”

Their Guelph counterparts agreed.

“Within the university, context is important, and it’s interesting to talk to people from different contexts,” said Reniers. “Our two institutions are different, in terms of commuter students versus students who live in residence, size and programs offered. We were interested in continuing our own club while connecting with others from different contexts.”

Stewart added, “Many of the books we read were based on research from the United States. By talking with each other, it helped us work through whether the differences were due to a difference in our own university and theirs or if it reflects differences between post-secondary education in Canada and the U.S.”

The leaders met in August to consider how they could work together and still maintain the individuality of their programs. Since Guelph faculty meet bimonthly and York’s monthly, they decided to make introductions asynchronously at the start of the term and meet as a group at the end of the term, separately discussing the chosen book in the intervening months. The book they selected was Relationship Rich Education: How Human Connections Drive Success in College by Peter Felten and Leo M. Lambert (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020).

“There are a lot of institutional structures that can facilitate or hinder connection,” McLaren said. “It’s interesting to talk about this across different universities and discuss what works and what doesn’t.”

The leaders of each group maintained a strict “whatever is said in the group stays in the group” policy to encourage openness and honesty and allow people to drop their guards when they met unfamiliar colleagues.

“In a group like this, you come face-to-face virtually with people you wouldn’t ordinarily meet and you don’t want to worry that you might be sitting across from them in a meeting,” McLaren said.

In September, the two groups used Padlet, a virtual bulletin board software, to introduce themselves to each other individually. Throughout the term, participants were able to post comments about the readings, although the groups met separately.

“Throughout the term, we updated each other about the conversations that were taking place,” said Stewart of the leaders.

The leaders also met to arrange December’s online joint session, creating reflection questions and planning for breakout sessions, as well as a large group discussion. The December gathering featured discussions about such topics as the impact of having a third space besides the classroom or home to meet and how to create a welcoming environment in large classes, even if one-on-one connections weren’t possible.

“It was very useful,” Stewart said. “I wasn’t sure what to expect when bringing in others after 12 weeks of building our own bonds, but I didn’t find reluctance. People were willing to contribute, and it offered validation of their experiences by people at another institution.”

Endersby agreed.

“Despite our sense of working in a York bubble, the Guelph participants felt the same way about some of the challenges and opportunities inherent in relationship-rich education. It was affirming for me.”

York’s Reading for Teaching program begins its winter term program on Jan. 16. For more information and to register your participation, .

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�첥��Ƶ’s Teaching Commons (TC), the office that provides leadership in the pursuit of engaged teaching practices centred on the student learning experience, is also a leader in fostering an awareness of how to incorporate a decolonization, equity, diversity and inclusion (DEDI) perspective into pedagogical practices. 

As reflected by its statement of practice, the TC team has embraced equity, decolonization, diversity, inclusion and accommodation and continues to bring equity-informed pedagogy to �첥��Ƶ faculty, introducing relevant ideas and practices through its workshops and courses.

��پ��Գ��� Ameera Ali, our educational developer, EDI, joined Teaching Commons in February 2022, we have been able to ramp up our support in this area, in alignment with York’s DEDI Strategy,” said Geneviève Maheux-Pelletier, director of Teaching Commons.

TC takes the responsibility for DEDI leadership seriously, as its activities demonstrate. Ali and fellow educational developer Robin Sutherland-Harris currently co-lead a DEDI in Teaching and Learning community of practice (CoP) with Jessica Vorstermans, an assistant professor in the Critical Disability Studies program. With online monthly meetings, it has about 130 members who participate as their schedules allow; it has also spawned a trauma-informed reading group. The CoP meetings are an opportunity for members to share what’s on their minds. This year, they plan to offer some in-person sessions, too.

TC held its first DEDI conference this past spring with the help of an Academic Innovation Fund grant, and during the past academic year, TC supported Susan Dion, associate vice-president Indigenous initiatives, in delivering Decolonizing the Academy, a course that discussed this shared responsibility, and what it means to decolonize teaching and learning from a pedagogical perspective. 

“This course offered the opportunity for a lot of inner reflection and considering what people’s roles as settlers mean,” said Maheux-Pelletier. “Professor Dion was very generous to partner with us and we will be looking for ways to deliver this course in the future without making major demands on her time.”&�Բ�����;

This past summer, Ali and colleague Natasha May offered a course called Caring to Teach: Supporting Student Transitions Between Teaching and Learning Environments that helped instructors ease their students’ path between online learning and classroom studies.  

“Caring to Teach focused on the pedagogy of care, kindness and belonging, and it was especially important as we moved to and from online courses,” said Maheux-Pelletier. “It reminds us that students are more than simply someone sitting in class, and the more attuned we are to them, the better we can help them to be fully present in the classroom. 

“World events like the pandemic, the murderous attack on a Muslim family in London, Ont., and the University of Waterloo stabbing keep reminding us how vulnerable we are. If we’re not in a mental space to learn, it won’t happen.”&�Բ�����;

These ideas lead directly to TC’s new 10-part workshop series, Trauma-Informed Pedagogy, in collaboration with the Centre for Human Rights, Equity and Inclusion. The series grew out of inquiries during the pandemic from faculty who were wondering how to make the classroom a more inclusive space. 

The workshops “will explore how trauma influences learning and how it manifests itself inside the classroom or elsewhere,” said Ali, who is leading the course along with Sutherland-Harris and Vorstermans.  

The first five sessions, running this term, lay the foundation by examining what trauma is and who is affected by trauma, Ali noted. “The second five sessions, taking place during the winter term, discuss how we respond: the pedagogical strategies and techniques we can use. 

“We’re bringing everyone to a common understanding of the subject and then giving them concreate strategies to use.”&�Բ�����;

Maheux-Pelletier underscores TC’s ongoing commitment to DEDI and willingness to lead the way. 

“To me, there is no bulletproof approach,” she said, “but a commitment to the work is important, even if it is messy, imperfect and uncomfortable.”&�Բ�����;

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�첥��Ƶ’s Model for Engaged Teaching (MET) will take centre stage during an upcoming presentation by educational developers from the Teaching Commons (TC) at the in November. 

Geneviève Maheux-Pelletier, director of TC, and Mandy Frake-Mistak, a TC educational developer, will present preliminary findings from the qualitative research they are conducting into MET’s impact at York. They are currently conducting focus groups with faculty to obtain feedback about the model and how it shapes an instructor’s practice in the context of their own teaching and learning experience, disciplinary tradition and prior exposure, as well as whether it is used at York for activities such as operationalizing “excellent” teaching, helping faculty articulate their practice, and mapping out professional growth related to teaching and learning.

“Our job at TC is to think deeply about teaching and learning and look at ways our York community of instructors can think about teaching in much broader strokes than just through their own individual classroom lens,” said Maheux-Pelletier, who co-chaired the Sub-Committee on Research and Innovation in Teaching and Learning that produced York’s Model for Engaged Teaching in 2019 (updated in 2021). “The model looks at what informs teaching, and considers four dimensions:  

• an instructor’s classroom practice; 
• sharing practice; 
• systematic, intentional use of evidence in teaching; and 
• formal research: the scholarship of teaching and learning. 

The diagram of the model adopted and adapted by York shows flexibility and an interplay between the dimensions that remind faculty that tasks may be more than one thing rather than neatly categorized. It also shows the interplay between tasks and, says Maheux-Pelletier, “opens up perspectives and opportunities to see teaching in a richer way. 

“It gives people language and anchors their practice differently and in an aspirational fashion; their practice may develop over time.”&�Բ�����;

Frake-Mistak noted that the MET is the starting point for “changing the perception of what it means to be a teacher.”&�Բ�����;

She noted that it is a more robust practice than many people realize. Instructors tend to downplay all the tasks that they take for granted, such as building relationships and creating an inclusive classroom environment. 

“We want to shift the language we use and the perception of teaching,” said Frake-Mistak. “There’s so much that teachers do that can be rendered invisible in an institution of this size." 

Added Maheux-Pelletier, “The MET helps instructors grow over time with intentionality.”&�Բ�����;

The preliminary findings of their research indicate that the model is helpful in defining concepts such as teaching excellence from a broader perspective than just the classroom, because it takes into account myriad activities, such as reflecting on teaching, developing a curriculum and writing a review or meta-analysis for a journal. 

“When we presented the model itself at last year’s conference, people grabbed onto it as a productive way of thinking about teaching,” said Maheux-Pelletier. “They seemed to find it useful.”&�Բ�����;

Frake-Mistak expressed hope that the preliminary data will be only the beginning of a broader study. 

“There are more boundaries around discussing teaching and learning than around research and we’d love to tear them down,” she said. 

“Ultimately, from a professional standpoint, teaching is a scholarly practice and we need to recognize the power and significance it brings along with it, as well as the responsibility.”&�Բ�����;

Maheux-Pelletier noted that the team at TC is involved in the scholarship of teaching and learning in addition to the work they do to disseminate evidence-based information through workshops, seminars and courses. 

“We’re actually a group of scholars who specialize in teaching and learning,” she said. “Yes, we are service providers and our work is influenced both by the literature and by our own research.”&�Բ�����;

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