This page will be regularly updated with our Faculty Professional Development workshop slides and any corresponding materials. We are working with Camosun’s Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) to share these faculty (internal only) workshops via LibCal, so please stay tuned for updates in CamNews and CETL newsletters, as well as emails from your chair or MSS directly.
Faculty Workshops:
- Instructional Materials Analysis: Improving linguistic clarity for our diverse learners
- Tips to Make Intercultural Team Projects Work
- Supporting Intercultural Classroom Engagement
Instructional Materials Analysis: Improving linguistic clarity for our diverse learners
Description:
Ever wonder how students navigate the language in your instructional materials (exams, assignments, D2L overviews, etc.)? Have you considered how language in your instructional materials may contain grammatical errors, linguistic bias, and cultural favoritism focused on the dominant culture? (Abedi, 2016; Martinkova et al., 2017). This workshop will introduce you to some linguistic features that may be adding unnecessary complexity and creating barriers to understanding for your students, and in particular, your multilingual students. We will walk you through examples to practice identifying and modifying items across a range of disciplines, with the goal of applying this knowledge to your own materials creation and revision processes.
Learning outcomes:
- Recognize linguistically accessible written English
- Find and modify potentially challenging language
- Implement linguistic modification in your own materials
Tips to Make Intercultural Team Projects Work
Description:
Project groups with a mix of cultures have the potential to develop both teamwork and intercultural skills. But those goals are likely to fall flat without sufficient preparation and ongoing care. This workshop offers practical tips from published research and Camosun instructors that will give your intercultural groups – or any groups – a good chance to succeed.
Learning outcomes:
- Increased understanding about the challenges and rewards of intercultural group projects
- Ideas for starting strong and facilitating ongoing work
- Assessment options that reflect group and individual contributions
- Links to useful resources
Supporting Intercultural Classroom Engagement
Description:
Do you often find yourself trying to come up with ways to get your English-as-an-additional-language (EAL) students engaged in the classroom, or have them contribute actively to class discussions? You may find that some EAL students are struggling with pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. Others may refuse to engage, or take an extended pause before responding. You may also have met the EAL student who gives long-winded or rambling explanations and responses. In this workshop, we will explore how culture can influence expectations and behaviour of both students and instructors in the classroom. We will also consider some strategies to promote a more inclusive classroom environment and to get our EAL students more engaged and more comfortable speaking in our classes.
Learning outcomes:
- Increased understanding of the ways culture influences behaviour in the classroom
- Ideas for building a more inclusive classroom environment to get your EAL students speaking comfortably
- Practical strategies for better engaging your EAL students, and all students, in the classroom
