Fall Academic PD Day 🍁

with Leah Zakojc

Every student enters the learning environment with different experiences, abilities, and levels of confidence. How do we ensure everyone stays engaged, feels comfortable asking questions, and has the opportunity to succeed?

Through an engaging and interactive session, participants will explore practical, strength-based teaching strategies that support instructional pacing, communication, and student confidence. Drawing on real classroom experiences, including the memorable "Are You on the Bus?" metaphor, this session demonstrates how simple adjustments to instructional delivery can help learners recognize when they've missed a step, ask for clarification without embarrassment, and successfully re-engage in the learning process.

Participants will take part in two hands-on activities designed to highlight the importance of clear instructions, diverse learning experiences and needs, and psychological safety. Faculty will leave with practical strategies they can immediately adapt to classrooms, labs, clinics, shops, and other learning environments to foster engagement, confidence, and success for all learners.

Note: To engage authentically in this session, please bring a device with you (e.g., laptop, tablet, phone, etc.)

What if you could stop explaining yourself to AI every time you start a new conversation? In this hands-on session, participants will learn how to create a Microsoft Copilot Agent that reflects their communication style, teaching philosophy, and professional expertise. Rather than relying on generic AI tools, attendees will build the first version of a reusable AI assistant that can support tasks such as emails, announcements, student feedback, lesson planning, activity design, assessment development, and more. Participants will leave the session with: A working Copilot Agent customized to their needs A framework for refining and expanding their agent over time Practical examples of how agents can support teaching, communication, course design, and productivity This session also serves as the launch point for a broader AI Empowerment series focused on helping faculty build and evolve their own AI ecosystem. Future sessions will explore creating student-facing course agents, AI-supported course preparation, in-class activity generation, assessment and feedback assistants, teaching insight agents, and course outline development agents aligned with CTL best practices. Whether you are new to AI or already experimenting with Copilot, this session will help you move beyond prompting and begin building an AI assistant that works the way you do.

with Stephen Forbes

Make difficult feedback easier to hear—and easier to act on—with Confirm, Connect, Compliment, Correct. In this hands-on session, practise giving honest, constructive feedback that supports learning in class and in one-to-one conversations.

with Dr. Lynne Kennette and Amanda Cappon

The use of Emojis, or pictographs that represent various objects are used ubiquitously in digital communication yet are traditionally used sparingly in formal settings (see Huang et al., 2008; Huffaker & Calvert, 2005). Despite their widespread usage in the digital landscape, the scarce extant literature on Emoji usage in organizational (business, professional, academic) settings provides conflicting guidance on their usage, as Emojis in professional communication may be considered riskier (Rathgeber, 2024), especially when between individuals fulfilling different (hierarchical) roles (Lebovits, 2015). The present study is a small part of a larger study investigating student perceptions/evaluations of the impact of emoji usage in academic communications, specifically emails and assignment feedback, in both a qualitative and quantitative mixed method experimental design. Overall, students reported positive perceptions of faculty’s emoji use, including rapport and aspects of engagement, and perceptions of both the message and the sender/professor. Applications to practice will be shared with poster attendees.

with Dr. Lynne Kennette and Ruth Rodgers

In the classroom, teachers can build some connections with their students organically, simply by virtue of being in the same space at the same time. In a fully online classroom, teachers may need to be more intentional and active in planning these connections. In the present study, a professor added videos of herself introducing students to each unit’s content in the hopes of helping to build those connections with students. Responses to an anonymous survey about these videos showed that online learners had positive feelings towards their inclusion, particularly as it relates to their perception of the instructor (e.g., feeling that they knew the professor better, made them feel welcomed and the professor present and accessible, and that students would feel comfortable contacting the professor with questions about the course). Overall, feedback was quite positive. Implications for teaching practice will be shared along with analyses, including a connection to UDL and the importance of relationships in learning.

with Nathan Wilson, Claire McCormack, Angie Wood, Amy Derdall, and David Swerdfeger

Our study investigated how cohort-building initiatives, engagement activities, and student support strategies influence persistence and success in our two-semester General Arts & Science program. Addressing a gap in Canadian college research, our study explored factors that shape student engagement, motivation, retention, and graduation. Our early findings can help to further identify evidence-based practices that strengthen belonging, support student success, and improve retention outcomes.

with Karen Founk and Jesse Parsons

The Pre-Health Sciences program created a cross-curricular project that aims to teach students about medical disparities through an interdisciplinary lens across multiple subjects. This study explored whether the cross-curricular project affected student empathy. The data collected now informs evidence-based best practices for empathy-forward pedagogy and works to deepen DC's commitment to close gaps in health.

with Kyle Chapman, Samson Chung, and Kenneth Hodgson

We did a SoTL project on a practical programming test approach that we recognized could stress out the students. We wanted to find out how the benefits of the testing method can be balanced against the perceived negatives.

with Vlad Chiriac and Edin Ibric

The MAD Paramedic Study is an REB-approved Scholarship of Teaching and Learning initiative that brings together the Paramedic Program and the Faculty of Media, Art and Design to develop an in-house VR/AR patient-learning experience. So far, the project has involved Paramedic students interacting with a written patient case while Media, Art and Design Work-Study students design and develop its immersive counterpart. Building on an earlier project presentation, this poster shares further interim findings related to Paramedic-student learning, Work-Study participation, interprofessional collaboration and the practical development of immersive learning resources. The project offers emerging insight into both the educational value and implementation realities of creating a reusable, fiscally responsible, Made at Durham College model for VR/AR learning.