Current Newsletter

Dear educational leadership faculty,

Happy new year! This newsletter includes info about ELNet, upcoming events and resources to help you grow as an EL faculty member and support the work you do with others. You can find this same content, as well as past newsletters, mentoring opportunities, and more on the ELNet website. Visit the website at: https://elnet.sites.olt.ubc.ca/

1. ELNet Announcements
   • Message from the ELNet Chair
   • ELNet P&T Event – January 25 @ noon
2. PD Resources and Opportunities
   • CTLT/CTL Workshops
   • Impact Series (UBC-O)
   • Communities of Practice
3. SoTL
   • MoveU Grants and Resources

1. ELNet Announcements

Message from the ELNet Chair

Happy 2024! I hope this term is starting off well for everyone. For me, a new term always brings feelings of excitement — for new courses, keen students, and new opportunities!  We’ve already had our first ELNet executive meeting of the year, specifically to plan our annual event for ELers! More information is below. Please come on Jan. 25. This opportunity just might provide you with some great ideas, inspirations, insights, and potential collaborations. Other opportunities that you may be interested in are also shared in this newsletter. Connecting and being supported is a wonderful way to go about our work and that is our aim through ELNet. Don’t hesitate to reach out with ideas, concerns, requests for mentorship, or newsletter/website content.  (I think my word for this message is “opportunity.” 😀)

Sally Willis-Stewart

sally.willis-stewart@ubc.ca

ELNet Promotion and Tenure Event

Educational Leadership — Make It Count

January 25 | 12:00–1:10pm | Online

This annual ELNet promotion and tenure workshop is intended to help educational leadership stream faculty gain insight into the process of career progression, including developing a thorough and concise dossier for promotion purposes. It will not be recorded, so we encourage those who can make it to attend. No registration is required; just join the Zoom link to join the event.

• For the Zoom link, please contact us.

Panelists include:

Schedule

• 12:00pm: Land Acknowledgement & Welcome by ELNet Chair, Dr. Sally Willis-Stewart
• 12:10pm: Panelist Presentations
• 12:45pm: Q&A with Panelists
• 1:10pm: Closure and Mentoring Information

2. PD Resources of Opportunities

CTLT/CTL Workshops

CTLT Spring Institute: Call for Contributions 

The 2024 CTLT Spring Institute will be hosted from June 3–7, 2024. We encourage proposals from educators that demonstrate purposeful innovation in teaching practices, educational research, student services, and learning technology to support student success and experience. Submit your contributions by February 26, 2024.

H5P Symposium

February 21–22 | Online

This two-day symposium introduces H5P, a free open-source html tool, that can be used to create flexible, interactive practice questions, as well as opportunities for interactive content delivery for instructors. Register.

Integrating GenAI in Education at UBC 30+30 Workshops

30-minute interactive presentations followed by 30 minutes of discussion designed to assist faculty and staff in navigating this new landscape. 

Teaching with CoPilot (Bing Chat): Practical Applications of GenAI in Education
January 25 | 12:00 pm–1:00 pm | Online 

Exploring GenAI Tools for Teaching Material Development
February 8 | 12:00 pm–1:00 pm | In-person

Generative AI and Universal Design for Learning in Teaching and Learning
March 21 | 10:00 am–11:30 am | Online

Impact Series (UBC-O)

Monday, January 22 | 2:00–3:00 pm | In-person (ART 276, UBCO)

The Impact Series is a monthly speaker series hosted by the Faculty of Science at UBC-O as a way to strategize how to help EL faculty members document impact in their narrative. The next speaker in the series is Dr. Peter Arthur. Those interested in joining, please send an email to the event organizer, Dr. Bowen Hui in advance at bowen.hui@ubc.ca, just in case there are issues with room capacity.

Materials from past speakers are provided but password protected. Contact us for access. Please note that these files have been generously shared by other EL faculty members. These files are password-protected to prevent web crawlers from accessing them. Please do not abuse or distribute them without prior acknowledgment from the authors. 

Communities of Practice

Leveraging Digital Assessment Techniques for Enhanced Learning

Thursday, January 18 | 12:00–1:20pm pm | Hybrid (SCI 331, UBCO & Zoom) 

This CoP, open to faculty on both campuses, aims to uncover ways digital assessments can improve overall student experiences (autonomy, self-efficacy, connections with peers) and contribute to well-being (flexibility, clarity, usability) as well as provide instructors with flexibility in the creation, delivery, monitoring, and marking of course assessments. The January 18 session, facilitated by Drs. Zoë Soon and Jake Bobowski, will feature OER assessments, Jupyter, and autograding. Contact us for the Zoom link. Find more information and additional future meeting dates here.

Educational Leadership and Teaching (UBC-O)

Friday, January 19 | 11:30–12:30 pm | In-person (SCI 331, UBCO)

This CoP aims to facilitate growth, success and innovation in the EL initiatives that faculty take on, and having a collaborative and social environment to do so provides a wonderful opportunity.  This CoP will be beneficial for new and experienced EL faculty as teaching excellence is at the heart of it, and often where our EL inspirations come from. To join this CoP, email ctl.ubco@ubc.ca and you will be added as a member to the community and to the Teams collaboration space. Find more information and additional future meeting dates here.

Wellbeing in Teaching and Learning (UBC-O)

Monday, February 12 | 12:30–1:30 pm | In-person (SCI 331, UBCO)

Join us for a wellbeing break in your day and be creative with us.  Experience the impact of kindness and creativity and gain/ discuss ideas for integrating them into your learning environments.  It’s also Move U month at UBC so we will also share ideas and innovations for your classroom. To join this CoP, email ctl.ubco@ubc.ca and you will be added as a member to the community and to the Teams collaboration space. Find more information and additional future meeting dates here.

Note: There is also a university-wide CoP for Teaching and Wellbeing that offers support and events throughout the year to faculty across both campuses. For questions, feel free to reach out to wellbeing.learning@ubc.ca. If you are interested in joining the CoP, you can self-enrol via the Teaching and Wellbeing CoP website.     

3. SoTL

MOVE U Grants

February is MOVE U month at UBC! This initiative is a great opportunity to provide educational leadership by incorporating wellbeing and movement practices into your classroom. Small grants are available as well as resources for what you could bring into your class. See links below:

• https://wellbeing.ubc.ca/moveubcgrants
• https://wellbeing.ubc.ca/campaigns-initiatives/move-ubc

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Best wishes and don’t hesitate to be in touch if you have content to share in future newsletters,

Kathryn Accurso on behalf of the UBC Educational Leadership Network Executive Team (ELNet)