Interactive PowerPoints
January 2015
With the PowerPoint presentations becoming a common practice on campus, there is always the temptation to make the PowerPoint based class into yet another version of the traditional lecture where students’ participation is rather limited. This workshop is designed to provide participants with tools, tips, and strategies for making the PowerPoint based classes into more interactive sessions. The participants will be asked to practice the tools and tips they learn in this workshop on their own PowerPoints to make them into more learner centered experiences.
Designing Interactive PowerPoints
February 2015
This workshop is designed to train participants on the technical skills needed to design effective powerpoints.
These skills include: slide design, animation and inserting objects like smart Art and hyperlinks.
Leading forum discussions in the Moodle-based courses
March 2015
Teachers who use the Moodle platform often include forums which are designed to engage learners in discussions about course materials. Forums are considered one very important tool for extending learning beyond classroom time. In the forums, learners engage in discussions that serve various functions, among which are functions like key concept definition, knowledge application, bridging chapters, classroom assessment technique, etc. Often students surprise us with the amount of discussion they produce, and, sometimes, the quality of learner-to-learner exchanges is positively surprising as well. When properly oriented and led, students show great potential for becoming independent learners and thinkers. This workshop is intended to give some tips to teachers on how to best design, lead and conclude virtual class discussions.
Community Based Learning
March 2015
Community Based Learning (CBL) is a learning approach in which academic institutions and community organizations work together in order to meet their common needs. While the communities provide the worksite as an extension of the classroom, the students help the organizations to solve their problems through projects proposed based on both sides’ interests. The main principle underlying CBL as a learning approach is that through exposure to both community and classroom environments, students can most effectively and efficiently acquire knowledge, build skills, and develop useful attitudes.
This workshop aims to introduce the Community Based Learning to participants, most of whom have limited experience in designing CBL courses. The participants will acquire the necessary knowledge and practical application of CBL through three interactive sessions. The first session is meant to introduce the CBL as a learning approach, actors of CBL, elements of a high quality CBL, its limitations and challenges. The second session aims to help participants understand the CBL framework through which the participants will design and implement their courses. The aim of the third session is to strengthen the theoretical background introduced in the first two sessions by giving the participants a chance to draft their CBL course plans.
Problem Based Learning
April 2015
A theoretical and practical introduction on problem based learning (PBL) and action research. This workshop
will guide the faculty to practice PBL in their courses and to improve their teaching practice through the action research.
Wikispaces
April 2015
Building upon previous workshops conducted, with the main theme to share latest trends, skills and good practices to help teacher help students to learn in an easy and more collaborative way, to help us master the art and science of teaching. In this workshop, we’ll work together to discover Wikispaces classroom, an online open and free platform that enables social writing, to create a classroom workspace where you and your students can create content, communicate, email, group-projects, assessment, discussions, embed video, audio, images, upload all types of files, incredibly easy, open and free.
Peer Assessment
April 2015
Peer assessment, is a strategy through which students or their peers assess their learning and their experiments based on the quality standards set by the teacher in partnership with students. This process is intended to provide teacher and students’ time, and to improve the achievement of learning outcomes, this strategy is based on rubrics or "valuation models" along with peer evaluation.
Writing Effective Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
April 2015
This workshop provides a roundtable discussion on how to redesign university courses based on the requirements of the learner-centered approach by including higher level intended learning outcomes. The workshop will include both theoretical and practical sessions on redesigning and implementing courses which align teaching to construct learning.
