In this webinar, first-time and experienced online learners get practical advice on how to be a successful online learner from an experienced online professor and gain insight and perspective from a seasoned online learner.

Based on relevant psychological theory, you learn:

• Theoretical understanding of learning;
• The importance of your study space;
• How to manage distractions and procrastination;
• How to get the most out of your learning;
• The best use of down time, and;
• Tips and tricks on how to best prepare for learning on online.

Join Dr. Steve Joordens, a professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough, and University of Toronto Scarborough undergraduate student Nick Khabaz for an interactive one-hour conversation designed to prepare students to succeed in their online courses.

What can we learn from excellent teaching in elementary and secondary education?

How do we build the capacity of students to be more engaged and able to self-direct their learning?

What can we do as faculty and instructors to facilitate culturally responsive teaching?

Explore with Dr. Varner how:

• Open-ended questioning with total participation techniques not only work but also ensure everyone is engaged and can participate.
• Reflective activities designed to get students to find out what actually gets them to learn are vital. This includes engaging students with the concept of metacognition.
• Flexible grouping of students with norms and protocols is key.
• Exploratory activities with hands-on materials engage college students as much as a group of kindergartners.
• Explicit instruction on when to be engaged with technology and when not to be is important.
• Self-created projects based on clear course objectives can bring a class to life for students as they conduct their individual research as well as share their learning with others.

Three Key Takeaways:

• Develop successful strategies to engage learners in self-directed learning activities.
• Learn how to change the mindset of students from passive to active learning.
• Consider how planning through a lens of access and equity can increase student learning for students of all ages.

Many of us have experienced challenge, change and uncertainty as the pandemic impacts every aspect of society, including the economy.

Whether in our personal lives, our work lives or in our role as leaders, faculty members, instructors and teachers, we are challenged to show adaptability, courage and resilience. For those of us who are fortunate to still have jobs, we had to change how we work, where we work and what we work on. It is a different time, requiring totally different behaviours.

This webinar is aimed at all who struggle to stay positive and focused during the pandemic whether we are students, faculty or administrators in college and universities around the world.

In this interactive webinar, we learn:

• What is personal resilience?
• How do we personally build resilience?
• What do we need to do to develop resilience in our colleagues and to help make our organization agile and nimble?
• What do adaptive and resilient organizations look like and how we can we assess where we are as an organization on this critical journey?
• What challenges are we facing in the post-pandemic period that require resilience and agile leadership?

Five key takeaways

• 10 steps to building your personal resilience
• A framework for agile and resilient organizations
• An understanding of resilient and agile management and leadership
• How to “future ready” yourself and your organization

What does the micro-credentials landscape look like in the U.S.? And what can we learn from it?

In the U.S., Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) providers such as Coursera and edX, as well as other education providers, including private corporations, developed hundreds of micro-credentials covering a range of subjects seen to be in demand. Since 2014, Digital Promise has developed over 550 micro-credentials with over 60 issuing organization partners in their growing micro-credential ecosystem.

This webinar explores:

• What’s driving the development of micro-credentials in the U.S.?
• The essential policy drivers and constraints, and whether they differ between individual states
• The type of micro-credentials emerging in the U.S.
• Lessons learned from the development and implementation of these credentials

The webinar helps participants understand the way micro-credentials in the U.S. are unfolding and what is likely to happen within the sector in Canada.

Key takeaways

• Five key lessons to be gleaned from the successes and challenges of micro-credentials in the U.S.  
• What the American experience can tell us about aligning competencies to employers’ needs
• What American colleges and universities must do to ensure micro-credentials are a key component of “building back better” post-pandemic.
• The most important developments in micro-credentials to expect in the U.S.

1.5 billion learners around the world now find themselves studying through distance education, much of it online.

Colleges and universities are rapidly responding to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic by leveraging the power of the Internet for both real-time sessions and online learning anytime. Some colleges and universities are doing exceptional work. Some are struggling, others are challenged but are “making it”.

As faculty and instructors:

• What are we learning from this experience about teaching and learning?
• What can we build on as we get back to class in 2021?
• What changes can we make to how we teach, assess and work with students to make learning more effective?

In this interactive webinar, Stephen Downes presents:

• 10 lessons from teaching and learning in a pandemic
• Three challenges of leveraging these lessons for “what’s next” in online and blended learning
• Three specific ways we can facilitate improvements in teaching and learning, based on these 10 lessons

Key Takeaways

• Understand the nature of teaching and learning in terms of both building a community of inquiry and enabling learners to flourish
• Find out how authentic assessment and moving away from the mid-term and end-of-term exam can facilitate improvements in learning
• Improve how we respond to the diverse needs of learners

As an educator already using Zoom to teach online, learn how to leverage Zoom’s many features to enhance student engagement and learning.

Join Contact North | Contact Nord Research Associate, Dr. Ron Owston for this interactive session focusing on topics such as:

• Engaging students through breakout rooms
• Promoting collaboration with whiteboards and document annotation
• Enhancing class presentations, including how to use free OBS Studio video software
• Obtaining feedback through polling and other tools
• Involving students through screen sharing
• Organizing large enrollment classes

Considerable time will be allotted throughout the session for participant questions.

Note: before taking this webinar, participants are recommended to view How to Teach Online Effectively with Zoom webinar recording or have experience teaching with Zoom.