Dal Events

Resilient Classroom Series: Gen Z in the Classroom

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 13:00:00 GMT

Tuesday, April 22, 2025
10–11 a.m.
Killam Library, Room 2622

“If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.” – John Dewey, American education reformer

Have you recently found yourself saying “Back in my day, students used to be like…” or “I just don’t understand students anymore!”? Generation Z is the largest cohort demographic on university campuses today. More than any other generation, this group of students has faced lightning-speed changes in society and technology, and have been heavily “shaped by the advancement of technology, issues of violence, a volatile economy, and social justice movements” (Seemiller & Grace, 2017). As a part of the Resilient Classroom Series, this session will help you adapt your teaching to better align with Gen Z’s unique motivations, goals, skillsets, and social concerns. In this in-person session, you will learn:

Common characteristics and learning preferences of Gen Z students.
Strategies to adapt your course design and assessments to better support and teach Gen Z students.

To help you take what you learn from this session to your classroom, we will collectively brainstorm strategies to use in the Gen Z classroom. In addition, you will develop a preliminary plan for how you can adapt one student assessment or course design aspect to better suit your Gen Z students.

Presenter

Daniella Sieukaran, Senior Educational Developer (Curriculum)

Resilient Classroom Series: Instructor Burnout – Rekindling Your Flame for Teaching

Thu, 15 May 2025 16:00:00 GMT

Thursday, May 15
1-2:30 p.m.
In-person
Link to register for the event (opens in new tab)

“Burnout is what happens when you try to avoid being human for too long.” – Michael Gungor, American songwriter

Along with healthcare workers, social workers, and corporate executives, university instructors are in the top ten professions most likely to experience burnout (Schaffner, 2023). In this in-person session, you will learn how to:

Define burnout and describe how it manifests amongst instructors
Identify the signs and symptoms of burnout in yourself and others
Explain the factors that contribute to burnout in academia (e.g., career stage, systemic conditions)
Use the four pillars of burnout resilience – purpose, compassion, connection, and balance (Pope-Ruark, 2022) – to better manage burnout
Describe how an equity-minded lens can help address burnout in academia

We will collectively brainstorm actions that can be taken immediately to better prevent and mitigate the impacts of burnout, as well as first steps to chip away at systemic conditions that drive burnout in a university setting. You will use these ideas to begin developing a personalized care plan for addressing burnout.

Presenter

Daniella Sieukaran, MA (she/her)
Senior Educational Developer (Program Development)

Beadwork as Pedagogy: Active-Learning Workshop

Tue, 20 May 2025 16:00:00 GMT

Tuesday, May 20
1–3 p.m.
Killam Library, Ko’jua Okuom (in-person)
Link to register for the event (opens in new window)

Building on the CLT session offered in Winter 2024 “Storytelling as Transformative Pedagogy”, this active-learning workshop engages Indigenous beadwork as a pedagogical tool and culturally relevant way of expressing knowledge in academia.

As Anishinaabe scholar and beadwork artist Lana Ray (2016) explains, “beading was never understood by Indigenous peoples within the parameters of arts and crafts” (366), but rather as an integral form of knowledge. Beadwork embodies a worldview that challenges colonial and Western notions of knowledge production, while centering community and relationality within the learning process.

Drawing on post-secondary examples of beadwork learning from mathematics, the social sciences, and law, the first 45 minutes of this session will take the form of a presentation that conceptualizes beadwork as relational pedagogy, illustrating its capacity to challenge traditional power structures in education and to offer an embodied, culturally relevant approach to teaching and learning.

The remainder of the session will be devoted to hands-on learning, where attendees will participate in a beginner beading lesson led by Indigenous beadwork artist and �鶹��ý student Ella Parsons. This experiential component aims to engage participants in the act of creating while deepening their understanding of beadwork’s potential to shape knowledge, relationships, and transformative educational practices.

All necessary supplies will be provided.

Facilitators

Ella Parsons (she/they) is an upper-year undergraduate student majoring in psychology with a double minor in Indigenous studies and gender and women's studies. She is mixed nīhithāw (Woodland Cree)/settler, and is an avid beadwork artist. 

Rachelle McKay (she/her) is the Centre’s Educational Developer, Indigenous Knowledges and Ways of Knowing and uses beadwork as a pedagogical tool when teaching INDG 3050: Indigenous Research Methods.