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Conversations with students

Help build Concordia's strategic vision for teaching and learning by joining a guided conversation with other students.

Thank you to everyone who participated in a guided conversation in 2022. Your feedback has been very valuable to the future of teaching and learning at Concordia.

See other opportunities to get involved with Future Concordia.

Conversation guide for students

Your experience

These questions will shape the conversation. If you can, spend some time reflecting on your experience before the session.

  1. Think back to some of your favourite classes. What made them memorable? How did they support your learning?
  2. How does Concordia currently support your success, both in and outside the classroom? What changes would you like to see?
  3. Concordia has chosen four areas of focus. To what degree do they resonate with you? What's missing? 
    • inclusivity
    • success and wellbeing
    • technology
    • "sky is the limit" thinking
  4. Imagine it's 2027. What would teaching and learning at Concordia look like ideally? Please comment on each area of focus.

Inspirational examples

These approaches to teaching and learning from other institutes of higher education, plus some homegrown initiatives, intersect with Concordia's key areas of focus. We'd love to know what you think.

At Concordia

Better Practices in the Sexuality Classroom: Teaching Resources and Guides for Sustainable and Equitable Learning

Prepared by assistant professor Natalie Kouri-Towe of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute, this open resource for all faculty provides guidance for teaching topics related to sexuality. This initaitve Seeks to create a "community of practice" across academic fields in response to student needs.

Other institutions

University of Michigan, USA 

Inclusive Teaching at U-M

  • Provides videotaped simulations of activities, teaching demonstrations, and video testimonials from students and faculty on inclusive teaching.
  • Curated list of activities and resources to promote inclusion in different classroom settings such as online courses, large in-person courses, STEM courses, etc.
  • Curated resources for practicing anti-racism and developing anti-racist pedagogy.
College of the Canyons, USA

Initiative Zero Textbook Cost Initiative

  • Supports instructors in finding and developing Open Educational Resources (OERs).
  • Lists classes that use Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) textbooks so students can verify if their class section is a ZTC textbook course.
  • Offers printed versions of the ZTC textbooks at the bookstore for a fee.

At Concordia

Summer Field School

More than study trips, the Department of Theatre's field schools are intensive, place-based studios and carefully structured courses that take place around the globe. 

• Students can travel, learn and earn credits in another country under faculty supervision.

Kenneth Woods Portfolio Management Program

Van Berkom Investment Management Program

Sustainable Investing Practicum

John Molson School of Business students have a real-life opportunity to manage funds and answer to client committees from industry.

  • Students apply their skills and knowledge in live contexts, while enhancing their professionalism and readiness to move to the workplace.
  • Performed in groups, the community service initiative offers students an opportunity to provide consulting services to local non-profit organizations. Through service learning, they expand their sense of social responsibility while honing their business and consulting skills.

Other institutions

The University of Winchester, UK

Transforming the Experience of Students Through Assessment (TESTA)

This evidence-based process allows for reviewing and improving assessment and feedback across academic programs to enhance students’ learning experience, and it:

  • Works with instructors, students, and department administrators to gather data to improving the assessment design
  • Supports program-level assessment interventions to align with program goals and achieve better learning outcomes for students

The UK National Student Survey showed that within one year of the program launch at U Winchester, students reported significant improvements in the quality of their courses. 

University of Queensland, Australia

Learning Analytics to Improve Student Learning, Retention and Well-Being

This set of learning analytic tools “deliver[s] program and course level insights to support personalised learning, with a vision of helping teaching staff make informed decisions on teaching and learning practices,” including by: 

  • Developing an early warning system to identify students who have disengaged in their courses and provide them with support
  • Offering instructors learning analytics dashboards with real-time student data to help them better understand how students are performing in their course
  • Offering students an adaptive learning platform that recommends personalized learning activities from a pool of resources generated by educators and the students themselves

At Concordia

TEMPO

The Teaching, Making & Performing Online (TEMPO) team is made up of creative researchers and staff with a background in fine arts who offer creative pedagogical support to Concordia faculty members who are teaching online.

  • Faculty members can access an online service desk and submit specific questions about teaching, making, and performing online.
  • The resource library has examples of creative approaches to using online platforms, reimagining them as artistic mediums. The collection also includes tools, strategies, and resources for teaching, performing and making online.
  • Profs can reserve a virtual gallery space for class critiques. 
  • Meetings prior to class let profs run through any activities included in the plan for the day’s class, such as: using breakout rooms for group projects and critiques, conducting polling in Zoom, etc.
  • Drop-ins at the beginning of the semester to give a short presentation of Zoom tips for students, to make class sessions run more smoothly.

Other institutions

Monash University, Australia

eAssessment Platform

This in-house online exam platform and remote eVigilation platform allows for exams to be conducted fully online while "maintaining academic integrity at scale.”

  • Supports high-integrity exams by integrating several built-in security and authentication measures.
  • Includes a security feature to digitally tag exams to prevent them from being shared.
  • Allows students to write their exams from a designated spot on-campus using their own device or one borrowed from the university.
  • Includes multi-factor authentication, invigilation, and IT support. 
Griffith University, Australia

3D digital cadavers to supplement laboratory learning in an anatomy and physiology course

This project saw the “development and implementation of 3D digital cadavers to enhance student learning, online engagement, and success in a foundation first-year health Anatomy and Physiology course.”

  • Allows students enrolled in large class sizes and limited individual laboratory time to access online 2D and 3D cadaveric specimens, lab resources, revision tools and summative assessments to enhance their learning.
  • Improves students’ performance in laboratory exams by allowing them to review complex material and prepare for the exams anytime and anywhere. 

University of British Columbia, Canada

InSTEM: Indigenous Youth in STEM Program

This outreach program from the Faculty of Applied Science “collaborates with Indigenous communities to create and deliver high impact STEM programming.” The aim is to make STEM content accessible to all students by bringing hands-on curriculum and activities to classrooms and communities across BC.

  • Offers youth mentorship programs, “an online internship program for Indigenous students to help them develop professional skills as STEM instructors,” engineering and science workshops for grades K-12, and community summer camps.
  • Includes Land-based Programing to collaborate with communities and “Elders to incorporate traditional knowledge with STEM programming.”

Stanford University, USA

Pop-Up Courses

These rapidly developed courses to “offer students an opportunity to engage in new material, or activities not typically covered in the traditional curriculum.” They address emerging areas “in academic fields and in society that have the potential to impact the personal, educational, and professional success of students and does so from multiple disciplinary lenses.”

  • Can take a variety of formats (a set of workshops to full semester) and credits (one- to three-credit)
  • Provide faculty the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues across disciplines to design and teach a course

Frequently asked questions

The sessions take place virtually on Zoom. Facilitators will guide you and other participants through a series of questions and gather rapid feedback.

They will collect the group's input though Klaxoon, a visual collaboration tool that brings people together virtually to share ideas. You'll have the chance to upvote ideas to help prioritize feedback / insights / ideas.

If you require any accommodations, please reach out to actl@concordia.ca in advance so we can support your meaningful participation.

A desktop computer is ideal to optimize your participation in the guided conversation, but you can access Klaxoon via mobile device or tablet.

You may wish to familiarize yourself with Klaxoon before the session, but it's not required, nor will you need to create a user account. We'll show you to use Klaxoon during the guided conversation.

Facilitators of the guided conversation sessions include higher education experts from the consulting firm Deloitte, members of the university's Equity Office and Concordia professors.

Yes. You could choose to sign up more than one guided conversation if you belong to more than one group. 

Societies racialize people according to visible physical markers (such as skin tone) and assign difference and value to those categories, which in turn shapes experiences and opportunities in social, political, and economic life. People who identify as a member of a racialized community may or may not have such visible markers.

Each session should last about 90 minutes.

Expect the guided conversation session itself to last 90 minutes. If you have time to review the conversation guide beforehand, plan to set aside about 30 minutes. 

There may be 15 to 250 people per session. Zoom breakout rooms will be 15 people or fewer.

If you have time, review the conversation guide. You may wish to familiarize yourself with Klaxoon, but that's not required.

Your feedback is key to Concordia's ongoing work to determine how best to fulfill its academic and research mission, provide an enhanced student experience and deliver outstanding administrative and operational services in a post-pandemic environment.

This guided conversation series is a project of the Advisory Committee on Teaching and Learning, a working group of Future Concordia.

The Advisory Committee on Teaching and Learning would love to hear your thoughts. Send them by email to actl@concordia.ca.

© Concordia University