Educators at the Festival of Learning discuss issues raised at one of more than 200 sessions that took place at the four day event. (Photo courtesy of Dennis Yip, BCcampus. Creative Commons License)
September 12, 2016 - 3:00pm
Festival of Learning brings together 400 post-secondary educators in Burnaby, BC to share resources and teaching and learning best practices
A one-of-a-kind collaboration between a number of teaching and learning organizations in BC has resulted in a relationship that will support more information, technology and pedagogy sharing at the post-secondary education level. The first ever Festival of Learning was held in Burnaby, BC this past June thanks to the efforts of seven provincial teaching and learning organizations including Vancouver Island University’s (VIU) Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning (CIEL), BCcampus, and BC Teaching and Learning Council.
CIEL Director Liesel Knaack says partner organizations historically held their own conferences, so to bring them all under one roof represented something that had never been done before in the province.
“When we came together to plan the Festival of Learning we had a vision of sharing rich learning opportunities and presenting them in an impactful way,” said Knaack. “By all BC’s post-secondary institutions working together we were able to recruit over 230 presenters, speakers and session leaders who made our vision a reality. When more than 400 participants attended it was beyond anything we anticipated.”
Attendees explored sessions on scholarship and scholarly teaching, educational technologies, open education and open pedagogical approaches, along with sessions on active and engaged learning techniques. The workshops covered a wide-range of topics with titles like: A Million Eyes are Watching You: The Explosion of Video in Higher Education; Supporting Students with Disabilities in BC Post-Secondary; and Using Smart Devices as Mobile Classroom Response Systems.
VIU professor of Resource Management and Protection, Marilyn Funk, attended and presented at the Festival. She described the experience as authentic, energetic and intimate.
“As a VIU faculty member what I had to share mattered to other teaching professionals and I couldn’t help but be swept along by the collective energy of the group,” said Funk. “I left the conference sessions inspired and wanting to get started on re-writing many of my course learning outcomes. Everyone I spoke with was excited to share newly discovered knowledge and ideas and there was much anticipation from all of the educators about the upcoming semester.”
Stephanie Chu is Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Vice Provost, Teaching and Learning. She was on the team that helped organize the Festival and was an enthusiastic participant.
“I have to give huge credit to VIU’s Liesel Knaack for collaborating on this and bringing people together. She really took the idea of the Festival of Learning and ran with it,” said Chu. “When the groups began working together to figure out how to fit three separate teaching and learning events into one, the process wasn’t always easy but the organizers persevered and were rewarded for their efforts.”
Chu says once the Festival got underway representatives from virtually every post-secondary institution in BC mixed and mingled, shared knowledge and made plans to work together in the future. She says one example is how members from different colleges and universities came together to talk about how they could work collaboratively to make each institution’s digital resources more available and accessible to students.
“From those conversations we are now looking at ways to make digital resources a province-wide initiative so that student experiences don’t vary so much between institutions; that’s just one example of outcomes,” said Chu. “The Festival really provided a venue for cross pollination in that the sharing of knowledge from different areas and regions allowed people to go back to their schools and incorporate what they learned into their teaching plans.”
Dr. David Witty, VIU’s Provost and Vice-President Academic, provided support for 18 VIU faculty members to attend. He says by taking a lead role in events like this it further cements VIU’s reputation as an exceptional teaching institution that values and supports its faculty and students.
“The Festival of Learning kick-started a province-wide collaboration between teaching and learning professionals and educators at the post-secondary level and VIU had a leading role in making that happen,” said Dr. Witty. “I supported our faculty to participate because I know they will take the techniques and methods that were shared at the Festival back into their classrooms. The learning that our faculty does has a ripple effect and the people who benefit from that, ultimately, is our students.”
Other partner organizations that contributed to making the Festival of Learning such a success include Educational Technologies User Group, Open Education Group, Scholarly Teaching and Learning Group, and the BC Teaching and Learning Network.
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MEDIA CONTACT:
Dane Gibson, Communications Officer, Vancouver Island University
P: 250. 740. 6529|C: 250. 618. 7296 | E: Communications@viu.ca T: #viunews
Tags: Teaching and Learning
