SGS902: Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

Next Offering: Winter 2025 (in-person)

Thursdays, 12:30 - 3:30pm, starting January 9, 2025

Overview

This course is intended for graduate students and post-doctoral fellows across the disciplines who want to develop as skilled, thoughtful, and confident post-secondary teachers.  The goal of this course is to challenge and broaden conceptions of learning and approaches to teaching.  Sessions will be literature-informed but activity and discussion-based with an expectation of a high degree of collaboration and participation.  The course has been organized in such a way as to balance theory and practice and to support both conceptual and skill development.

As part of the development experience you will articulate a teaching philosophy statement to document your stance and aspirations for teaching.

Intended Learning Outcomes

To be successful in this course you must demonstrate a consistent ability to:

  1. Apply theoretical knowledge of teaching and learning to the post-secondary context
  2. Adopt a learning-centred approach to teaching post-secondary students from diverse backgrounds
  3. Adapt active learning techniques that focus on effective and meaningful collaboration among students
  4. Implement a variety of instructional and assessment practices aligned with student learning outcomes
  5. Identify, summarize, and adapt scholarly literature on teaching and learning related to your discipline to establish a scholarly approach to teaching

Expectations

The course holds high expectations of students' regular participation and engagement in course activities. The nature of the course relies on active and collaborative engagement as a group. Regularly assigned readings will often serve as the basis for class discussion.

Methods of Registration

Please digitally complete an Academic Change Form to add a course and email it to the Centre for Teaching and Learning (ctl@queensu.ca) for instructor approval once you have signed approval from both your supervisor and Grad Coordinator/Department Head.  This is a credit course, offered on a pass-fail basis. The course may not be used to meet program requirements unless explicitly approved by the student's department.

Post-Doctoral Fellows are welcome and encouraged in SGS902. Given the highly participatory and collaborative approach of the course, Post-Doctoral Fellows are asked to commit to a learning contract that clarifies the nature of their participation - specifically around areas of peer feedback and group work. Please send your first name, last name, department and Queen's NetID to ctl@queensu.ca for instructor approval.

Occasionally, students express a desire to audit the course. Given the highly participatory and collaborative approach of the course, auditing students are asked to commit to a learning contract that clarifies the nature of their participation - specifically around areas of peer feedback and group work. Please send your first name, last name, department and Queen's NetID to ctl@queensu.ca with an indication of your preference to audit to initiate conversation.


For more information contact:

Email: ctl@queensu.ca