The classroom is a space where instructors, teaching assistants, and students together can build a learning community in which everyone can feel valued and supported. Whether it’s your first-time teaching or you’ve had experience in the classroom, this session will offer you practical skills for incorporating inclusive pedagogies into your teaching practice. Participants will be introduced to best practices in fostering accountable spaces, clarifying expectations, effective facilitation, and Universal Design for Learning.   

Sharry Aiken is a law professor and founding Academic Director of a new Graduate Diploma in Immigration and Citizenship Law. A long-time activist for human rights and social justice, she is a past president of the Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR), and the former co-chair of the Canadian Centre for International Justice. Prof. Aiken currently serves on the board of a refugee serving agency in Toronto and is co-editor of the PKI Global Justice Journal, published here at Queen's. Formative experiences, before coming to Queen's, included a few years working with Canada World Youth facilitating youth exchange programs as well as a year in Sioux Lookout developing a popular education program on legal literacy.

Moderated by: Yasmine Djerbal, Centre for Teaching and Learning
Panelists: Misty Underwood, Office of Indigenous Initiatives; and Faculty of Education | Mary Louise Adams, School of Kinesiology | and Sarah Shulist, Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures

Why do we grade? Are grades a good measure of student learning? Are there alternatives to grading? In this informal session, panelists and participants will be invited to share their experiences and experiments with “ungrading”. Professors Misty Underwood (OII, Education), Mary Louise Adams (Kinesiology), and Sarah Shulist (LLCU) will reflect on changes they have made to their assessments, as well as tensions, failures and successes with different modes of ungrading and contract grading. The discussion will then turn to audience members who will share their experiences,   
 
For information on ungrading, checkout the following resources (links are available on our website):
Ungrading: An FAQ, by Jesse Stommel
Ungrading: A radical old idea, picking up steam, by Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology, University of British Columbia
Teaching More by Grading Less (or Differently), by Schinske J, Tanner K..