Welcome Back!
The start of a new academic year arrives with a range of emotions from faculty and students–excitement, anxiety and, for some, the promise of a fresh start in a new academic year. However you may, or may not, feel about entering another school year, The Teaching Hub is here to support you in your teaching and learning practice, including Brightspace (D2L), Webex, MSTeams, Respondus, Office365, TurnItIn, Video Streaming, and WordPress.
This month’s edition of the Hub will provide general staffing and accessibility updates, direct and refresh faulty on the resources, services, and tools offered to them, and give a preview of fresh things to come in 2021 – 2022 editions of The Hub.
In this issue:
- LDST Staff and Schedule Updates
- LDST Resources and Tools at a Glance
- Tech Updates: ReadSpeaker
- What’s New with Accessible Education Services
LDST Staff and Schedule Updates
The Learning Design and Support Team has some new faces! In the Spring, the Team welcomed the addition of Charlene Kloos as a Curriculum Development Consultant, and Andrew Wells and Amanda Robinson as Teaching & Learning Specialists.
Week 1 is barreling towards us! In advance of the semester start, the LDSTeam is here to help, and wants to direct toward our expanding scheduled for August 30 – Friday September 3. You can access sessions descriptions here: LDS Schedule.
Please note that as of publishing, the Student Experience Panel link has not been set up, please check the LDS schedule above for room link closer to the session.
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Monday |
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Thursday |
Friday |
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8:00 |
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9:00 |
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10:00 |
Receiving |
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11:00 |
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12:00 |
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1:00 |
Student Experience Panel |
Supporting |
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2:00 |
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3:00 |
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4:00 |
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5:00 |
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6:00 |
*Note – at time of publishing, the Student Experience Panel has already happened. A recording is available here: Student Experience Panel Recording
LDS Resources and Tools at a Glance
- Designing for Accessibility
- Course Design & Content Development
- Learning Outcomes and Assessment
- Classroom Management and Engagement Techniques
- Teaching Practice & Professional Development
- Integrating Technology Meaningfully into your Teaching Practice
If you don’t find the support item you are looking for, you can submit an LDS Project Form: here.
New to Teaching at Fleming?
In addition to the teaching and learning resources and support outlined above, new faculty are encouraged to access and review the Contract Faculty Experience. These modules are designed to support you in your first term teaching at Fleming College. You can access the full suite of training here: New Contract Faculty Experience
Professional Development Opportunities
LDS Team was recently sent this free professional development for educators. Courses begin on August 30, 2021. Here is an excerpt from the program description:
“As part of OECM’s ongoing commitment to pursue innovative and creative solutions that foster an exceptional customer experience, we are delighted to provide Ontario’s K-12 and post-secondary educators with exclusive access to this new PL program. These interactive and diverse, application-based virtual webinars, courses and small-group collaborations are free to access and attend and are facilitated by accomplished education leaders. The sessions are organized in three pathways: Social and Emotional Learning, Equity and Inclusion, and Achieving Excellence and are designed to support Ontario’s K-12 and post-secondary educators as they reflect on and prepare to address the complex, unique challenges brought about by COVID-19.”
You can register here: OECM and Dell Technologies FREE Learning Program
Tech Updates: Readspeaker
The LDS Team is happy to announce the addition of Readspeaker to our D2L Learning Management landscape. Readspeaker is an accessibility feature in D2L that enables our learners to listen to their course content on D2L, both HTML pages and documents. This helpful technology is already available to students in Brightspace (D2L).
You can learn more about Readspeaker implementation in D2L by following this link: Readspeaker in D2L
What’s New with Accessible Education Services
The following section includes important updates from Fleming’s Accessible Education Services. Thank you to Audrey Healy for compiling this important information for The Hub.
Staffing Updates
- Accessibility Counsellors Anita Arnold has left us to work as a professor in the Social Service Worker program. We are in the process of hiring someone to replace her.
- Reta Wright, Tim Piper and Audrey Healy are meeting with all the Sutherland students with disabilities.
- Melissa McQuaid is meeting with the Frost students with disabilities.
Faculty Drop-in Sessions
Each of our accessibility counsellors have blocked time each week for faculty drop-ins. Faculty are encouraged to book drop-ins, which are designed to improve connections, support information sharing, and to address general questions. General questions can be directed to the next available drop-on time; Faculty who have questions about a specific student may choose that student’s counsellor’s drop-in times.
Each Monday, we will send an email letting faculty know the drop-in schedule for the week (like LDS does). If the drop-in times don’t work for you, you are welcome as always to email the counsellor to book a specific time. Each counsellor is aligned with one or two schools to help foster stronger connections between counsellors and faculty.
Below you will find a list of staff specific assignments for each school:
- Reta Wright – General Arts and Science Health & Wellness
- Audrey Healy – Business and Justice & Community Development
- Tim Piper – Trades & Tech
- Melissa McQuaid – Natural Resources/Frost and Haliburton School of Art &
Drop-in Schedule
Here is the schedule for this week and next:
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M – Aug. 30 |
T – Aug. 31 |
W – Sept. 1 |
Th – Sept. 2 |
F – Sept. 3 |
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Week 0 |
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Audrey – Justice & Comm Dev and Business 9:00 – 11: 00 a.m. |
Tim – Trades & Tech, 1:30 – 3:00 p.m.
Melissa – SENRS and HSAD, 1:30 – 3:00 p.m.
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Reta – GAS and H&W
1:00 – 3:00 p.m. |
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M – Sept. 6 |
T – Sept. 7 |
W – Sept. 8 |
Th – Sept. 9 |
F – Sept. 10 |
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Week 1 |
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Audrey – Justice & Comm Dev and Business 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
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Reta – GAS and H&W, 1:00 – 3:00 p.m.
Tim – Trades & Tech, 1:30 – 3:00 p.m.
Melissa – SENRS and HSAD, 1:30 – 3:00 p.m.
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Letters of Accommodation
As we approach the start of term, faculty should expect to receive emails on September 10, advising them of student accommodations. Faculty are advised that once the timetables are available to students, you can access your students’ letters, meaning that don’t have to wait for the email. Faculty can view accommodation letters for individual students on on the Accessible Education Online Services website.
In Spring 2021, AES sent a survey to faculty asking for feedback on the Letters of Accommodation process. We have spent the summer making changes to the Letters based on your feedback, and changes are forthcoming. This process is part of a larger project than we had hoped because it involves re-programming our database.
AES will continue to work on this over the fall semester with the hope of having the new and improved Letters of Accommodation available for the winter semester.
User’s Guide to Accommodations & Accessible Education Services
Many of you provided us with feedback on the Faculty Guide. We heard you. The guide has a new title: User’s Guide to Accommodations & Accessible Education Services. It’s been edited it so that it now only includes information about accommodations. It is written to be a guide for both faculty and students with disabilities. Your students’ Letters of Accommodations have links to the User’s Guide. You can view it any time you would like on the Faculty Resources page of the Accessible Education Services website.
Some of the other updates include:
- Almost every accommodation included in the User’s Guide has suggestions for Universal Design for Learning (thanks to Amanda Robinson in Learning Design & Support services for her work on this part of the Guide!).
- Faculty told us that they found the old version hard to navigate. AES has added a table of contents in the new guide. Users can scroll through the table to find the accommodation you are looking for and once you find it, just click on it. The table is hyperlinked to the corresponding page in the Guidehttps://www.readspeaker.com/learning-old/learning-management-systems/brightspace/
That’s all for now! Our next issue of The Teaching Hub in September/October will highlight:
- Universal Design for Learning
- Truth and Reconciliation
- Engagement Strategies for Online Delivery
Are you a member of the Fleming College teaching and learning community who wants to contribute to the Hub, have an event or professional opportunity to highlight? Let us know! Email your ideas, suggestions, and comments to amanda.robinson@flemingcollege.ca
