2017 Intersections: Where Instructional Design Meets Learning Science
The 11th annual Symposium explored ideas, issues and possibilities relating to course and curriculum design/reform, and learning science – and where these intersect. How can individuals, divisions and institutions look at their instruction, courses, program and curricula with an eye towards renewal and change? In what ways can we use advances in learning science to guide this renewal? What knowledge, skills and competencies are worth developing and transferring as we consider curricula and course development, and how do we integrate these? How can specific advances in pedagogical practices revitalize traditional modes of teaching and learning throughout myriad disciplines in order for curriculum changes to have the widest impact on student learning? What innovations are arising within specific disciplines to challenge, provoke and rejuvenate teaching practices?
or individual talks:
Keynote Address: Translating Learning Science into Thinking Practice (link to video)
Prof. Sanjay Sarma, VP for Open Learning, MIT (presentation PDF)
Sanjay Sarma
Feedback: The Broken Link in Higher Education – and How to Fix It! (link to video)
Mihnea Moldoveanu, Vice Dean of Learning and Innovation, Director of Desautels Centre for Integrative thinking and Marcel Desautels Professor of Integrative Thinking
We spent the morning of the Symposium addressing the main theme through a facilitated design process focused on curriculum, program and course development, renewal and design. Participants examined and proposed strategies and approaches to meeting these challenges in their own departments and disciplines.
Sketchbooks by Think Link Graphics
Participants actively engaged with questions affecting their own teaching practice, their division and their discipline, around undergraduate, graduate and professional education at the University of Toronto. As well, participants generated ideas and recommendations for shaping the future of higher education at the University of Toronto.
The afternoon was dedicated to concurrent sessions exploring the following intersections:
1. Learning Science + Pedagogy: Advances in the Disciplines
2. Curriculum + Change: Renewal and Revision
3. The World + the Lab + the Classroom: Experiential and Work-Integrated Learning
All photos by Wes Adams/CTSI
