Imagining the future of learning and teaching
The 2022 Learning and Teaching Conference, presented by the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, is open to all faculty, instructors, graduate students and staff.
In a time of complex global challenges, what is the role of academia? And what educational tools can help educators build collective capacity and stamina to hold space for difficult conversations about these challenges?
These questions are at the centre of the keynote address by speaker Vanessa Andreotti (external link) at the Toronto Metropolitan University’s 2022 Learning and Teaching Conference on May 19.
“We are facing the cascading effects of a global health crisis, war, rising levels of inequality, racial and colonial violence, and more,” says (external link) Andreotti, a professor in the Department of Educational Studies at University of British Columbia, and interim director of the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies.
“If we are headed towards more waves of ‘wicked’ global challenges to come, what is the role of education in preparing students to engage in sober, discerning, creative and responsible ways with possible major traumatic disruptions in their social, emotional, ecological and economic environments?” says Andreotti, who is also Canada Research Chair in Race, Inequalities and Global Change, and the David Lam Chair in Critical Multicultural Education at the UBC.
Andreotti’s talk on education in times of hyper-complexity will set the tone for the conference theme, Emerging and Imagining: Futures for Learning and Teaching, which grew out of the university community’s response to the effects of the pandemic. From a quick pivot to remote teaching and discovering new ways to evaluate student work, to integrating pedagogical strategies that confront racism and encourage allyship, the past two years have revealed unique opportunities to transform learning and teaching as we know it.
The conference will focus on four streams: transforming the student experience; focus on Indigenous pedagogies; addressing anti-Black racism in the classroom; and connecting the student experience inside and outside the classroom.
Attendees can expect insightful roundtable discussions and interactive concurrent sessions in these streams, as well as a special session on navigating paradoxes and complexities of global change with Prof. Andreotti. Poster presentations will also be featured, sharing a variety of methods and discoveries from the past year. Over 66 submissions from faculty across campus on various topics will be highlighted.
Organized by the university’s Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, the conference offers faculty, instructors, graduate students and staff the opportunity to discuss pedagogy, curriculum, and the student learning experience with their peers. It will be held both in-person and online, allowing our community to converse and connect.
This year’s conference features a keynote presentation from Prof. Vanessa Andreotti on education in times of hyper-complexity.
(google form) Registration (external link) for in-person participation ends on May 2. Those wishing to attend online have until May 17 to register.
To learn more about the annual conference, visit the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching website, or email teachingcentre@torontomu.ca.