UBC Biology Program Retreat was today!

Today was the 3rd annual UBC Biology Program retreat!

Thanks to all the other speakers.  Here’s a few personal hilights:

– I particularly enjoyed Shannon O’Bradovich’s talk on behalf of WAC (Writing Across the Curriculum).  I’ll definitely be looking into their resources – including some upcoming workshops on efficient grading to improve student writing.  Website is here – scwrl.ubc.ca/wac – and the videos are also great.

– Karen Smith has some really interesting data from around supporting student wellness.  This is timely, important, and fantastic.  She also has a pack of resources to share, if you’re interested in incorporating wellness pieces within your course.

– Geoff Wasteneys’ 4th year course incorporating authentic research experience is awesome, and would make a great model for all kinds of other lab courses, even outside biology.  Awesome!

– Kathy Nomme spoke about the process for TA assignments to courses – making it more efficient and information-rich for both the TAs and the instructors.  Looking forward to seeing how this progresses – thanks Kathy!

Here are the slides from my short talk on our classroom observational study: 2015 Teaching Retreat slides. We’ve collected the full dataset so far, and have started analysis.  Look at the interesting spread of teaching across our program!

Breadth of teaching in UBC biology

Much more analysis to follow – thanks for the fantastic questions and discussion.

Thanks also to Shona and Rachel for organizing today!