Teaching & Facilitation

This two-day synchronous course is intended for new and experienced facilitators who wish to take their skills to a new level. The course provides participants with a structured process and facilitation tools that can be applied to any type of session where active participation, meaningful and productive engagement is critical.

This five-week online course is a practical introduction to design of adult learning. It grounds participants in theories and tools for design of face-to-face workshops and courses. All activities will be applicable to learning in organizations and will enable participants to translate what they learn into their workplace context. Throughout the course, participants will work on designing a lesson plan/agenda for a short face-to-face course or workshop and post drafts of their plan to course colleagues and the facilitator for feedback.

This Facilitating Learning Online (FLO) MicroCourse is a short, 1-week introduction to Design with Liberating Structures. This MicroCourse will introduce you to the basics of Liberating Structures and will give you an opportunity to dip into the FLO experience and leave with something practical that can be applied wherever you facilitate: classrooms, meetings, planning sessions, team days, workshops, and presentations.

Facilitating Learning Online - Synchronous is a three-week online course that is focused on developing facilitation skills for synchronous online learning. You will learn best practice strategies to plan for, facilitate, and follow up after synchronous online (virtual) learning events. FLO Synchronous will provide you with opportunities to see and learn from examples of synchronous online facilitation and, if desired, practice synchronous online facilitation skills in a safe environment. This workshop is designed individuals who would like to increase their facilitation skills within a virtual online environment such as Zoom or Collaborate Ultra.

Successful Team Based Learning is a 4-week online course that is focused on developing skills for facilitating and supporting team based learning in a variety of learning contexts. Over the course of four weeks, you will learn about the role of team based learning in the higher-education context, with specific focus on team building skills and assessment of team process. You will explore topics related to designing and assessing effective team based learning. Learning activities include group discussions, teamwork, design activities, and more. The important thing to note is this course provides you the opportunity to take on the student perspective within a team based learning environment. You will also learn about strategies for assessing team based learning that you can apply to your real world practice.

Teaching Synchronously is a two-session online workshop that focuses on developing skills for teaching interactively online using synchronous web-conferencing platforms.

Even the best planned class or professional development activity can fall flat if the diversity of the participants has not been taken into account. ‘Fixing’ a prepared teaching activity when faced with learner diversity is time consuming and complex. Universal Design for Learning equips educators with proactive ways to design learning experiences that are accessible to all from the get go. This four-week online course offers an entry level exploration of UDL and a detailed understanding of why this model is appealing to educators as they address learner diversity, how its principles operate to support educators in the design of the learning experience, and how to plan an autonomous journey into the wealth of resources available.

Need a web presence to support your teaching at RRU? To share a research project with the world? Or just a place to house your musings about your discipline, teaching and academic life? Then a WordPress site at RRU is what you need. This two-hour on-campus session will help get you started in developing your site. This is an introductory workshop that offers hands on practice in editing content and managing media. No experience necessary.

Zoom Fundamentals is a 2hr online workshop that is focused on developing technical proficiency using Zoom, a video conferencing platform. In this workshop, you will explore various features and tools in Zoom, such as screen sharing, recording, breakout rooms, polls, and the Zoom Activity in Moodle, among others. This workshop is designed for all Zoom hosts or co-hosts.

The Pedagogical Values Series is an ongoing series of short sessions exploring the pedagogical values that form the foundation of the RRU Learning, Teaching, and Research Model (LTRM, namely: applied and authentic, caring and community-based, and transformational. Each 1-hour micro-session will feature a faculty member sharing about a pedagogical value that guides teaching practices. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions, discuss, reflect, and share back during a Q&A segment. The topic of each session is unique and sessions are designed to stand alone, so participants can choose to attend all sessions or individual sessions. These micro-sessions will be delivered on-campus with the possibility of livestreaming for off-campus participants.