Teaching and learning at universities has moved beyond traditional transfer of knowledge from the learned to the learning. In today’s rapidly evolving world, educators at higher education institutions are challenged with preparing students to succeed in jobs that don’t even exist today, in a world in which creativity and innovation are valued as much as knowledge. What does it take to do this? What are the latest trends in teaching and learning at higher education institutions? Are they keeping up with the transformations taking place beyond campus boundaries? What are the strategies for broader adoption of effective teaching and learning practices across campus? UCalgary's Vice-Provost of Teaching and Learning (Interim) Leslie Reid and Jay Cross, Director of the new College of Discovery, Creativity and Innovation in UCalgary's Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, provide their expert knowledge on these and other related questions. Watch the webinar recording: http://explore.ucalgary.ca/preparing-students-unknown

1. Preparing students for the unknown
Leslie Reid
Vice-Provost Teaching & Learning
Jay Cross
Professor and Director
College of Discovery, Creativity and Innovation
Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning

2. Welcome
 Webinar series by University of Calgary scholars
 Information presented is a summary of the
scholars’ research

3. Jay Cross
 Director of the College of Discovery,
Creativity and Innovation in the
Taylor Institute of Teaching and
Learning, UCalgary
 Professor, Faculty of Veterinary
Medicine and Cumming School of
Medicine
 Innovator in human and animal
health through research and
educational program development,
governance, and leadership
development

4. Leslie Reid
 Vice-Provost Teaching and
Learning
 Teaching Professor, Faculty of
Science
 3M National Teaching Fellow

5. 21st century landscape

6. What’s changing?
Student needs and demographics

7. What’s changing?
The Growing Importance of Social
Skills in the Labor Market
Deming (2017), The Quarterly
Journal of Economics

8. What’s changing?
Will Robots Take
our Children’s Jobs?
Alex Williams
New York Times
Dec. 11, 2017

9. What’s changing? Higher Ed
partnerships
Mission U

10. UCalgary Eyes High strategy

11. What’s needed?
Old smart: knowing the
most, making the fewest
mistakes.
New smart: how you think,
how you relate to others

12. New smart behaviors
New smart behaviors:
• Quieting ego
• Managing thinking and
emotions
• Reflective listening
• Relating to others

13. Growth mindset beliefs
• Intelligence and talents can
be developed
• Effort is the path to mastery
• Mistakes are essential to
learning
• Failure is an opportunity to
learn
• Feedback is essential to
learning

14. Expert learners

15. Transition in focus of education
The Three Rs of the
20th Century
Writing
Reading
Reading
Arithmetic

16. Skills for the future:
World Economic Forum
10 Mar 2016
Jenny Soffel
Website Editor, World Economic Forum

17. Modes of learning
Experiential learning
= learning by doing + reflection
“Lectures are a way of transferring the instructor’s
lecture notes to students’ notebooks without
passing through the brains of either.”
– Eric Mazur

18. Experiential learning shifts
the role of the instructor

19. Experiential learning comes in
many different forms

20. Modes of learning
Experiential learning
= learning by doing + reflection
“Lectures are a way of transferring the instructor’s
lecture notes to students’ notebooks without
passing through the brains of either.”
– Eric Mazur
Authentic learning
a type of experiential learning that involves students
exploring, discussing, and constructing concepts and
relationships in real-world contexts through projects with
audiences and communications appropriate to them

21. Definition: Authentic learning
Four themes supporting authentic learning are:
1. An activity that involves real-world problems and that
mimics the work of professionals; the activity involves
presentation of findings to audiences beyond classroom.
2. Use of open-ended inquiry, thinking skills and
metacognition.
3. Students engage in discourse and social learning in a
community of learners.
4. Students direct their own learning in project work.
Audrey Rule, State University of New York (SUNY)
at Oswego, Journal of Authentic Learning

22. Purpose
1) Learning through authentic
experiences that enable
inter-disciplinary, critical and
creative thinking, team-work
and innovation
2) Development unit for signature
pedogogies and program design
Background
College of Discovery, Creativity and Innovation included in 2012 Academic Plan
Launched in 2016 with approval of first courses and recruitment of Director
College of Discovery, Creativity and Innovation
Taylor Institute of Teaching and Learning

23. College of Discovery, Creativity
and Innovation authentic learning
UNIV 201/203 Global Challenges courses
Theme: feeding 9 billion people
Student-initiated innovation projects
(winter 2017)
• “Up There” vertical farms for northern
communities
• Insects as alternative protein
• Ugly Food smoothies (food waste
awareness)
• Distributed Calgary Food Bank through
Calgary Co-op stores
• Student Union Foodbank

24. The modern university has become
a confederation of specialties…
fine art
theatre
economics
history
philosophy
psychology
anthropology
engineeringchemical
electrical
mechanical
biomedical
math
biology
molecular
cellular
computer
science
physics
medicine
english
communication
commerce
neuroscience
biochemistry
law
ecology
veterinary medicine
agriculture
sociology

25. …with barriers between
disciplines
fine art
theatre
economics
history
philosophy
psychology
anthropology
engineeringchemical
electrical
mechanical
biomedical
math
biology
molecular
cellular
computer
science
physics
medicine
english
communication
commerce
neuroscience
biochemistry
law
ecology
veterinary medicine
agriculture
sociology

26. UNIV 201 Global Challenges
students go public
Feeding 9 billion people dinner
March 14, 2017
“Failing Successfully” panel
November 9, 2017

27. Authentic learning through
partnership with high schools
High school students focus on the year 2050 and
develop innovation projects, workshop with mentors
at Banff Centre
• Pilot: Strathcona-Tweedsmuir
School (AB), Appleby College
(ON), Lower Canada College
(QC), Rothesay Netherwood (NB)
• October 2016 launch and
summit April 9 to 14, 2017

28. The innovation itself is not the goal,
it is the motivation for learning…
The innovation ’pitch’ is not the end but
rather an inflection point for learning
Learning
Time
Reflection
Refinement
X
‘the pitch’

29. • Reasoning
• Connectivity of issues
• Real-world inquiry
• Source validation
• Critical reflections
• Perspectives shaped
by disciplines and
culture
Discover Create Innovate
• Connection with
community
Communication
• Validation
• Refinement
• Ideation
• Refinement
• Collaboration
Authentic experience, not content, as
the driver of learning
This practice is
similar in the arts,
science, business…

30. critical
design
collaborativenumerical
systems
growth mindset
world views
thinking

31. thinking
entrepreneurial

32. U Calgary Eyes High strategy:
Foundational commitments

33. Innovation feels risky but the
rewards are great
1. Student engagement
2. Re-invigoration of instructors

34. Thank you
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35. Other webinar topics
For ideas on other UCalgary webinar topics,
please email us at
exploreucalgary@ucalgary.ca