Academic Resilience Series in Teaching & Learning: Teaching Practices & Course Design

Series description:
Well before the COVID-19 pandemic, the teaching and learning environment in higher education has increasingly reflected a complex interplay of cognitive, emotional, and structural pressures. While most students arrive at U of T with strong academic skills, the university experience brings with it a variety of interconnected changes and challenges that can impact student success. This series takes a holistic look at what it means to support and build student academic resilience. Across three consecutive webinars that focus on (1) student learning, (2) course design and (3) program-level development, participants will explore how academic resilience is best understood as a process of ongoing development across a system, with reach beyond the individual. Through the voices of students, faculty and staff, participants will be exposed to the various dimensions of academic resilience that can be supported in curricular spaces. 

Through this three-part series, participants will be able to:

• Summarize research on academic resilience and its role impacting academic success
• Compare perspectives across disciplines relating to the development of resilience in academia
• Navigate resources and strategies to apply in their own teaching and learning contexts

Please join us as we work towards creating a learning culture that fosters resilience and generates feedback loops that help us all learn and evolve.

Note: This session will engage and model empathetic communication principles characterized by active listening to others’ experience and by the ability to give and receive feedback free of judgment and grounded in mutual respect.

WORKSHOP #2: Academic Resilience Series in Teaching & Learning- Teaching Practices & Course Design

Building on Session #1, we will begin in this workshop to explore how academic resilience can inform the course design process and how the three pillars of academic resilience identified in Session #1 -- metacognition, self-efficacy and resourcefulness -- translate into practice. Specifically, we will consider how these elements can be further fostered through student support strategies, in-class activities and formative assessments. Participants will have the opportunity to hear from U of T instructors who have successfully structured their courses and adapted their teaching approaches to foster academic resilience in their students. In small groups, we will discuss challenges and brainstorm ideas that will help guide the design of participants' own resilient learning environments.   

Learning Outcomes:  

• Examine how course design decisions impact the resilience and academic success of both instructors and students   
• Explore strategies to promote student reflection and resilience in a course
• Review a range of approaches (from basic to increasingly complex changes) that can be applied in any teaching and learning context    

Other sessions:
Workshop #1: Exploring Academic Resilience: Research and Student Experiences, March 30, 10am-11:30am, View Workshop Materials and Recording

Workshop #3: Building Academic Resilience Across the Curriculum, May 25, 10-11:30am, Register