Schedule

As first-year student educators, many of us have worked with students who are registered for accommodations but don’t know what those accommodations might look like in their university classes and/or students who might not realize they need accommodations and are discouraged or struggling to meet expectations. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) provides design models that will benefit as many learners as possible while specifically alleviating barriers for students with visible and invisible disabilities, culturally diverse learners, and students with different identities and from different socioeconomic backgrounds. The goal is therefore to reduce both barriers and the need for ad hoc accommodations by designing-in inclusive strategies that benefit all learners. This workshop will provide opportunities for first-year faculty collaboration in engaging the benefits of UDL across the first-year curriculum as well as built-in resource and strategy sharing. 

After providing a brief literature review of bandwidth, including undermining factors and strategies to mitigate them, we showcase an undergraduate research project that the Department of Psychology has launched to better understand and support Indigenous students in the department – in terms of experiences within the department that support/deplete bandwidth, and how the department and faculty can take responsibility of being a part of reconciliation by creating a supportive environment, instead of relying others, such as on-campus Indigenous community members and units, to do the work.

We then invite participants to discuss what they or their departments are doing (or can start doing) to address Indigenous students’ bandwidth and create supportive environment for Indigenous students.

Pedagogy that *Especially* Engages First-year English Language Learners and/or International Students

Anka Lekhi, Instructor, Department of Chemistry and Vantage College

During this roundtable, we will explore strategies that have been effective in engaging all first-year students but especially English language learners and international students. The international student population in first-year programs at UBC is increasing (Mukherjee-Reed & Szeri, 2019). While all students entering first-year can find university challenging (Parkin & Baldwin, 2009), research indicates that international students have even greater adjustment challenges, as they experience more stress and anxiety compared to domestic students (Andrade, 2006). As an instructor in Vantage College, I will share my own observations of the transition and learning experiences of international students and English language learners, as well as some of the strategies I have found helpful in engaging students in the learning process.

Discussion question(s):

• What teaching and learning strategies have you used that have worked well for English language learners and/or international student in your classroom?
• Have you tried a strategy with the intention of engaging more English language learners and/or international students in your classroom and found that it worked well for all students?

Katie Fitzpatrick, Lecturer, School of Journalism, Writing, and Media 

My roundtable will explore the theory and pedagogy of ‘growth mindset’, first developed by psychologist Carol Dweck. As Dweck explains, people with a ‘fixed’ mindset believe that their intelligence is innate and unchangeable. As students, they primarily aim to ‘prove’ their competence and avoid challenges that might expose any intellectual weaknesses (Dweck & Yaegar, 482-483). By contrast, those with a growth mindset believe that their intelligence can be developed; they seek to ‘improve’ their competencies by exerting effort and pursuing challenges (482-83). Research suggests that students who receive explicit instruction in growth mindset earn higher grades (Aronson et al., 2002; Good et al., 2003). But mindset pedagogy also seems to promote inclusion: for example, one study found that the racial achievement gap was twice as large in STEM classes where professors exhibited a fixed mindset (Canning et al., 2019). In my own teaching practice, I have found that growth mindset helps students who are struggling to feel more confident; it also encourages over-confident students to develop more constructive attitudes toward their own learning. In my roundtable presentation, I will provide background on mindset research and share some of my own strategies for teaching growth mindset: from explicit instruction, to modelling, to one-on-one feedback.

•     In what ways might your pedagogy reinforce a fixed mindset? 
•     Can you think of ways to (explicitly or implicitly) promote growth mindset in your classroom?

Creative Approaches to Communicating with and Assessing Students in Large Classes

Neil Armitage, Lecturer, Department of Sociology

Attending to student learning needs, while also managing workload in large classes can be challenging. Instructors who teach first-year classes often have large classes and those who are full-time Lecturers, Contract Instructors and Faculty members in the Educational Leadership stream often teach multiple large classes in a term. As instructors, what kinds of strategies can be employed to balance your course objectives, your students’ needs as learners and humans, and your workload as a faculty member? The University’s new learning management system allows for many creative approaches to student engagement and student assessment. For example, transitioning from midterm assessments to weekly assessments using Canvas, can allow for an ongoing feedback loop between the instructor and students. In this roundtable session, I will share some of the strategies I’ve been employing in large classes to effectively communicate with students and assess their learning; bring your strategies or struggles to share with the group.

Discussion question(s):

• How are you leveraging functionality in Canvas, or using other tools, to streamline workload in large classes?
• What kinds of assessment and communication strategies do you use when teaching large classes of first-year students?

Bernardita Germano, Sessional Lecturer, Department of Botany

A capstone project is a culminating project that has been used in different contexts to serve different purposes (e.g. promote critical thinking, innovation). Last January 2019, I introduced a repurposed capstone project in a first-year Biology course (BIOL 111, 207 students) that I taught for the first time. This capstone project is a blending of science and art where groups of students developed a communications tool (e.g. digital story, song/rap, skit, game) that aimed to (1) motivate them to integrate and apply some of the concepts learned in the course around one unifying theme of biology, and (2) raise the public’s awareness about complex biology-related topics/problems/issues. The capstone project was introduced early in the term, and lectures and clicker questions highlighted some of these unifying themes. 

Based on student feedback obtained through a final exam question, this capstone project was effective in helping them to: integrate some of the concepts learned in the course, articulate the relevance of those concepts, and better understand and remember concepts. Some students also claimed that the project challenged their creativity, was insightful and fun, and helped develop collaboration skills. Although there were a few negative feedback, one feedback summed it all up - Works of art are a great bridge between my understanding and the information we learned.

• What could be the benefits of this strategy (blending science and art in a capstone project) for first-year students in your classes? 
•  What might be the challenges in your particular context and how can these challenges be addressed? 

Mental Health Literacy as Part of the First Year Experience: A Conversation About Approaches,

Challenges, and Strategies

Levonne Abshire, Health Promotion Strategist, Health Promotion and Education

At UBC Vancouver, recent steps have been taken to address mental health literacy among the

campus population at all levels, including first year students. Mental health literacy is defined as “understanding how to obtain and maintain positive mental health; understanding mental disorders and their treatments; decreasing stigma related to mental disorders; and, enhancing help-seeking efficacy” (Kutcher, Wei, Coniglio, 2016). Additionally, it is important that mental health literacy be context specific, developmentally appropriate, and effectively integrated into organizations and social structures (Kutcher, Wei, Coniglio, 2016). For example, fostering mental health literacy on campus could involve embedding opportunities for students to learn about the stress response in course curriculum. Using this understanding of mental health literacy as a framework has been helpful in developing approaches suitable for first year students at UBC both in the classroom and beyond. This session will be an opportunity to share more about the rationale for this approach, challenges and strategies for embedding mental health literacy in the first year experience. Please come to the session with examples, ideas, and questions, as we work together to explore this topic more deeply.

Discussion questions:

• How do you see Mental Health Literacy fitting into the first year classroom experiences at UBC?
• Why is it important to bring mental health literacy into the classroom?
• What are the challenges or barriers to doing so?
• What tools would you find helpful to supporting you in embedding mental health literacy in your first year classroom(s) or programming?

Nina Hewitt, Instructor, Department of Geography 

Brian Wilson, Curriculum Manager, Vantage College, Faculty of Arts; Staff Liaison (former Lab Supervisor), UBC Emerging Media Lab 

Field trips are used across the arts, humanities and sciences to develop students’ knowledge and skills outside the classroom or laboratory. Immersive technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) can facilitate real-world learning experiences while overcoming obstacles to field trips in large first-year courses. This workshop explores these possibilities based on my experience creating AR and VR field trips in a first-year Geographical Sciences course to teach ecosystem dynamics, human impacts and climatic changes in BC temperate rainforest and alpine ecosystems. AR enhances conventional field trips by providing self-guided, mobile app-based tours containing augmented, GPS-triggered content impossible on TA-led field trips, including audio narrations, video demonstrations by the professor, historical or seasonal imagery, and pop quizzes. Students complete the trips as their schedules and weather permit and may review the AR content post-hoc to enhance comprehension, particularly for ESL students. VR enables virtual trips to sites that cannot be visited in practice, by creating interactive 3D tours with photospheres, video and embedded instructional elements for a more interactive, spatial experience than text or 2D imagery allow. The technical and resource challenges of developing AR/VR tours may be overcome by relative novices with some time and effort.

•     Can you think of topics in your first-year courses that would lend themselves to AR/VR field trips? 
•     Can you think of challenges you would face in creating such trips for your first-year courses?

AJ (Alison) Jolley, Science Teaching and Learning Fellow, Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences

Yulia Egorova, PhD Candidate, Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences

With the rise of smartphones, WiFi networks, and ever-growing social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, social media is becoming an important part of students’ lives. Educators can creatively use these platforms in their classrooms to build student motivation and strengthen engagement in the learning process. Furthermore, being aware of challenges that students face in the digital world can empower us to support them in making positive choices. However, this may be a difficult world to navigate, especially when we might not be knowledgeable about or comfortable with social media ourselves. 

In this roundtable, we offer an example of a social media assessment implemented in a first year science course on natural disasters. After evaluating authentic hazard communication examples from social media, students produced their own mock social media posts which were uploaded into Canvas discussion groups. To mimic the authentic engagement that natural hazards organizations encounter in their social media platforms, students assumed the roles of a scientifically knowledgeable student and a questioning member of the general public and commented on each other’s’ posts. Student perceptions, Interaction Analysis Model and cognition analysis results suggest that the assessment fostered the development of varied communication skills in a social media-style environment. 

• What are the benefits and challenges of integrating social media into your own classrooms and contexts? 

Laura Baumvol, Lecturer, Vantage College (Arts Studies in Research and Writing) 

Amber Shaw, Lecturer, Vantage College (Academic English Program)

The study will make a comparative analysis of first-year university writing students' engagement in multimodal (audio-visual) and written-only modes of instruction and feedback. Students from two sections of two different writing-intensive courses within the UBC Vantage One Arts Program will complete a draft and a revised version of the same written assignment. The two courses include Writing and Research in the Disciplines (WRDS) 150 and Language and Literacy Education (LLED) 200. Each of the two sections within each course will be taught by the same instructor.  One section will receive multimodal instructions and feedback comments from the instructor, while the other section will receive written-only instructions and feedback. The impact of the different modes of instructions and feedback will be analyzed through qualitative and quantitative methodologies. To further understand the students’ perceptions and attitudes towards these different modes of instruction and feedback, an anonymous online survey will also be conducted after the completion of the assignment.

• What is your experience with incorporating multi modal instructions and/or feedback, and have you noticed any differences in students' engagement in comparison to written-only instructions and feedback?

John Vigna, Instructor, Creative Writing Program 

This round table discussion will focus on the idea that low stakes writing prompts to start and end each class are an effective way to help students build confidence in their writing across all disciplines. It helps students scaffold their work incrementally towards trying new strategies, taking stylistic risks and working without the pressure or judgement that a grade often provides. It is also an effective way to build community - having a room full of students writing together is a shared experience that takes away some of the fear and isolation that they might feel in otherwise writing on their own. It often spurs a rich classroom discussion afterwards.

Some other positive attributes include:

• Prompts provide a clear break from the noise and distraction of the outside world and the focus you want to instill during class. Prompts offer a brief period quiet reflection and writing to help students better make the transition to your class.
• Prompts lay the foundation for a good discussion and a more inclusive classroom.
• Writing teaches writing. By inviting your students write about relevant topics and issues regularly, in addition to allowing them to think their way deeper into those subjects, you are helping them to become better writers. 
• How could you implement low stakes writing prompts in your course? 
• How can you create buy-in for students to complete the prompts?

Moberley Luger, Instructor, English Language & Literatures; Coordinated Arts Program

UBC’s Strategic Plan states that “[s]cholarly communication is a skill consistently ranked at the top of those required beyond the degree.” Yet, while oral skills are considered essential in both university and the workplace, research shows that students typically are anxious about, and perform poorly in, oral settings. I have recently received TLEF funding to create a website aimed at enhancing first-year students’ oral speaking skills. A digital platform featuring student speakers, the site will provide curated examples of oral academic presentations across disciplines as well as accompanying curricular resources. In this roundtable, I will introduce participants to the context and goals of my TLEF project and share some strategies and assignments I have developed for teaching oral skills. The session is an opportunity to discuss why and how we teach oral skills in our different disciplines‚ and to a diverse student body. Oral presentations have traditionally required students to have tacit abilities in spoken English and public speaking‚ though many first-year students at UBC struggle with both. What tools do we need to properly teach and fairly evaluate speaking skills in the first-year context? 

•     What do you identify as the challenges and rewards of teaching oral speaking skills in your discipline‚ and how could you and your students be better supported in the teaching and learning of these skills? 

Martha Essak, Instructor, Sauder School of Business 

Karen Smith, Lecturer, Department of Microbiology and Immunology

 The Mastermind Group was a 4-session facilitated peer-mentoring program in which nine faculty and staff members came together to discuss their challenges related to the first year experience (FYE) in fall 2019. Mastermind Groups (MMGs) are closed groups comprised of members who have a shared interest in a specific topic and who commit to supporting each other to advance their goals. In a MMG, each member receives feedback on a challenge via a ‘spotlight’.

In the spotlights, participants shared real-life challenges regarding teaching and learning in the FYE, then received and discussed feedback, advice, and resources from other group members. We will share survey results from participants regarding the program’s effectiveness.

At the institutional level, this program brings together colleagues who may not otherwise interact and provides a platform for community and professional growth. The MMG model can allow for a broad reach across campus and allows educators to address challenges in the FYE by leveraging their collective expertise and diverse perspectives.

•     What spotlight topics would you benefit from most in a MMG? 
•     Would a cross-disciplinary MMG or a MMG within your field be most beneficial to you?

Kari Marken, Educational Designer, Centre for Student Involvement and Careers

Diane Mutabaruka, First Year Experience Coordinator, Centre for Student Involvement and Careers

Elise Goodreault, Manager, Student Engagement, Centre for Student Involvement and Careers 

In this roundtable conversation, we will share our approach to staging stories and artistic performances at the Jump Start Opening Ceremony, a large-scale performance event that kicks off UBC's official multi-day first-year student orientation program.  A brief 'backstage' glimpse into the pedagogical design behind the Opening Ceremony can provide a context through which we invite educators to discuss explore how we might leverage the intentional use of stories and the arts in academic spaces, and feature the authentic voices and artistic expressions of senior students and faculty members in first-year students’ first year on campus. 

•  How could story, arts performances and an interactive theatre experiences be integrated into our first-year classrooms and educational programming? 
•  What effect do we think this would have on student community-building, accessing resources, or asking for help? 

Two Programs Enhancing the Transition to University for All First-Year Students: UBC Jump Start and UBC Collegia

Robbie Morrison, Associate Director, First Year Experience and Student Engagement, Centre for Student Involvement and Careers
Natalie Gerum, Educator, Centre for Student Involvement and Careers
Justin Lieu, Program Director, Orientations, Centre for Student Involvement and Careers
Karla Carreras, Program Manager, Collegia, Centre for Student Involvement and Careers

Over the past three years, two programs at UBC have expanded to the point where they are now open and available to all direct-entry, first-year undergraduate students: Jump Start and Collegia. These programs are stewarded by the Centre for Student Involvement & Careers in partnership and collaboration with a vast network of stakeholders (students, faculty, and staff) across campus. However, there can still be some confusion about what these programs are and how they have been designed. In this roundtable, we will present the current models of Jump Start and Collegia and share the set of design principles (principles that are rooted in inclusive practice, educational research, community development theory, and place-based pedagogy) that inform the continuing development of each program.

Discussion question(s): What do faculty members seek to know about these programs to inform their approach to planning their courses for first-year students? Why are these programs relevant for faculty and their teaching?

Alyssa Reyes, Manager, Physical Activity, UBC Recreation and UBC Wellbeing

Andrea Bundon, Assistant Professor, School of Kinesiology

With the recently launched Wellbeing Strategic Framework, UBC aims to reduce the prevalence of physical inactivity for UBC community members by 10% by 2025. Physical activity is associated with positive mental health, physical health and academic performance. As educators, we can play a pivotal role in increasing physical activity and reducing the time students spend sitting. Small changes can add up to big impacts!

Attendees can expect to explore and share how to incorporate physical activity and wellbeing in the classroom. The roundtable aims to share best practices or innovative ideas around embedding physical activity and wellbeing in the classroom. The purpose is to assist the Office of Physical Activity in pursuing new research or understanding how the Office can support other wellbeing champions in the classroom. 

• What practices have you experienced, observed or facilitated to incorporate physical activity and wellbeing in the classroom?
•  What tools or resources would assist you as an educator in facilitating physical activity in the classroom?

Sally Stewart, Associate Professor of Teaching, School of Health and Exercise Sciences, Faculty of Health and Social Development, UBC Okanagan  

The TEACHER'S Project is a pilot study underway at UBCO.  TEACHER'S is an acronym for the project focus; Training and Engaging Academics in their Classrooms to positively impact Health and Effects on Resiliency/Retention of our Students.  The goal of this project is to investigate training faculty to implement classroom wellbeing interventions, and their impact on students, particularly around resiliency, health, and wellbeing.  The UBC strategic plan highlights a focus on student wellbeing and transformative learning, both of which are addressed in this pilot. Despite some exciting activities and resources available for faculty to provide classrooms/courses conducive to student wellbeing, there is limited uptake.  Students spend the majority of their time in classes, thus the classroom environment should facilitate wellbeing. This pilot evaluates 3 classroom interventions, involving minimal faculty training, in hopes that these will become common practices without requiring more preparation or class time.  

The round table discussion will present a question after a short presentation of the project, including specific examples of interventions, and its rationale.   

•     After learning about the pilot interventions, what would you be most keen to try in your classroom and what do you see as positives and limitations for both you and the students? 

Freeman Woolnough, Counsellor in Residence, Student Housing

Building on comprehensive and insightful data from studies looking at successful transitions into college and university campuses (ex. Oliveri, Funke, Clark & Seifert, 2019), researchers have recently developed a board game, Success Prints: Crash Course, with the intent of aiding students through the transition. We are currently looking at opportunities for introducing this tool to the UBC campus. Join us as we introduce the game – by playing it! – and join the discussion about how we may be able to use this unique resource to help students entering their first year.

Join colleagues from the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology, the UBC Library, the Centre for Student Involvement & Careers, and Health Promotion & Education at this informal drop-in space. Staff will be on hand to share and discuss practices, services, and resources related to:

• Library Skills Tutorials
• Chapman Learning Commons resources
• Teaching, Learning and Technology
• Wellbeing in Learning Environments
• Jump Start
• Collegia
• Career Education
• Residence Life
• And more!

The Wellness Centre in UBC Life is a comfy and welcoming space for students – for today only, the space is reserved for faculty and staff, who are invited to stop by to connect with colleagues from the units identified above, to learn more about what is offered in this space, or to have a moment of quiet and comfort during lunch.

Alys Avalos-Rivera, Lecturer, Vantage College

Neil Leveridge, Lecturer, Vantage College

Fatimah Mahmood, Lecturer, Vantage College 

 In this round table, the presenters will outline three successful instructional strategies implemented to support the development of learner autonomy among a cohort of 60 first-year international students in science and engineering:

1. The provision of feedback that is more likely to offer suggestions and advice rather than merely pointing out deficits. This approach will, in turn, facilitate student engagement and agency by suggesting multiple, equally-valid avenues of revisions (Cunningham, 2019) through a more interpersonal medium of delivery (Leveridge & Yang, 2014).
2. The support for highly stressful tasks such as those involving peer interaction in a multilingual classroom through the use of simulations. This type of tasks foster student-centred learning in a low-stress and peer-based environment (Abelló, Avalos-Rivera, Montavas, Prodanovic, & Zappa-Hollman, 2018).
3. The empowering of students to self-evaluate class participation grade as a means to take ownership of their learning trajectory. This strategy involves carefully designed activities moving away from instructor imposed participation grade, giving students greater agency in their assessment.

The strategies to be discussed have been based in current pedagogy and tailored to respond to the specific needs of second language first-year students, who have perceived them as supportive of their learning experience.

•     How can learner autonomy be encouraged via innovative instructional practices employed in first-year international classroom settings?
•     What teaching strategies have you implemented to support first-year students’ learner autonomy? 

A Roundtable Discussion Based on the Results from A Ph.D Study: Exploring the Narratives of Three UBC Faculty Members Who Indicate a Preference for Teaching First-Year Students

Kari Marken, Educational Strategist, First Year Experience, Centre for Student Involvement and Careers

In this roundtable discussion, I will present results from an exploratory case study that delved into the experience of faculty members who indicate a preference for teaching first-year students at the University of British Columbia-Vancouver. An in-depth analysis of three faculty members’ narratives contributed to the broader case study of the phenomenon of teaching first-year students. In this session I will briefly share the three emergent themes (phrased as action statements and indicated in italics) that emerged from an analysis of the study’s data: Invite students into the scholarly community; Enter with an expectation to mutually benefit from one’s interactions with first-year student; Develop a personal approach to pedagogy.  The study attempted to present the capacities of first-year students through the eyes of teachers who believe deeply in the students’ capacity to join the scholarly community. Additionally, the study contributed to the body of research exploring faculty members’ teaching experiences in Canadian, research-intensive universities.

The questions posed during this roundtable:

• In what ways do our mindsets and stories about first-year students—before they have stepped foot on campus—impact how we welcome them to the academy?
• How might the findings of this study spark reflections on our own teaching?

Matt Coles, Science Education Specialist, Department of Mathematics and Skylight

Students’ ideas surrounding course outcomes, in particular exam outcomes, play an important part in their motivation. Especially important when considering midterms and final exams are the notions of expectancies as well as challenge/support (How Learning Works by Ambrose et al.). Students want to know what to expect, and want to feel they have agency in their decisions as they prepare for exams. 

As part of a larger First Year Exam Survey administered by the Mathematics Department, we asked first year calculus students: ‘What do you think makes a fair exam?’ and ‘How do exams impact your learning?’ Students noted that exams motivated them to study, keep up to date, and gave them a tool to measure their progress. However, students also talked about the anxiety induced by the high stakes nature of exams. Moreover, students detailed a number of expectations they had regarding exams that were not met. For example, problems should be similar to the ones seen in class and quickly solvable. Despite the fact that their grades turn out okay, students talk about the exam experience as discouraging them from enjoying mathematics. 

In this session we will share and discuss some student survey responses and connect them to our own experiences.

•     Can we build something into our courses that prepares students for the exam experience?
•     How can we change our assessment strategies to help students adjust to the new expectations?

Pamela Kalas, Senior Instructor, Department of Zoology; Department of Botany; Science One

Among the first elements of good teaching that has been hammered into my brain since I was a grad student is that learning objectives should be explicit and exam questions should specifically test (be aligned with) learning objectives. What I discovered, in great part from listening to and reading about students' experiences, is that while most well-designed examination items do test specific learning objectives, they do not *exclusively* test learning objectives. In other words, the scores associated with students' answers are the result of a combination of factors, which may vary both qualitatively and quantitatively from student to student, and which includes a number of skills that we implicitly expect our first year students to have.

Participants will analyze examination questions identifying implicit skills necessary to successfully answer them, then engage in a discussion on how/whether to make these "implicits" explicit to students. Participants are welcome to bring examination questions from their own courses.

•  Once we identify the implicit skills and knowledge necessary to answer exam questions, how can we make them explicit to students? Should we always make them explicit to students?
•  Purely from a "measurement" perspective, (how) can we separate the contribution of explicit from that of implicit skills and knowledge to exam scores? Should we try to?

Nina Hewitt, Instructor, Department of Geography 

Brian Wilson, Curriculum Manager, Vantage College, Faculty of Arts; Staff Liaison (former Lab Supervisor), UBC Emerging Media Lab 

Field trips are used across the arts, humanities and sciences to develop students’ knowledge and skills outside the classroom or laboratory. Immersive technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) can facilitate real-world learning experiences while overcoming obstacles to field trips in large first-year courses. This workshop explores these possibilities based on my experience creating AR and VR field trips in a first-year Geographical Sciences course to teach ecosystem dynamics, human impacts and climatic changes in BC temperate rainforest and alpine ecosystems. AR enhances conventional field trips by providing self-guided, mobile app-based tours containing augmented, GPS-triggered content impossible on TA-led field trips, including audio narrations, video demonstrations by the professor, historical or seasonal imagery, and pop quizzes. Students complete the trips as their schedules and weather permit and may review the AR content post-hoc to enhance comprehension, particularly for ESL students. VR enables virtual trips to sites that cannot be visited in practice, by creating interactive 3D tours with photospheres, video and embedded instructional elements for a more interactive, spatial experience than text or 2D imagery allow. The technical and resource challenges of developing AR/VR tours may be overcome by relative novices with some time and effort.

•     Can you think of topics in your first-year courses that would lend themselves to AR/VR field trips? 
•     Can you think of challenges you would face in creating such trips for your first-year courses?

Engaging Learners Through Student-Centered Interactive Instructional Videos

Riley Petillion, Graduate Student, Department of Chemistry, UBC Okanagan

This session will demonstrate the process involved in creating high quality and interactive instructional videos. A video demonstration of the interactivity of the open-source, HTML-based software (H5P) used to create the interactive components will be provided. The software will be used to create in-video questions that offer immediate feedback as well as create links to different timestamps within a video or to an external link. Attendees will learn when to use the software, how to use it, and how to get the most out of it. The media created through this software allows for the creation of extremely customizable interactive questions where students can check their understanding and receive immediate feedback throughout the video. The interactivity can be tailored to place learners at the centre of any context. Discussions will take place regarding when to use these videos, and stories of our successes and challenges with the pedagogy.

• What are the benefits of using interactive instructional videos?
• What learning environment supports this mode of learning?
• Is this learning activity useful in your classroom? Why or why not?

1. Stephen McNeil, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, UBC Okanagan  

First-year courses, particularly in STEM disciplines, often deliver a content-focused curriculum that prepares learners for later coursework in the same discipline, but most students in such courses do not pursue such study. What if we designed first-year courses for the audiences we truly have, and instead emphasized the global and societal contexts of the discipline? First-year chemistry at UBC’s Okanagan campus has been redesigned to implement the UN Sustainable Development Goals as a thematic framework. This framework was introduced to promote the achievement of clearly-articulated affective learning outcomes, including a systems-thinking approach to exploring the relevance of the first-year content and concepts to societal and global challenges. In-class group work activities ask learners to connect course concepts to the environmental and societal systems embodied by specific SDGs, and to identify ways that knowledge and application of the course information can help our society achieve the Goals. Could a similar framework be implemented in your own introductory courses? How does the practice of your discipline further the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals?

Participants in this session will be asked to discuss these questions, the first of which mimics an active-learning activity used in the first class of our first-year chemistry course:

• How might the activity of chemistry help our society achieve various UN Sustainable Development Goals?
•  How might activities associated with your own discipline help our society achieve various UN Sustainable Development Goals?

Jessica Motherwell McFarlane, Education Consultant, Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice, Justice Institute of British Columbia 

As a diversity and social justice instructor, I frequently ask students to write journal entries to reflect on difficult concepts in my course material. When I started noticing how popular expressive arts were becoming, however, I asked myself, ‘how can I introduce comics, "selfie-sketches", rap, dramatic skits, etc. into students' reflective and studying process?’ I could not have guessed where this fun and innovative question would lead me.

I began asking students to draw self-portraits of themselves ‘wrestling’ with a problem presented in class. I discovered students’ self-drawn  ‘ink on paper’ comics functioned like a ‘show-and-tell’ bridge that connected diverse groups and dramatically facilitated deep conversation. Emboldened by the success of visual arts assignments, I handed over our final lecture to learners. I chose the academic topic, they did the evidence-based teaching through a variety of expressive media.

Learners worked as a team, under deadline, with their chosen media, and performed/presented their graded lecture content in a theatre setting. They successfully demonstrated‚ and taught, their academic understanding. And I learned more about teaching, too!

•     What are ways educators can engage learning using expressive arts? 
•     How can this tool be used to teach difficult concepts? 

Mental Health Literacy as Part of the First Year Experience: A Conversation About Approaches,

Challenges, and Strategies

Levonne Abshire, Health Promotion Strategist, Health Promotion and Education

At UBC Vancouver, recent steps have been taken to address mental health literacy among the

campus population at all levels, including first year students. Mental health literacy is defined as “understanding how to obtain and maintain positive mental health; understanding mental disorders and their treatments; decreasing stigma related to mental disorders; and, enhancing help-seeking efficacy” (Kutcher, Wei, Coniglio, 2016). Additionally, it is important that mental health literacy be context specific, developmentally appropriate, and effectively integrated into organizations and social structures (Kutcher, Wei, Coniglio, 2016). For example, fostering mental health literacy on campus could involve embedding opportunities for students to learn about the stress response in course curriculum. Using this understanding of mental health literacy as a framework has been helpful in developing approaches suitable for first year students at UBC both in the classroom and beyond. This session will be an opportunity to share more about the rationale for this approach, challenges and strategies for embedding mental health literacy in the first year experience. Please come to the session with examples, ideas, and questions, as we work together to explore this topic more deeply.

Discussion questions:

• How do you see Mental Health Literacy fitting into the first year classroom experiences at UBC?
• Why is it important to bring mental health literacy into the classroom?
• What are the challenges or barriers to doing so?
• What tools would you find helpful to supporting you in embedding mental health literacy in your first year classroom(s) or programming?

Two Programs Enhancing the Transition to University for All First-Year Students: UBC Jump Start and UBC Collegia

Robbie Morrison, Associate Director, First Year Experience and Student Engagement, Centre for Student Involvement and Careers
Natalie Gerum, Educator, Centre for Student Involvement and Careers
Justin Lieu, Program Director, Orientations, Centre for Student Involvement and Careers
Karla Carreras, Program Manager, Collegia, Centre for Student Involvement and Careers

Over the past three years, two programs at UBC have expanded to the point where they are now open and available to all direct-entry, first-year undergraduate students: Jump Start and Collegia. These programs are stewarded by the Centre for Student Involvement & Careers in partnership and collaboration with a vast network of stakeholders (students, faculty, and staff) across campus. However, there can still be some confusion about what these programs are and how they have been designed. In this roundtable, we will present the current models of Jump Start and Collegia and share the set of design principles (principles that are rooted in inclusive practice, educational research, community development theory, and place-based pedagogy) that inform the continuing development of each program.

Discussion question(s): What do faculty members seek to know about these programs to inform their approach to planning their courses for first-year students? Why are these programs relevant for faculty and their teaching?

Robyn Stalkie, First Year Experience Coordinator, Centre for Student Involvement and Careers 

Maddy Schulte, First Year Experience Coordinator, Centre for Student Involvement and Careers

Improving accessibility throughout the First Year Experience and the academic transition will allow all students to better engage with the work that we do and will move UBC closer towards inclusive excellence. Using the Principles of Universal Design to guide our conversation, we will explore how we can better support folks with any variety of accessibility needs, including but not limited to: physical, mental, financial, visible, invisible, and circumstantial needs. We hope to generate ideas for concrete improvements and encourage other FYE colleagues to reflect on the implementation of accessibility considerations in their role. 

•     What innovative ideas can we use to improve UBC's accessibility in the First Year Experience?
•     What responsibilities do FYE stakeholders have in this process?

Jaclyn Dee, Science Education Specialist, Department of Zoology 

What if I told you you could authentically connect with your students, blow their minds with your favourite stories from your discipline, inspire genuine curiosity, fight anxiety, clear up misconceptions, and get in a little light exercise in just 30 minutes? At this roundtable session, participants will discuss the benefits and challenges of non-traditional office hours such as walking office hours, invitational cafe office hours, and virtual office hours. Particular attention will be paid to how we might design non-traditional office hours to attract and support the diverse members of our classroom communities who might not ordinarily drop in for a traditional office hour.

• How do you think non-traditional office hours can better serve students with diverse backgrounds, interests, and needs than traditional office hours?
• What challenges do you perceive to implementing non-traditional office hours in your classes?

Pete Ostafichuk, Chair of First Year Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science 

For some time now we have had access to data on first-year engineering student wellbeing, but it has been at the timescale of the academic term or year. This coarse resolution in time makes it difficult to identify what particular challenges students are facing at different points in the term, and which resources we should promote and when. This year, we began a project in Engineering to track wellbeing of first-year students at a weekly timescale. This was done through three initiatives: collecting weekly feedback through rotating surveys, recruiting 30 student volunteers to act as class representatives (who also reported on a weekly basis), and holding reflective focus groups at the end of Term 1. We used the short Warwick-Edinburgh mental wellbeing scale (WEMWBS) to gauge wellbeing, and we also asked students to identify and rank any stressors they felt they were experiencing at a given time.

This roundtable session will begin with a brief description of our initiative and its key findings. The discussion that follows will centre on what other initiatives there are in this area across campus, whether or not the data and trends we have found are generalizable to other first-year students, and what the implications are in terms of understanding and supporting first-year student wellbeing.

•  What initiatives are there across campus for tracking student wellbeing, and what have they revealed?
•   Is there anything we can do differently or better to support first-year student wellbeing based on this data?

Jeanette Leeuwner, Science Education Specialist, Department of Chemistry and Skylight 

A student’s first experience in a course can significantly impact their future interests in a specific field of study. CHEM 121 is a large service course that is offered to approximately 2000 students every year. As a first introduction to university level chemistry, the course can play a pivotal role in students’ interest in the field, their perception of chemistry in general, and matters such as recruitment. To better understand how CHEM 121 influences these aspects, students’ experiences in the course were investigated by tracking their interest, expectations, attitude and affective measures throughout the term. This information has provided valuable insight into factors that can be addressed to encourage a positive experience and attitude towards chemistry. 

•     What data can you collect and track to answer questions you have about your students’ experience in your course? 
•     What improvements might you be able to make with this information?