Certain course features, such as engaging delivery, can benefit student learning. This essay presents one student's opinion of what made for an effective introductory psychology course. The student provides his perspective on various features of the recently completed psychology course and how those elements supported his learning. The elements he…

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) and the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) welcome the opportunity to give feedback on the renewal of Canada's International Education Strategy (IES) and offer recommendations on how it can be strengthened and improved to benefit international students as well as Canada's post-secondary…

This paper describes the benefits of student-run publications from the perspective of two undergraduate students. Based on their experiences, the commentary elaborates how reviewing for a student journal has contributed to their growth as writers and developed a sense of community.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has forced instructors and students to work together under constantly evolving circumstances. The abrupt transition to online education has contributed to making the educational experiences of instructors and students more emotionally complex and intense. Growing attention has been directed toward understanding…

Applied geography represents the dialectic relationship between theory and application (Pacione 1999, 2004). A well-informed rigorous pedagogy must represent this dialectical relationship (Pacione 1999). How then can the relationship between the theoretical and the applied be challenged within the "spaces" of the university? I provide a…

This teaching note describes the use of a pilot peer feedback assignment in an undergraduate BSW Interviewing Skills Course. Two cohorts of students over two years (n = 47) answered a brief questionnaire and/or participated in a small focus group inquiring about their experience of this assignment and its impact on their learning. Student…

This article highlights the challenges, triumphs, and setbacks experienced by a mid-sized, public institution in Eastern Canada that is now more than two years into the SEM process. It shares how a team built a sense of urgency in an institution with historically-low retention rates and developed a variety of strategies and structures to improve…

An interview with Shawn Kinley, teacher and performer of improvisational theatre, whose work has taken him to 52 countries across five continents over a 30-year career. His diverse teaching experience includes working with scientists, opera companies, the military, family therapists, and more. Shawn shares his thoughts about the need for the…

In this article, classroom researcher Harrison Campbell recounts his research into the literacy experiences of eight junior high (grades 8 and 9) students over the course of a school semester in Western Canada. Using phenomenological inquiry, Campbell invited students into a process of making meaning through experience. These experiences, brought…

Susan Jagger is an assistant professor in the School of Early Childhood Studies at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. Her research interests include: environmental education, learning gardens, community mapping, post structuralism and deconstruction, children's participation, and arts-based research approaches. In this article she describes the…

Postcards share with others the highlights of holidays, memories of places and events, and brief stories of experiences abroad. They hold the quick jottings to a friend back home, made while in a moment of rest and reflection on a train, at the beach, in a café. They are intimate artifacts, yet they are also public. Their text is available for…

The reality is that most students and teachers have multiple, complex, and even contradictory identities. This matters greatly because it's hard for young people to succeed or be well if they feel they need to hide significant parts of themselves because their identities are stigmatized for being different or stereotyped to fit into a program or a…

One Canadian school district, seeking to help ease the anxiety, stress, and depression issues their teens reported, piloted a program to include students in school climate survey data analysis. Small groups of teenagers, staff, and administrators from the district's schools meet twice a year to discuss the data and real-world solutions to bring…

Performances and artefacts of student learning provide tangible evidence of their understanding of classroom instruction. Hattie (2012, 2015) uses the term "visible learning" to focus attention on the need for teachers to gather and consider these as evidence of students' ongoing learning, linking these tightly to teachers' pedagogical…

This report offers an initial overview of the available information regarding the circumstances, nature and outcomes of the education of schoolchildren during the first wave of COVID-19 lockdowns of March-April 2020. Its purpose is primarily descriptive: it presents information from high quality quantitative studies on the experience of learning…