SESSIONAL STAFF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT DAY
Saturday, 28 March 2015
UWA Business School Building
Programme
9.30am – 10.00am
Registration
10.00 – 10.10am
Welcome
Session 1:
Plenary
10.10 – 10.55am
Wesfarmers
Lecture
Theatre
Professor Gilly Salmon
Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education Innovation)
Plenary Address
“Pleasures, challenges and opportunities for sessional teachers at UWA”
Professor Denise Chalmers
10.55 - 11.05am
Outline of the remaining activities for the day
11.05 – 11.15am
Session 2:
Concurrent
Sessions
11.15 – 12.00
Changeover Break
Room 260
Room 261
Room 262
Faculty-based
Discussion groups
Faculty-based
Discussion groups
Faculty-based
Discussion groups
12.00 – 12.45pm
Lunch UWA Business School Courtyard
Session 3:
Concurrent Sessions
Room 261
Developing Skills
Teaching with
technology
12.45 – 1.30pm
1.35pm – 2.20pm
Room 260
New Tutors
Small group
teaching: Discussion
and student
engagement
Assessment and
Feedback: Making it
make a difference
2.20 – 2.45pm
2.45 – 3.30pm
3.30 pm
Room 262
Beyond the basics
Room 263
Faculty-based
Discussion groups
Room 263
Developing your
career
Teaching with
technology 101
Linking with services
that make your
teaching easier
With a little help from
your friends:
Collegial teaching
support
Powerpoint practice
and troublesome
knowledge
Rubrics: Your
solution to
assessment woes
So what do I do when
I’m nominated for a
teaching award…?
Afternoon break
Session 4:
Plenary
Wesfarmers
Lecture
Theatre
Active learning?
Practical engaging examples of things you can do in your classroom next week
Farewell and Prize award
Plenary Address:
Prof Denise Chalmers
Sessional teaching @ UWA: pleasures, challenges and opportunities
Being a sessional teacher can provide many pleasures - building relationships with the students, seeing them grasp new concepts
and building old learning into new learning. Your role in their learning is a critical part of their student experience. But with the
pleasures of teaching and being a member of the university faculty also brings challenges. Pay, hours, communication, access to
facilities and resources, relationships with colleagues, student issues and more can present challenges. What can you do about
these, what opportunities are there to address these and be proactive as a sessional teacher? These will be explored in the
presentation and throughout the program.
Concurrent Sessions:
Faculty Based Discussion groups
Attendees will be invited to join common faculty groups where they will have the opportunity to network with colleagues from
their own disciplines and to discuss faculty specific issues for sessional staff.
Stream 1: New Tutors
Small group teaching: Discussion and student engagement
What happens when you ask the class a question and get deadly silence as the response? How do you initiate and maintain
effective discussion amongst students in your tutorials or labs. How do you ensure that you include everyone and not just those
students who always like to speak? This session will give you some ideas.
Assessment and feedback
Sessional teachers sometimes think that, since they don’t set the formal assessment tasks their input into the process is minimal, or
at best of peripheral importance. Nothing could be further from reality! Some fundamental home truths about assessment, its
purpose, its effect on student learning and the part you play in it will be discussed in this session.
Stream 2: Developing skills teaching with technology
Teaching with Technology 101
Come and learn some tricks that you may not have been aware of that can enhance and enliven and enlighten your teaching!
Powerpoint practice and troublesome knowledge
Drawn from a Teaching with PowerPoint workshop conducted for CATL, this session will appeal to those interested in developing
engaging and effective PowerPoint presentations more likely to help students learn. See the expanded description attached to this
program.
Stream 3: Beyond the basics
Linking with services that make your teaching easier
There is a raft of services available on campus to help you with your teaching which you may not be aware of. CATL and Student
Services join forces in this session to provide information on services and programs that are guaranteed to make your teaching
easier.
Rubrics: Your solution to assessment woes
Marking taking way longer than you would like? Find it difficult to provide students with meaningful feedback? Worried about
consistency in your marking? There may be a simple answer available in rubrics. This session will outline the benefits of using
rubrics in your teaching and provide you the basics to construct your own rubric.
Stream 4: Developing your career
With a little help from your friends: Collegial teaching support
If you care about improving your teaching practice, one of the best, most effective and enjoyable ways to do so is by engaging in a
peer support program. Classroom observation carried out by a colleague can assist enormously in helping you realise real
improvement in your teaching. This session will tell you how to get started.
So what do I do when I’m nominated for a teaching award…?
Sessional teachers are often justifiably nominated for faculty teaching awards. While it is a great recognition to be nominated the process which
follows is considered daunting for some and, in some cases, enough for them to not proceed with the nomination. This session will tell you what to
do should you be nominated for an award and even give you some tips to prepare you in case it happens!
Plenary Session
Surprise!
A light hearted, hands-on way to conclude the day’s activities! Join us for this session and the opportunity to win one of several
door prizes.