The ISW (Instructional Skills Workshop) provides a supportive and ‘safe’ learning environment for instructors who want to experiment with new or enhanced techniques prior to trying them out ‘live’ in a classroom.

We invite you to join us.

Over the course of three days (typically Friday, Saturday and Sunday) you will have an opportunity to experiment by delivering three 10-minute ‘mini-lessons’.

The other instructors participating in the workshop will serve as your ‘learners’. In each mini-lesson, the choice of which technique(s) to try is entirely up to you. Following each mini-lesson, your ‘learners’ provide you with feedback on the impact of the techniques you tried out.

• It is NOT the purpose of the feedback to tell you what you should have done. As an experienced and effective instructor, you decide for yourself what you ‘should’ be doing.
• Rather, the purpose of the feedback is to help you assess for yourself whether the techniques you are experimenting with are indeed having the impact on learners that you intend – and if not, how you might calibrate your delivery in ways that might help you better achieve your intended learning outcomes.

Because there is always a range of participants – with different backgrounds, styles, and teaching environments – this feedback is rich and varied.

For information about upcoming ISW sessions, please consult the Instructional Support Centre Canvas course.

The fee for participation: free for employees of Alexander College, $500 plus taxes for non-employees.

To find out more, discuss the opportunity, or to sign up, contact Ashley Petrie (a.petrie@alexandercollege.ca / +1 604-435-5815)

Instructional Skills Version 2.0 (IS v2.0)

After completing the ‘regular’ ISW workshop, many participants subsequently feel that they would like an opportunity to continue to experiment with various instructional techniques, prior to trying things out in a ‘live’ classroom.

This is a blended workshop consisting of online preparatory activities plus a 1 ½ day face to face session (typically Friday and a half-day on Saturday) in which participants push their own envelopes by delivering mini-sessions, providing feedback to each other, and engaging with new ideas in a manner similar to the regular ISW.

As in the regular ISW,  there is no single correct set of techniques to use. Nor is there a single correct way to render any particular technique. As an experienced and effective instructor, those sorts of assessments are left entirely up to you.

• The feedback you receive is devoid of comments about “What you should have done….”
• Rather, the feedback focuses on describing the impact your tactics have on the learners. This feedback helps you to decide whether or not you had the impact you intended, and whether or not you prefer to make further calibrations before trying out the technique in a ‘live’ classroom.

Difference Between the Regular ISW and the Instructional Skills Version 2.0

The key difference between the regular ISW and the Instructional Skills Version 2.0 is that the participants in the Instructional Skills Version 2.0 – having already pushed their own envelopes in the regular ISW – and are now interested in engaging in a level of experimentation that takes their teaching strategies to the next level.

The fee for participation: free for employees of Alexander College, $300 plus taxes for non-employees.

For information about upcoming ISW sessions, please consult the Instructional Support Centre Canvas course.