College Ed Talks

Episode Description  It’s not something you would expect to see in higher education: an art cart filled with paper and markers, being rolled into a Geography, or Sociology, or Liberal Arts classroom. However, it is a sight that has become more common at Vanier College. Since fall 2024, Colleen Ayoup, a teacher in Communication, Media, and Studio Arts, has been helping faculty integrate the creativ...

Description What happens when an early adopter of ed tech steps back from its use in favour of pre-digital technologies? Erin Macleod, PhD, an English teacher at Vanier College, shares her mindful approach to tech use in the classroom. Drawing on 25 years of experience as a teacher, as well as her background in Communications, Erin describes her reasons for this shift: the distractions engendered...

Join us for the final episode of this semester in which we discover how two college teachers successfully integrated foundational theory with authentic, hands-on experience. Dayna Morrow and April Hayward share how authentic learning activities are helping them increase student engagement, understanding, empathy, and critical thinking. Driven by the need to capture student attention and prepare th...

In this episode we are joined by Marika Hadzipetros, a Humanities teacher. Marika shares about herinitial enthusiasm for teaching, how after many years she experienced burnout,and how she re-envisioned her teaching practices while on leave. She returnedto the classroom when ChatGPT had just been launched. Her new, engaging,approach to teaching and learning allowed her not only to avoid a secondbur...

In this episode, Humanities teacher Joliane Allaire explores how play can foster deeper student connection, boost engagement, and enhance learning. She shares some of the games she uses in her classes to encourage experiential learning, explains how she integrates them with course content, and offers practical advice for educators, regardless of their discipline, who may feel hesitant about bringi...

In Part 2 of our series on transversal competencies, Avery and Dayna share details about the many resources the Student Success Working Group (SSWG) has developed to support the development of transversal competencies and how Vanier teachers can access them. They offer practical ways that the resources can be used in-class, and share about a program that has implemented a transversal competency me...

In Part I of this two-part series on transversal competencies, Avery Rueb and Dayna Morrow share with us about the work the Vanier’s Student Success Working Group (SSWG) did to support the development of these durable skills. They define what transversal competencies are, and explain why it is important to help our students attain them, not just to prepare them for the job market and university, b...

Episode Description In this episode of Marianne and Max, the coordinators of the Engaged Community of Teachers (formerly Early Career Teachers), share about the community, how it got started, what support it offers teachers, and what resources it makes available. ECT is no longer merely a Vanier initiative, but as Marianne and Max explain, has grown to include teachers from John Abbott, Dawson, Ch...

Episode Description In this episode of Vanier Ed Talks, psychologist and Vanier Psychology teacher Karen White challenges the common belief that stress is always harmful. She explains that moderate stress can enhance focus and performance, especially when students understand and manage it well. Karen encourages us to reframe stress as a sign of engagement, share personal experiences to normalize i...