Teaching Development

An opportunity to observe peers and reflect on feedback to enhance teaching practice, benefitting student learning and experiences.

Small Group Instructional Feedback sessions are designed to gather qualitative data from students about their learning experiences. 

The process is designed to create opportunities for dialogue between instructors and students. Completed before the mid-point of the term or intake, the SGIF results can be used by the instructor to impact students within the current session. Feedback gathered in this way is primarily for formative assessment purposes, providing important information for instructors to formulate a growth plan and to organize professional development activities to support that plan.

A Student Feedback Instrument (SFI) is how students provide feedback on instruction at Red Deer Polytechnic.  Your voice matters and can help enhance teaching and learning at RDP.

SFIs for credit courses will be administered after completing 75% of a course. Once available, students can access SFIs through their Red Deer Polytechnic email or Blackboard.

The Introduction to Teaching & Learning (ITL) Program introduces new faculty to teaching and learning at Red Deer Polytechnic. We provide a supportive environment for discussion, self-reflection and practice.

Introduction to Teaching and Learning Program Outcomes
Upon successful completion of ITL@RDP, new faculty will be able to:

• Integrate self-reflective practices into their teaching
• Reflect on and incorporate feedback related to teaching
• Identify key policies at RDP (or beyond, e.g. AIT) that govern teaching and learning and integrate these into their teaching and planning processes
• Employ principles of Outcomes Based Curriculum Design into course planning to ensure alignment, threading and laddering
• Evaluate a variety of lesson plans for their applicability to one’s teaching focus
• Discuss relevant evidence from the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning to create a learner-centred classroom

Additional information will be sent to participants upon registration. 

The Excellence in Teaching and Learning (ETaL) program is a Career Development Certificate credentialed through Continuing Education & Corporate Training at Red Deer Polytechnic. 

This program is currently offered internally to Red Deer Polytechnic faculty as a voluntary program. Curriculum is taught by the faculty Learning Designers in the Centre of Teaching, Learning and Scholarship. Learning Designers all have advanced degrees and extensive teaching experience at the post-secondary level.

Grounded in the foundations of learner-centred teaching, evidence-based practice and self-reflection, participants are able to incorporate and apply the work of the program to their current teaching. 

During the three years of the program (five years if taken part-time and less than three years if taken on an accelerated, or fast-track, schedule), faculty meet in interprofessional groups to explore teaching and learning in post-secondary in Canada. 

Though many faculty complete the program within the three-year time period of a full-time program, the program is not limited to a cohort model. 

Faculty on the fast-track or part-time schedules join faculty in the full-time program for modules as needed for completion.

YEAR 1

• Pre-Module: Self-Reflective Practice
• Module 1: Course Design & Course Outcomes
• Module 2: Assessment & Evaluation
• Module 3: Technology Enhanced Learning

YEAR 2

• Module 4: Indigenization of Post-Secondary in Canada
• Module 5: Learner-Centred Classroom
• Module 6: The Inclusive Classroom

YEAR 3

• Capstone Planning
• Capstone Project
• Capstone Presentation 

Module Structure and Requirements:

• Each module consists of a two-hour online seminar followed by a final two-hour wrap seminar
• Each module has a required reading/preparation element before the first online seminar; all readings are available online through the Blackboard course site
• Each online seminar involves a discussion of the core topic for the module based on the preparation
• All module assignments are completed through Blackboard; each module consists of 4 assignments in the form of journal entries, group discussions and course component (re)design assignments (e.g. course outcomes, authentic assessment, universal design)
• all requirements must be completed before the final wrap-up seminar for each module
• there is a 4-6 week interval between the initial module seminar and the module wrap-up seminar during which requirements can be completed at your own pace