Applied Competencies: A Learning Caravan

Tuesday, 23 January 2018 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Okanagan College Trades Atrium

Get your tickets on Eventbrite here ($5 in advance, $10 at the door, cash only)

Participants will be treated to light refreshments, a cash bar (one drink with entry) and a door prize!

KLO Parking Map – Lot 17 (please park in Lot #17)

KLO Campus Map Showing Trades Atrium

PDK invites Okanagan educators to a fun, interactive, and informative evening of exploring core competencies!

What is a core competency? How do we assess for it? How do we teach it? Educators at all levels strive to help learners achieve important core goals and develop the skills needed to solve problems, think creatively and critically, and grow in their personal and social development. PDK invites Okanagan educators to a fun, interactive, and informative evening of exploration! Participants will work ‘hands-on’ to experience teaching about a variety of competencies from applied design in technology, to experiential and community learning.

This event will involve a wide variety of educators from different levels (K-12, College, University) to demonstrate their methods for teaching competencies in their respective fields and levels.

Confirmed Presenters (Stay tuned for more):

Graham Johnson, Learning Technology Consultant, Central Okanagan Public Schools

NEW!  Janelle Zebedee and Tricia Penny, Health Promoting Schools
Physical and Health Education Curricular Competencies and Personal and Social Core Competencies

Morgan Martin, Okanagan College Instructor (Biology)

Vocabulary Acquisition using Moodle

Morgan’s table will showcase a set of Moodle quizzes that help students learn medical terminology.

David Williams, Okanagan College Instructor (Electronic Engineering Technology)

ROBOTS!!!! (need we say more?)

Jillian Garrett and Michael Saad, Okanagan College
Managing Culturally Diverse Classrooms: Department of Communications Innovation Fund Project

Mission: To improve the educational experience of all students—both domestic and international—in culturally diverse classrooms by offering one-to-one writing assistance for students and pedagogical support to professors.

Charlotte Jones, Okanagan College
Applied Competencies in Language Learning

Shannon Ward, Blended Learning Program, Central Programs and Services, School District 23
Blended Learning in Action

Description: Our grade 10 program is a highly interactive environment where students engage with teachers and peers on a daily basis in our online community. The core competencies are built into the curriculum and students are consistently practising and refining their skills of communication, thinking and social responsibility. The design thinking process is embedded into every lesson. Using formative feedback from teachers, peers and themselves, students refine their learning throughout the year.

Rosalind Warner, Okanagan College
Thinking Together, Testing Together: Activating Multiple Competencies Through Team-Based Learning 

Educators Living Library

This event will be held in the Okanagan College Cafeteria!  Check Kelowna campus map for Building F for details!

An event designed to create dialogue, promote sharing of ideas and encourage collaboration among educators at all levels (K-12, College & University teachers).

Contact: Rosalind Warner rowarner@okanagan.bc.ca
March 15th 2017
6-8pm
Okanagan College
KLO campus

A collection of ‘human books’ will be offered on loan to visitors (readers) for a 15-minute checkout period. See below for a book catalogue.

Join us for fun and refreshments!

Click here for poster.

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Catalogue of Books:

Title:  How to Say No.

Do you find yourself saying yes when you really want to say no? Do you feeling obligated to be “polite” or “nice” and wind up saying yes to everything you are asked to do? Do you have students who want to negotiate grades and just will not take no for an answer? Do you need to find a better work / life balance? Check me out and I’ll share with you how I learned to say no in social, family, and professional situation without creating animosity.

Author:  Michelle Nicholson, MBA, CPA, CGA

Michelle has worked at OC for 18 years in the business administration department teaching accounting and other business course. Her classes are well subscribed with 30 to 45 students on average per course plus her classes include student from a wide range of cultural diversity. During the last 18 years, Michelle has serviced on a wide range of College committees including OCFA executive, OCFA bargaining, Education Council, Board of Directors, Strategic Planning, LMS implementation, Professional Allowance and Professional Development to name a few.  Prior to joining OC Michelle worked in business and in software development for 20 years. She is proud of being an “older” woman and a grandmother. She brings her life and professional experience to this event.

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Title: The Education Game: Learning Potential in Mainstream Video Games

Mainstream video games are often viewed as mindless action, overt violence and silly fun. However, video games present an effective, unique model of learning. Through experiential, goal-oriented design, video games have developed a framework that encourages active learning through the entire period one plays a game. Such a model has shown a potential to improve cognitive development and challenges classic approaches to education in the classroom.

Author: Michael Saad

Michael is a Communications Professor with Okanagan College. His major research interests include relationship development in digital social media and theories of the technoself. Additionally, Michael has a fascination with video games. Specifically, he is interested in how video games influence the ability to facilitate creativity, develop cognitive skills and enhance learning opportunities. When he is not teaching he likes to build coffee tables, run more than he should and get disappointed by the Blue Jays.

Title: Teaching Strategies and Life Hacks for Dealing with our Confusing Post-Truth World

This interactive book begins by discussing the currently surreal era we live in, suffusing us with fake news, Orwellian “Newspeak”, “alternative facts”, and an epidemic of lies spewing from our political and corporate elites. Our “Post-Truth World” also exists alongside an alarming increase in online scams that cost Canadians over a billion dollars annually. With the context set, the book explores the impacts of this new Post-Truth World, including our diminishing cognitive functioning, increased doubt of truth/fact and our own ability to judge reality, increased bullying and bigotry in schools, and the emotional turmoil and fatigue wrought by the incessant barrage of lies, distortions, and legitimized conspiracy theories. Ending on a positive note, the book posits our current era as an opportunity enabling teachers to employ classroom strategies that engender students’ critical thinking and build information/media literacy skills. Insights are drawn from “resistance pedagogy” (e.g. bell hooks, Henry Giroux, Paulo Friere), which aims to expose oppression, biases, and logical inconsistencies. Truth and fact might yet prevail!

Author: Linda Elmose

Linda teaches Political Science at Okanagan College because she loves to learn.

Title: Building Self-Efficacy: Strategies for Success

For beginner learners of a foreign language, affective filters of anxiety and stress have a negative impact on self-efficacy and therefore on their ability to process language in an effective manner.  By developing strategies to manage their learning, and providing a supportive social environment in which to complete learning tasks, learners may become more confident and thereby increase their self-efficacy.  Gaps in our knowledge of the influence of emotional factors on the learning process and in the key role that learner beliefs and attitudes play in the effectiveness of it prompted a study on self-efficacy, metacognition and strategic learning/teaching…..and so the book begins.

Author: Charlotte Jones

Charlotte has been a language educator for over twenty years and a language learner for over forty years.  She thrives on exploring new strategies for teaching and learning with the aim of enhancing the learning experience of her students so that they may become more effective, efficient and independent learners.  Her experience as an adult learner motivates her as a teacher to find the balance between a nurturing and yet challenging environment for her students of Spanish at Okanagan College.