STLHE 2015

Like the Canada Research Chair program that encourages specialization and mobilization through essential research initiatives nationwide, the Teaching Leadership Chair program aims to spearhead chief initiatives in teaching and learning on the local, national, and international stages. By eliciting funds from institutions and organizations, leadership chairs may be funded for a single or multiple year term whereby they outline how they will accomplish a series of goals, how they will disseminate their results to the wider community, and how they will impact the scope of teaching and learning both short and long term. The notion of teaching leadership chairs has grown now to several institutions across Canada; and these programs encourage and facilitate the improvement of teaching and learning in post-secondary education in Canada. We will outline the process and successes (and challenges) through the Teaching Leadership Program at our institution, which ushered in several leadership chairs, with topics ranging from Peer Collaboration, International Faculty Development, Flipped Classrooms, Learning Modules, and several others. We will further share the outcomes and experiences from our May 2015 symposium at a recent international conference. Our hope with this interactive presentation is to facilitate a dynamic dialogue on initiatives made at other institutions, and their relative success stores plus their challenges. Although our central theme sits squarely with Leadership in Teaching and Learning, several other themes are enveloped by this discussion, including Teaching, assessment and evaluation; Educational development; Learning environments & technology integration, etc.

Filan, G. L. (1999). The need for leadership training: The evolution of the chair academy. New Directions for Community Colleges, 105, 47-55.

Leithwood, K. A., Mascall, B., & Strauss, T. (2009). Distributed Leadership According to the Evidence (Eds.). Oxon, UK: Routledge.

Porter, G. P., & Smith, D. (2012). Exploring Inclusive Educational Practices Through Professional Inquiry (Eds.). Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishing.