About

The 5^th Annual Festival of Teaching at the University of Alberta takes place March 12 – 15, 2012. Excellence in teaching deserves to be celebrated; innovation in teaching needs to be shared. Taking time to focus on what happens every day across the academy, the Festival of Teaching celebrates the excellence, enthusiasm, and engagement of our faculty, contract academic staff, and graduate student instructors in teaching.

Just as there are many different ways of teaching, there are many ways of recognizing and celebrating achievement and of sharing effective new approaches to teaching. This year’s event will take place on North Campus, Augustana Campus, and Campus St.-Jean. The Festival will include a Teaching Fair where instructors can see presentations in a variety of media on new teaching methods recently introduced or being tested on our campuses followed by FoT spots (TED-style talks) at on Monday, March 12; a keynote closing address and World Cafe on Thursday, March 15, where participants will discuss the effectiveness of different styles of teaching; throughout the week there will be Festival Classes where instructors will open their classrooms, studios, and labs for other instructors to observe their work.

Undergraduate and graduate students are involved in the organizing committee, and will be active in the Festival of Teaching. Graduate students will have the opportunity for peer review of their teaching, and the ever-popular Wandering Scholars will be in attendance at opening and closing events. Undergraduate students will have the opportunity to compete in a video contest on the topic "Who is the greatest teacher of all time?" and talk about their favourite classes in a speaker’s corner

 

Alumni, too, are part of the Festival of Teaching. Last year, they top trended on Twitter in Edmonton with their own “Festival of Tweeting” naming the great teachers they remembered at the University of Alberta. We look forward to their attendance again at the keynote, fair, and Festival Talks.