Festival of Learning 2018

What would it be like to teach in a yurt for a semester rather than a traditional classroom? This sharing session centers on one college’s ‘Pebble Project’, the idea that doing one thing different can have a ripple effect of change. Faculty from Coast Mountain College set out to explore ‘round’ teaching with a semester in the college’s yurt as their ‘one thing different’.

Faculty pursued scholarly inquiry in a community of practice, with 8 faculty participating together, representing biology, trades (automotive), geography, early childhood care and education, business, geoscience and English (adult basic education). These faculty all taught in the teaching lab yurt with the intention of answering the question of how space affects teaching and learning. As part of their efforts to answer this question, they documented their answers and gathered regularly to share insights with one another.

Come hear stories of how ‘built pedagogy’ contributed to teaching and learning and explore how you can play with space in your own classrooms. This session will address both process (‘round’ teaching) and meta-process (scholarly inquiry within a community of practice). Instructors and faculty developers will take away valuable learning from both and be provided with guided discussions on how this model of scholarly inquiry and professional development could be implementable in their own institutions.