Centre for Teaching and Learning

This online professional development workshop focuses on designing effective, engaging, and inclusive asynchronous courses that go beyond content delivery. Participants will explore evidence-informed strategies for structuring asynchronous learning experiences that promote student engagement, clarity, and success. Through hands-on activities, reflective practice, and practical examples, instructors will learn to design meaningful learning pathways, build a strong instructor presence, align learning outcomes with activities and assessments, and address common challenges such as isolation, motivation, and accessibility. The session is highly interactive and supports immediate application to participants’ own courses.

Create content in this online course like Discussions, Assignments, and Journals to assess your students’ comprehension. Learn how to create and add Rubrics to your assessments, so your students know your expectations. Finally, learn ways to make your course more engaging by using Modules instead of folders and Ultra Documents instead of uploading PDFs. This online session is intended for Instructors who have not used or are just starting to use Blackboard Ultra.

This online session will explain how to use Lockdown Browser. It will also explore automatically marked question types and ways to increase test integrity through the Test Settings. Further, you will learn to schedule individual student assessments with Exceptions. Finally, you will learn about setting up your weighted Grades using the Overall Grade.

This interactive workshop introduces practical strategies to enhance student engagement in both virtual and in-person classrooms. Participants will explore key dimensions of student engagement—behavioural, emotional, and cognitive—and examine common challenges, including low participation, low motivation, and classroom distractions. Through hands-on activities using tools like Padlet, Mentimeter, polls, breakout rooms, and whiteboards, attendees will experience active learning techniques they can immediately apply. The session also highlights student-centred teaching approaches, effective communication practices, and classroom management strategies that foster meaningful learning. Participants will leave with concrete, evidence-informed ideas to boost engagement and support student success.