Education Day 2022

By Rachel Boutet

Education Day took place in person on June 8 after a hiatus due to COVID-19 restrictions. The day demonstrates the Faculty’s commitment to education and constantly improving teaching. 

This year’s topics, that were developed based on a survey completed by faculty members, had a large emphasis on online learning.

“The pandemic forced us to shift a lot of our learning to an online format,” says vice-dean education and professor Jim Lai. “Now that we have been using online tools like Quercus for a number of years, we have observed that many faculty members excel with it and thought this would be a good opportunity to share some best practices.”

In addition to the presentation on Quercus, James Fiege, director, Information and Instructional Technology Services, presented on the “Use of Immersive Technologies in Dental Education”.

“Technology is constantly changing,” said Lai. “It’s important for us to equip our faculty members on the latest tools and expand their horizons on what they can use to enrich and deliver course material.”

Now that the first round of the Faculty’s microcredential has been completed, several faculty members gave short presentations on their key learnings. 

Lai notes that education is only one part of the entire Faculty’s development process but it’s important to be proactive in facilitating these discussions.

“One of the main goals of Education Day is to maintain conversation about education and how we can improve course delivery,” he says. “It’s also essential to create a collegial atmosphere so people continue to talk about education on a regular basis, sharing their learnings and fostering relationships with each other. If any faculty member leaves with a small nugget of information they can use to improve education for our students, I consider that a success.”
 
Photo: Education Day attendees (Jeff Comber)