Orientation banner - photo of a mug that says "The Adventure Begins"

Faculty onboarding

Welcome to Teaching@Georgian Orientation!

Congratulations on becoming an educator at Georgian College and welcome to the team! We are thrilled to have you on the team and look forward to supporting you in your teaching and learning journey. The Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) is here to help you find your path into your teaching role at Georgian. We are really excited to support you!

Welcome to Georgian!

Faculty at Georgian have many amazing roles. We are course designers, researchers and collaborators. We navigate digital tools and we set up inclusive classrooms and help our students make change in their communities. We reflect on our practice and mentor others.

We want everyone who joins the Georgian team to be equipped with the tools, knowledge, and skills necessary to:

  • feel confident and comfortable in our Georgian teaching environment
  • feel welcome, heard, seen and appreciated
  • ensure the best possible learning experiences for our amazing students

We feel incredibly lucky to have new, enthusiastic and valued team members, and want to make sure that you feel supported, engaged and ready for the challenge ahead. If there’s anything that we can do to make your transition into your role at Georgian better, please let us know!

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Orientation

Exciting changes coming soon!

Kick-off session

We will set the stage for your Teaching@Georgian journey with the opportunity to connect with peers, explore some foundational concepts of postsecondary teaching, and develop confidence as a facilitator of learning as you embark on your teaching journey.

In this three-hour workshop, we’ll cover the following key journey markers:

  • how to prepare before the semester starts
  • how to design your syllabus
  • how to set up a great classroom climate (and why that matters)
  • how to plan an awesome first day of class

You’ll also be introduced to other supports to help you settle into your role as a faculty member in the Georgian community. This includes personal coaching, asynchronous resources, the new faculty community of practice that will meet monthly to discuss course design, teaching methods, assessment and semester closing.

Our goal is to ensure you flourish in your teaching profession. We can’t wait to connect to help you plan for your journey.

The kick-off session is available online only, compensated at meeting rate by your program area.

Locate your workshop and scroll over to the REGISTRATION column.

If you require any help with registering, please email CTL@georgiancollege.ca.

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In person

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Virtual

Community of practice

Over the semester, we will host four community of practice sessions to talk about different topics relevant to teaching at Georgian.

A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who share a common concern, a set of problems, or an interest in a topic and who come together to fulfil both individual and group goals. Communities of practice often focus on sharing best practices and creating new knowledge to advance a domain of professional practice. Interaction on an ongoing basis is an important part of this.

Many communities of practice rely on face-to-face meetings as well as web-based collaborative environments to communicate, connect and conduct community activities.

In this Teaching@Georgian community of practice, new teachers will have the opportunity to share best practices, experiences and ideas related to teaching and learning. You’ll also have a chance to get to know others at Georgian. You are welcome to join any and all of the sessions.

Four one-hour sessions compensated at meeting rate by your program area.

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Winter 2023 sessions

Click the title of the session you’re interested in to join via Microsoft Teams:

Setting the tone and building rapport 
Wednesday, Jan. 25 from 3 to 4 p.m.

Creating a personalized land acknowledgement
Wednesday, Feb. 8 from 10 to 11 a.m.

Incorporating effective learning strategies
Wednesday, Feb. 22 from 10 to 11 a.m.

Designing meaningful assessments
Monday, March 6 from 2 to 3 p.m.

Academic integrity
Thursday, March 30 from 3 to 4 p.m.

Semester wrap up
Monday, April 10 from 11 a.m. to noon

Coaching

The importance of coaching and mentoring has long been established as critical to the success of new teachers (Brown et.al., 2021; Maready et. at., 2021). As you embark on your new teaching journey at Georgian, we are here to support you. Our coaches are here to help navigate the teaching and learning environment at Georgian. 

Sometimes, you just need to ask where to find a resource, or who you should ask about, well, just about anything related to teaching and learning. We may not have all the answers, but we are willing to help. You can reach out to a CTL coach any time you require support. 

Our goal is to ensure you are successful and thrive in the challenging, complex and messy profession of teaching.

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Self-directed asynchronous resources

We also offer just-in-time resources to help you get started on your teaching journey. These resources at an introductory level and are available through CTL online modules (Blackboard).

The goal is to take away the guess work and try to make your transition into your role here at Georgian as seamless and enjoyable as possible. You can work your way through the material provided in each folder, or jump in when you have a question.

The folders are divided into five sections:

  1. Getting started: What to do before the start of the semester
  2. Designing your course
  3. Teaching your class
  4. Assessing and evaluating
  5. Finishing up the semester

Are you a more experienced educator, but new to teaching at Georgian? We hope to help you transition into the Georgian community with ease and are here to help you in any way that we can.

You can access the synchronous resources on Blackboard*.


*Please note, this content is specific to Georgian faculty. If you are a currently faculty member at Georgian but can’t view the content, please contact facultybbsupport@georgiancollege.ca to be granted access.

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