Call for Panelists: Pandemic Pedagogy Pop-Up
If it were safe to return to face-to-face teaching tomorrow, how would the past year inform your pedagogy? The pandemic has forced a great deal of creativity and an increased level of collaboration between colleagues, between institutions, and between faculties and their university’s centres for teaching and learning. It has given many of us a chance to try teaching approaches, such as flipped classrooms and authentic assessments, that have long been supported by the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning but that may have been seen as too radical or requiring too much re-structuring in past. As the possibility of returning to “normal” grows stronger, it is important to reflect how this experience can transform our future classrooms for the better.
This pop-up will follow the “cracker barrel” style introduced to CATR at the 2018 conference in Kingston. Selected panelists will prepare presentations of no more than 5 minutes to be presented synchronously to all attendants. Each panelist will then “chair” their own breakout room for 3 rounds of discussion with a rotating group of attendants. Our Pop-Up will conclude with time to reflect as a group on themes emerging from our smaller group discussions.
The Pandemic Pedagogy Pop-Up invites expressions of interest from anyone who (a) tried a new teaching or assessment strategy this year out of necessity and (b) plans on continuing to use that strategy regardless of whether they are teaching in-person or online. Did you come up with a creative new final assessment because online exam proctoring proved unfeasible, only to find that your new assessment pushed your students to excel? Were you inspired to integrate mindfulness or self-care practices into your classroom that you plan on carrying with you into your post-pandemic teaching? Did you get so good at recording brief lecture videos that they’ll appear on your next several syllabi? Your colleagues want to hear about it! Submit a brief (250-500 word) reflection describing your teaching strategy and why you recommend it to laikman@uwo.ca no later than midnight (EST) February 15th.
Performance Activism for a Just Transition
Selena Couture, University of Alberta, and Kim Richards, University of British Columbia/ University of Alberta
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made it clear that the next decade must see “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.” Galvanizing support for a socially just energy transition and refashioning ourselves from our existing “petrocultures” within the short timeframe required to prevent the worst-case scenarios of global warming requires cultural leadership. We start from the position that performance can help to connect the dots between economic degradations caused by decades of neoliberal ascendency and the ravaged state of natural world, inspire us to dismantle existing fossil fuel infrastructures and embark on a path towards zero emissions, all the while prioritizing the communities most oppressed and deeply impacted by changing climates. We also frame this discourse by acknowledging the Indigenous epistemologies that demonstrate non-extractive relations as deeply informed reciprocal methods may guide such transitions. Drawing on the framework for assembling “sustainable tools” advanced by Natalie Alvarez, Claudette Lauzon and Keren Zaiontz in Sustainable Tools for Precarious Times, this Zoom discussion invites participants to share and amplify “sustainable tools” and “adaptable tactics” to spur climate action, shape social imaginaries about energy, dismantle the apparatus that fuels our current “petrocultures,” and/or promote a just energy transition through performance.
We invite scholars and practitioners to create a five- to ten-minute pre-recorded video introduction to a “sustainable tool” for performance-activism engaged with climate, justice, and transition, or a short (1500 word) discussion paper. We will then co-convene for a one-time synchronous discussion during the conference during which time we may expand our discussion of “sustainable tools” to discuss next steps in working towards sustainability within our organization, our discipline(s), and our respective universities and/or performance companies. Please email Kimberly Richards (kimberly.richards@ubc.ca) by February 15th, 2021 for questions and expressions of interest.