Emerging Educators Symposium
Event summary
The Emerging Educators Symposium offers a focused opportunity for early career educators to enhance their teaching practice, connect with peers, and prepare for the academic year ahead through practical, hands-on workshops.
Who should attend: Graduate students, teaching assistants, postdoctoral scholars and sessional Instructors.
Looking for more? Attend Teaching Days
From August 19-20, Teaching Days is a concentrated opportunity for new and established educators to connect, reflect and strengthen teaching and learning practices.
Event details
Date: August 18, 2026
Time: 8:30 a.m. – 2:45 p.m.
Location: This event will be held in-person at the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning.
We wish to thank the Faculty of Graduate Studies at the University of Calgary for co-sponsoring this event. Registration for the event is now closed.
Tell us about your experience
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Schedule overview
This event will take place Tuesday, August 18 at The Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning (434 Collegiate Blvd NW).
| Time | Session |
| 8:30 – 9 a.m. | Registration |
| 9 – 10:15 a.m. | Keynote Panel |
| 10: 15 – 10:30 a.m. | Break |
| 10:30 a.m. – 12 p.m. | Session A |
| 12 – 1 p.m. | Lunch provided |
| 1 – 1:45 p.m. | Session B |
| 1:45 – 2 p.m. | Break |
| 2 – 2:45 p.m. | Session C |
9 – 10: 15 a.m. | Keynote Panel
Exploring teaching related positions in higher education
Room: TI 160
Presenter Biographies
Jess Nicol, PhD
Jess Nicol (she/her) is a settler born and raised on Treaty 7 territory. She holds a PhD in English Literature with a creative writing focus from the University of Calgary. After collecting various jobs as a graduate student (including Writer-in-Residence at a junior high school and Archives Intern for the EMI Music Canada archive), Jess worked as an Educational Developer for six years—first at Lethbridge Polytechnic and then at the Southern Alberta Institute for Technology (SAIT)—leveraging her writing, teaching, and editorial background into educational development and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) practices. Recently, she has transitioned to supporting research impact and assessment and is the Research Assessment Specialist at the University of Calgary’s Research Services Office (RSO).
Tara Christie Kyle, PhD
Tara is an alumna of the University of Manitoba, where she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Zoology, and the University of Calgary, where she completed her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She is passionate about developing innovative, strategic initiatives that enhance the graduate student experience.
After spending 12 years preparing for her original “Plan A” of securing a faculty teaching position, Tara discovered that her teaching, research, and leadership experience could open doors beyond academia. A timely conversation with one of her PhD committee members helped her recognize the broader value of her skillset and ultimately led to her first administrative role, supporting graduate and summer undergraduate research programs in the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.
With nearly two decades of experience, Tara currently provides strategic and operational leadership across a broad Faculty of Graduate Studies portfolio, including orientation and onboarding, research communications, Indigenous graduate student support, entrepreneurship, experiential learning, and marketing and communications. Through partnerships across campus and with colleagues at Canadian universities she remains committed to helping graduate students navigate their journeys, build confidence, and make the most of their graduate experience.
Kayla Dias, PhD (c)
Kayla Dias is a Learning and Instructional Design Specialist in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Calgary, a role she has held since 2023 supporting instructors with blended and online course design. She is especially interested in accessibility, inclusive design, and helping instructors use technology to meet their teaching goals without losing sight of the student experience. She is also a PhD candidate in the Department of Biological Sciences, where she uses lettuce to study how plants produce natural rubber. Kayla's interest in teaching and learning goes back to 2014 when she started as a teaching assistant and later worked as a student learning technology coach and research assistant with the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Master of Science in Cell and Systems Biology from the University of Toronto.
Tyson Kendon, PhD
Tyson is the Digital Learning Platform Team Lead in the Taylor Institute. He works with the learning platforms that everyone across the University uses for their teaching and learning and has a background in computer science, particularly artificial intelligence and multi agent systems which informs his approach to person-first design. He has been involved in post-secondary education for 20 years as a grad student, instructor and learning technologist.
Working in learning technology has provided Tyson with an environment where he gets to explore the ways we learn and how we're able to build tools to support those ways of learning. He also gets to work with people from across the University of Calgary, post-secondaries across Canada and interesting people around the world.
Jess Nicol, PhD
Kayla Dias PhD (c)
Tara Christie, PhD
Tyson Kendon, PhD
10:30 a.m. – 12 p.m. | Session A
Concurrent — Choose One
Practical Strategies for Applying Research-Informed Principles for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
Facilitator: Natasha Kenny
Room: TI 118/120
This session will provide an opportunity for participants to explore 7 research-informed principles for teaching and learning in higher education. These principles have been adapted from Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education; Ramsden’s (2003) thirteen principles for effective university teaching; Weimer’s (2013) five key changes to practice for learner-centred teaching, Lizzio et al.’s (2002) conceptual model for an effective academic environment; Tigelaar et al.’s (2004) framework for teaching competencies in higher education; and, Devlin and Samarawickrema’s (2022) thoughtful commentary on teaching in a post-COVID higher education. By the end of this session, participants will be able to reflect upon and apply these principles to strengthen student learning experiences across a variety of contexts.
Session resources:
Presenting Evidence of Teaching Effectiveness & Examining Alignment Across Evidence
Facilitator: Kimberley Grant & Sreyasi Biswas
Room: TI 160
This session invites participants to critically examine the evidence they draw upon to demonstrate teaching effectiveness. Participants will work to identify sources of evidence including student feedback, peer observations, reflective statements, and developed course materials and consider how these sources can be selected and presented to support their teaching beliefs. A central focus of the session is constructive alignment where participants will get an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between different sources of evidence and their stated teaching beliefs.
Session resources:
1 – 1:45 p.m. | Session B
Concurrent — Choose One
Who gets to do science? UDL and the Science Lab
Facilitator: Lorelei Anselmo and Alex Paquette
Room: TI 118/120
Not every student experiences the lab the same way — and what happens when a procedure assumes every student can pipette, stand for two hours, or read a whiteboard from the back? You're early in your teaching journey, which means now is exactly the right time to ask these questions. In this fast-paced, Cards Against Humanity-style scenario game, emerging educators tackle real dilemmas — a student with chronic fatigue, a lab that assumes everyone sees colour, a partner activity nobody asked for. Play your cards, defend your design choices, and build habits of inclusive design before "this is just how we do it" sets in.
Session resources:
- Using the Universal Design for Learning Approach in Science Laboratories to Minimize Student Stress
- Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education
- Learning Module: Universal Design for Learning
- AccessATE – UDL Case Study: Accessible Lab Spaces and Experiences
Evidence of Scholarly Teaching and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Facilitator: J Overholser and Erika Smith
Room: TI 140/148
In this workshop, participants will consider a teaching and learning theory-practice spectrum, and discuss different ways to engage in -- and document evidence of -- good teaching, scholarly teaching, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Activities will include an exploration of the different kinds of evidence and artifacts that can represent these aspects that connect your teaching practice and scholarly work in your dossier or for potential academic job applications.
Session resources:
- SoTL vs. Scholarly Teaching
- Defining the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)
- The Relationship between Scholarly Teaching and SoTL: Models, Distinctions, and Clarifications —
Getting Started: Decolonizing Teaching and Learning
This 90-minute session will take place from 1:00 to 2:45 p.m., with a 15-minute break at 1:45 p.m.
Facilitator: Christine Martineau
Room: TI 160
- Explore what it means to decolonize teaching and learning in higher education and in alignment with ii’taa’poh’to’p.
- Engage in discussion and activities aimed at beginning or continuing the process in one or more of their courses in small groups.
- Mix of lecture, discussion, and hands-on work with participants’ own teaching and learning resources and materials.
- Topics include elements of course design, topic selection, resource evaluation, and assessment of learning.
Session resources:
2 - 2:45 p.m. | Session C
Concurrent — Choose One
GRADUp: The Resource You Didn't Know You Needed
Facilitators: Lorelei Anselmo, Felicia Glatz and Emma Wrench
Room: TI 118/120
GRADUp: The Resource You Didn't Know You Needed - Your GA appointment comes with more support than you think. In this interactive 45-minute session, we'll explore the GRADUp platform together through a hands-on team challenge — uncovering key resources across teaching, non-teaching, and research appointments before you actually need them.
Session resource:
- Session presentation
- Learning Module: Teaching Assistant Orientation
- Teaching Assistant Readiness Program
Critical Reflection for Professional Growth & Development
Facilitator: Jaclyn Carter
Room: TI 140/148
In the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, critical reflection is defined as “the sustained and intentional process of identifying and checking the accuracy and validity of our teaching assumptions” (Brookfield, 2017, p. 3). It is a simple and accessible tool for strengthening one’s approaches to teaching and learning, regardless of the depth or breadth of their expertise. It’s also an effective mechanism for communicating one’s commitment to growth in a teaching dossier. In this workshop, emerging educators will explore the scholarly and practical foundations of critical reflection, examine sample reflections as part of the teaching dossier, and engage with various reflective frameworks that they can take with them into the new academic year.
Session resources: