2016 Fall Meeting Notes

The members of COED gathered on November 11, 2016, at the Michener Institute in downtown Toronto for our annual fall meeting. Our colleagues at Michener were wonderful hosts – spoiling us with great food, guided tours and a great gathering space featuring incredible views of the city.

Forty-four colleagues from our colleges and universities gathered to reflect on the activities of the council over the past year, mark Remembrance Day together, hear updates from the Educational Developers’ Caucus, the Educational Technologies Committee, the Ontario Universities’ Council on eLearning and the Council of Ontario Universities, as well as participate in reflective conversations about some of the change forces that have been influencing our work over the last year.

In the afternoon, we focused our conversations on our key priorities for COED in the year ahead and enjoyed wonderful opportunities to share wisdom, resources and ideas related to topics of shared interest and discussed the ways in which we are responding to the growing demands being placed upon our centres and reflect upon our diverse centre activities. With gratitude for the generosity of our hosts at the Michener Institute, members of COED were also able to tour the allied health sciences simulation labs at Michener and participate in simulation workshops to learn more about how the faculty at Michener teach in their unique spaces using simulations. It is a unique educational institution in the province and it was a real treat to learn more about how teaching and learning are happening there.

The Annual Fall Meeting also marks the transition in the Executive roles of the Council of Ontario Educational Developers. Gavan Watson ended his three-year term on the Executive having made numerous contributions to our group. Natasha Hannon and Mary Wilson assumed the roles of past-Chairs for the coming year and we welcomed Beata Pawlowska as our incoming Chair. We were also happy to announce the results of the recent executive election, with Mandy Frake-Mistak & Natasha May being elected to the role of co-chairs, elect. Please do send them your congratulations if you were unable to attend this year’s annual fall meeting. We would also like to thank Joe Lipsett (OCADU) for his willingness to stand for election. Finally, thanks to the work of the COED nomination committee in organizing the election process: Samah Sabra (Carleton University), Klodiana Kolomitro (Queens University) and Gavan Watson (Western University).

Thanks to the thoughtful organization and facilitation provided by Jovan Groen from the University of Ottawa and Paola Borin from Ryerson University, on November 10, seventeen members of the Curriculum Working Group spent the day together discussing matters ranging from the state of implementation of outcomes-based curriculum, curriculum alignment, curriculum mapping and techniques for facilitating curriculum improvements through program cyclical review as well as other continuous improvement efforts underway at our institutions. We shared resources and methods that we have found to be valuable and we were able to get three projects underway that will bring benefits to all who work to support good curriculum design, development, review and renewal processes.

We look forward to seeing you at future meetings, as well as at upcoming COED lunch & learn webinars and our second annual summer COED.

Best regards,
COED Executive