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Sustainability in action: Teaching health geography and learning course design

How can sustainability transform not only what we teach but also how we go about our teaching? In this episode, Prof. Mylène Riva and PhD student Laurianne Debanné share their journey—including challenges and triumphs—redesigning a Health Geography course to incorporate sustainability principles. Along the way, they learned principles of sustainable course design, the importance of transdisciplinarity, and practical strategies for engaging students in meaningful learning experiences. 
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Sustainable approaches to course design: Balancing workload and well-being

Join us for a conversation with Management Prof. Tatiana Lamoureux Gauvin as we delve into sustainable approaches to course design, focusing on social sustainability, workload management, and efficiency. Discover practical strategies for evergreening your course content, and ensuring it remains relevant and engaging for students. 
 
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Sustainability meets literature: A fresh take on Hispanic studies

How can sustainability be integrated into a Hispanic literature course to offer students a modern twist on classic texts? Prof. Cristina Carnemolla and PhD student Daniel Salas describe how they designed a course to engage students with historical texts and contemporary issues through diverse formats like recipes and conduct books, making these texts relevant to today’s students in novel ways. 
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“Concrete” ideas: Embedding sustainability in an engineering course

How can sustainability be seamlessly integrated into an engineering course? Prof. Daniele Malomo and PhD student Anna Wang discuss their redesign of a concrete structures course. They share pedagogically sound strategies for embedding sustainability into the curriculum, engaging students with real-world examples, and fostering ethical design practices. 
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Integrating sustainability across disciplines

How can we transform our world through education? To change everything, we need everyone. Prof. Blane Harvey and PhD candidate Stephanie Leite describe the critical role of a holistic approach to sustainability education. Discover insights from McGill’s Sustainability Education Fellows program and learn how innovative course design has the potential to make a lasting impact. 
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Engaged in learning? Two undergraduate students weigh in

Have students’ perceptions of engagement changed after the Covid-19 pandemic? Is it harder to focus on lectures in the “attention economy” with overwhelming amounts of information designed to engage us to click and scroll? Are students engaging with learning in ways that are more autonomous—such as watching recorded lectures? In this episode, we speak with Kai Gutteridge and Lavínia Travassos to learn about their experiences with engagement and learning on McGill’s campus today. 
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Bonus: Two-stage exams strategy exchange

Interested in learning about different ways to implement two-stage exams? In this episode, McGill instructors Lawrence Chen, Alice Cherestes, Laura Pavelka, and David Titley-Peloquin join Jasmine and Margo for an exchange about how they use two-stage exams to assess their students’ learning. Listen in to hear them compare their practices and offer recommendations for instructors who are thinking about adopting this assessment strategy. 
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Bonus: Obstacles to promoting student well-being, with Kira Smith

In our inaugural season, we spoke to members of the McGill community about how to leverage learning-focused assessment practices with the aim of improving student well-being. Among our guests was Kira Smith, who spoke to her research on post-secondary instructors’ engagement in supporting student mental health by means of their assessment strategies. In this episode, Kira returns to help Jasmine and Margo explore some of the obstacles—both personal and institutional—to building a culture of learning that fosters and supports students’ well-being.
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Explain it in three minutes: Using micro lectures to help students develop communication skills

Many undergraduate students may go on to be policy-makers. Why not have them practice the skill of translating complex concepts and issues into a “pitch” that shows students’ engagement with the course content? This idea became Dr. Tari Ajadi’s three-minute micro lecture assessment, a strategy that he first tried when asked to prepare one himself for a conference. As they engage with a format that is less familiar to them, students reflect on how to best communicate their understanding of the course’s problems in a three-minute audio or video recording. Don’t miss this episode to learn the details of how Tari communicates his expectations to his students, manages some of their anxiety when faced with a different kind of assessment task, and reflects on the difficulties of writing a good rubric.
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Using authentic assessments and flexible grading schemes in a large science course

In her introductory computer science class, Dr. Giulia Alberini asks her approximately 600 students whether they want to be “code crafters” or “problem solvers.” The first group will write two midterms and a final coding project. Instead of the final project, “problem solvers” prepare a technical interview that simulates an authentic real-world experience. This choice allows students to work to their strengths, be it programming alone or interviewing with two members of the instructional team. Listen in to hear how Giulia gives her students opportunities to practice with low-stakes exercises, manages her team, and meets her goal of keeping students engaged and motivated in a large classroom setting.
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