First Day of Class

First Day of Class
"The first day of class sets the tone for the rest of the term..."
link to website

Teaching Methods

Philosophy of Teaching and Education

Classic Texts and Manuscripts in Education
Access to electronic versions of books by Dewey, Kant, Montessori, Piaget, etc.
link to website

John Dewey and Pablo Friere
"Compares Brazilian philosopher of education, Paulo Freire's 'Pedagogy of the Oppressed' with philosopher John Dewey's 'Democracy and Education.'"
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Philosophical Foundation of the Lecture-versus-Case Controversy
"This paper sees how educational philosophies that underlie lecture and case methods of teaching are related to how faculty perform their teaching, research, and service."
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Principles of Teaching and Learning

Principles of Learner-centered Curriculum
"An updated structure for curriculum in higher education will provide greater opportunity for students to manage their own learning..."
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Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education
"Apathetic students, illiterate graduates, incompetent teaching, impersonal campuses -- so rolls the drumfire of criticism of higher education..."
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Theory and Research-based Principles of Learning
"The following list presents the basic principles that underlie effective learning..."
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Principles of Teaching
"The following small but powerful set of principles can make teaching both more effective and more efficient..."
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Experiential Learning

Affordances of Mobile Technologies for Experiential Learning
"This paper investigates the possibility of technological support for experiential learning."
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Conversation as Experiential Learning
"Drawing from the theory of experiential learning, the article proposes conversational learning as the experiential learning process occurring in conversation as learners construct meaning from their experiences."
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Experiential Learning Theory: Previous Research and New Directions
"Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) provides a holistic model of the
learning process and a multilinear model of adult development, both of which are consistent with what we know about how people learn, grow, and develop."
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Didactic Learning

Developing a Didactic Method that Emphasizes Lifeworld as a Basis for Learning
"The learning process for nursing students is characterised by the encounter between the student’s own lifeworld and scientific knowledge in theory and in practice."
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Mentoring in the Classroom

Does Mentoring Really Work for College Students?
"There is a lack of research on whether mentoring will help undergraduate college students prepare for the professional world."
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E-mentoring in Public Health Nursing Practice
"Attrition in the public health nursing work force combined with a lack of faculty to teach public health prompted development of a "long-distance" learning project."
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Technical Communication Teachers as Mentors in the Classroom
"In this article, we argue that mentoring of technical communication students must occur within the classroom."
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Problem-based Learning

Impact of Problem-based Learning in an Interdisciplinary First-year Program on Student Learning Behaviour
"Canadian universities are struggling to address seemingly contradictory challenges pertaining to undergraduate education: high demand and under-funding."
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Learning by Viewing Versus Learning by Doing
"We offer evidence in this article that some types of behavioral activity can interfere with cognitive learning processes."
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Today's Challenges, Tomorrow's Excellence: The Practice of Evidence-based Education
"Nurse educators are being challenged to maintain quality in light of increasing numbers of students, declining numbers of experienced faculty, societal mandates, and rapid changes in health care."
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Distance Education

Journey to Legitimacy: The Historical Development of Distance Education Through Technology
"Distance education holds greater promise and is subject to more suspicion than any other instructional mode in the 21st century."
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"Distance Education" and "E-learning": Not the Same Thing
"This article examines the distinct differences between 'distance education' and 'e-learning' in higher education settings."
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Has E-learning Delivered on its Promises?
"The purpose of this study was to determine the extent of agreement among experts on the impact of e-learning technology in Canadian higher education learning experiences."
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Hybrid or Blended Learning

Blended Learning, Classroom and E-learning
"...an introduction to our research which is investigating blended learning within an industrial automation training environment."
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Criteria for Successful Blended Learning
"The purpose of this article is to highlight the factors that need to be considered when implementing a blended learning solution in a group environment"
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Enhancing Management Education Using Hybrid Learning Nets
"The purpose of this paper is twofold: 1) to highlight the design of a hybrid learning net (HLN) and 2) to present the results of a survey of working adults that utilized a HLN in a graduate level management course."
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Adult Learning/Andragogy

Andragogy and Self-directed Learning: Pillars of Adult Learning Theory
"Focuses on the significance of andragogy and self-directed learning (SDL) to adult learning theory."
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It's Called Andragogy
"Despite radical changes in teaching assumptions, management educators have continued to use the archaic term pedagogy to describe their work."
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Andragogy for Adult Learners in Higher Education
"This paper will review and summarize the literature that suggests a significant theoretical difference between andragogy and pedagogy."
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Principles of Adult Education

Barriers to Participation in Adult Education
"For most adults, participation in learning activities is a matter of choice that must be fitted into work, family and community responsibilities, and other interests and obligations."
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Cooperative Education/Apprenticeships

Accessing Professional Artistry: The Importance of Cooperative Education and the Limitations of Classical Research
"...cooperative education, in the form or practicums, form an essential part of teacher training and is the means by which academic content or professional knowledge gains real value."
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Connected Learning in Co-operative Education
"This qualitative research study explored the experiences of students who had attended a co-operative (co-op) education program, with a focus on what makes the experience meaningful to them."
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Collaborative Learning

see Types of Learning - Collaborative Learning

Feminist Pedagogy

Effectiveness of Feminist Pedagogy in Empowering a Community of Learners
"...determine whether a pedagogy grounded in feminist ideals has the potential to empower students to make changes consistent with those ideals in their personal and professional lives."
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Inclusive Education

Appreciating Multiculturalism: Exercises for Teaching Diversity
"In this article the authors do the following: (1) define multicultural education within the United States; (2) discuss learning exercises that students can use to increase their awareness of and sensitivity to diverse populations; and (3) discuss practice implications for human service intervention with diverse populations."
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Reflections on Exhibiting Multicultural Fluency in the Modern Classroom
"This paper describes the benefits of business teachers interacting with their liberal arts colleagues to gain a better understanding of how to incorporate recent advances in multicultural learning into their pedagogy."
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The Promise of Liberal Learning: Creating a Challenging Postsecondary Curriculum for Youth with Intellectual Disabilities
"The article focuses on the postsecondary curriculum created by The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) to young people with intellectual disabilities in Trenton, New Jersey.
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Reading Miscues of College Students With or Without Learning Disabilities
"Using authentic materials, this study compared the oral reading miscues of 20 university students with reading related learning disabilities to 20 controls matched for age, gender, ethnicity, college GPA, reading achievement score, and college of major.
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Ontario Equity and Inclusive Education Strategy
Outlining the government's plan for action up to 2012.
link to document

Ontario's Equity and Inclusive Education Strategy - Quick Facts
A summary of the original document.
link to document

Non-Classroom Teaching/Field Placement/Practicuum

Service Learning: Bringing Real-World Education into the B-School Classroom
"...the authors argue for service learning as means of integrating real-world learning into curricula..."
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Development of a Teaching Strategy for Implementing a Real-World Business Project into Database Courses
"Collaborations between business and academia provide valuable opportunities for students to connect classroom learning with practical work experience."
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Practice-Based Learning in Information Systems: The Advantages for Students
"An evaluation is made of the impact of work-based experience during a placement year on the academic achievement of Information Systems students."
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College Makes New Connections with Service-Learning Program
"The goal of such projects is to increase voluntarism among college students but to also make the programs meaningful academically."
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Service Learning in Gerontology: An Out-of-Classroom Experience
"Students provide meaningful service to the community, by engaging in direct contact with members of the populations they are studying while integrating course content with real-world experience."
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PLAR - Prior Learning Assessment Review

Prior Learning Assessment & Recognition in Canadian Universities
"Prior Learning Assessment & Recognition (PLAR), the practice of formally assigning credit for learning gained outside the formal education system (Thomas, 2000), offers significant benefits to adult students."
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Teaching Strategies

OnCourse Newsletter
"Join more than 37,000 subscribers worldwide and receive our bi-weekly e-mail newsletter containing learner-centered strategies for empowering your students to achieve greater academic success."
link to website

The Toolbox
"The Toolbox is an online professional development newsletter offering innovative learner-centered strategies for empowering college students to achieve greater success. The newsletter is published six times a year, and the online subscription is free."
link to website

Teaching A La Carte
"Although we know that each of our students learn differently and bring varied levels of competence and skill to the classroom, everyone is required to do identical assignments and tasks over the course of a semester. There is an alternative—teaching a la carte!"
link to document

Video Primers in an Online Repository for e-Teaching & Learning
"...Dr. Curt Bonk, Professor in Instructional Systems Technology, Indiana University, in a video series addressing the design and best practices of Distance Education courses. The videos are about 10 minutes long and each topic is accompanied by a list of useful resources. "
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Warm-ups

Warm-ups and Ice-Breakers for ESL
"Warm-ups help your learners put aside their daily distractions and focus on English."
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Icebreakers, Warmups, Energizers, & Deinhibitizers
"Why use icebreakers? Create a positive group atmosphere, help people to relax, break down social barriers..."
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Lectures

Perk Up Lectures and Involve Students
"Features teaching strategies to solicit student participation. Use of lecture format; Importance of learning students' names; How the instructor can periodically ask students questions."
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Don't Dump the Didactic Lecture: Fix It
"...a well organized lecture remains one of the most effective ways to integrate and present information from multiple sources on complex topics..."
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Delivering a Lecture
"Lecturing is not simply a matter of standing in front of a class and reciting what you know."
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Group Work

Individual and Group Work: Perceptions and Experiences
"...an undergraduate geography class compared student perceptions of work they complete individually and in groups with their actual performance on completed individual and group work."
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Improving Group Work: Voices of Students
"a number of problems potentially limit the use of group projects. In this study, we report on research in which we examined how students recommended changing group projects"
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Collaborative Learning: Group Work and Study Teams
"Students learn best when they are actively involved in the process..."
link to book chapter

Classroom Management

Difficult Behaviors in the Classroom
Identifies nine common difficult behaviors and recommends possible responses.
link to website

GRR to Conquer Classroom Management
"This article explores the application of the Gradual Release of Responsibility model developed by P. D. Pearson and M. C. Gallagher"
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Classroom Management - Baruch College
Nine recommendations from the Baruch College Faculty Handbook.
link to website

Teaching Large Classes

Teaching Large Classes Website - University of Western Ontario
"In the face of growing programs and shrinking funds, more of us are having to teach large classes..."
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Large Classes: A Teaching Guide
"What counts is not the size of the class, but the quality of the teaching..."
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Large Lecture Format: Lessons Learned
"intimacy and relatively casual atmosphere of the small classroom is lost in larger settings, whose use of spotlights and a stage add to the perceived distance between teachers and students"
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Preparing to Teach the Large Lecture Course
"A sizable portion of the work involved in teaching a large lecture course takes place well before the first day of classes."
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Using Technology in Your Teaching

Principles of Teaching with Technology

Seven Principles’ Library of Ideas for Teaching and Learning with Technology
" …hundreds of ideas for teaching and learning with technology in ways that implement the seven principles…"
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Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever
" …describes some of the most cost-effective and appropriate ways to use computers, video, and telecommunications technologies to advance the Seven Principles…"
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Teaching with Tech
"Technology can provide a powerful means for enhancing the communicative power of a classroom presentation. Technology, how-ever, cannot stand alone."
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MySeneca/Course Management Systems

MySeneca Help- Building Site
A collection of useful tip sheets demonstrating how to build your course pages in MySeneca.
link to article

Engaging Students with Online Assignments: A Replacement for Digital Dropboxes and Paper Assignments
"Digital Dropbox allows students to upload their work and permits the instructor to review at a later time. Assignments provides a better way of sharing information."
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Toolbox or Trap? Course Management Systems and Pedagogy
" …If we were building something tangible out of wood or metal, for instance, it would be silly let the tools in our toolbox determine what we construct and how we construct it…"
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Videos

Enabling a Comprehensive Teaching Strategy: Video Lectures
"This study...tests the feasibility and effectiveness of video lectures...used throughout a traditional classroom course."
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Can I Show YouTube Videos in My Classroom?
"Seneca Libraries created this self-directed online learning module for faculty to learn more about YouTube videos and any copyright restrictions that exist for showing them in a classroom."
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Podcasts

7 things You Should Know About Podcasting
" "Podcasting" refers to any software and hardware combination that permits automatic downloading of audio files to an MP3 player for listening at the user's convenience..."
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Podcasts at Penn State
Listen to examples of podcasts, learn how to podcast, and read about Penn’s experiences.
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Podcasting for Teachers and Students
This booklet offers instructions for every step of podcasting. While it was written for elementary and secondary school teachers, it will still be of use to college professors.
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There’s Something in the Air: Podcasting in Education
"It’s midweek at Anywhere State University. Jenny rolls out of bed at about nine a.m., as usual, and thinks about breakfast and her first class…"
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Wikis, Blogs

Wikis and Blogs in Education
An interactive site offering written and video instructions and ideas for using wikis and blogs in your classroom.
link to website

Wikis and Blogs in Education
A presentation discussing the potential uses of blogs and wikis in your classroom.
link to presentation

Educational Uses of Blogs, Wikis and RSS Feeds
"Info about a carefully selected set of tools used to develop/maintain/share/find blogs, wikis, etc."
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Clickers

A Guide to Using Clicker (Audience Response) Technology at Seneca
"Clickers allow students to register their answers to questions posed in class and show the class distribution of responses."
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7 Things You Should Know About Clickers
"Clickers have been making inroads in college and university
courses since about 1998, as faculty explore how to increase
student interaction."
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Learning Objects

Seneca's Learning Object Repository
A collection of learning objects created for and by Seneca faculty and staff.
link to website

MERLOT
"Find peer reviewed online teaching and learning materials. Share advice and expertise about education with expert colleagues. Be recognized for your contributions to quality education."
link to website

Learning Objects
"First, it identifies a need for learning objects and describes their essential components based on this need. Second, drawing on concepts from recent developments in computer science, it describes learning objects from a theoretical perspective. Finally, it describes learning objects in practice, first as they are created or generated by content authors, and second, as they are displayed or used by students and other client groups."
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Virtual Worlds

Higher Education as Virtual Conversation
"Whether or not it is an accurate portrayal, the old stereotype of higher education is the lecture hall, where students sit passively and take notes from a wise professor..."
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Virtual Worlds: Moving Beyond Today
"Virtual worlds offer an interface that's exciting to students, and capturing students' excitement is important."
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Studies in Second Life
"Somewhere near the small city of Belleville, Ontario, lies Loyalist College Island. The island is split into four major areas separated by lagoons and ponds..."
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Following in Rabelais' Footsteps: Immersive History and the 3D Virtual Buildings Project
"...VR can be used to heighten the critical thinking skills of students...[and] will soon enable environmental, urban and cultural historians to produce models of far greater range and sophistication than is possible in print."
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Webquests

Using a Webquest in Your Classroom
"A well-designed webquest lets you turn your students loose on the web for a specific project and get results that both you and your students will like..."
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The Webquest Page
"...the most complete and current source of information about the WebQuest Model..."
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Personal & Professional Development of the Educator

Lifelong Learning

Role of Higher Education in Fostering Lifelong Learning Partnerships with Teachers
"Explores some of the challenges and threats posing the training and continuing professional development of teachers..."
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eduScapes
"A site for life-long learners of all ages"
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A Commitment to Lifelong Learning - OCT Handbook
"Members of the College take Additional Qualification courses as one way of continuing their education and becoming specialists in their chosen field..."
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Videotape Your Teaching
"Watching a videotape of yourself is an extremely valuable experience. Videotaping allows you to view and listen to the class as your students do..."
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Mentoring

Mentoring Beginning Teachers: What We Know and What We Don't
"...a review of the international research literature on mentoring beginning teachers"
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The Good Mentor
"Identifies basic but essential qualities of the good mentor and the implications the qualities have for entry-year program design and mentor teacher training"
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Roadmap to Success: Multiple Perspectives on Mentoring
"...mentors have been found to offer to new faculty not only varied perspectives, but also knowledge and skills that serve differing functions..."
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Academic Leadership

Seneca Academic Council
"...provides a forum for raising and addressing academic issues"
link to website

Seneca IT Council
"...A forum for members to discuss information technology issues that impact the operations of the College"
link to website

Seneca Faculty Advisory Committee
"...offer advice and recommendations on learning, training, and professional development opportunities..."
link to website

Translating Teaching Skills to Leadership Roles
"This article discusses how to a good seminar teacher can translate his/her teaching skills to leadership outside the classroom..."
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Values and Ethics in Teaching

OCT Ethical Standards for the Teaching Profession
"In 2005-2006, the College undertook a review of the existing standards of practice and ethical standards..."
link to website

Studying Teachers' Values
"Looks into the effects of teachers' values on their practice and their perceptions about values"
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Anxiety in Teaching/Dealing with Stress

College Hats or Lecture Trousers? Stage Fright and Performance Anxiety in University Teachers
"This article examines the experience of 'stage fright' in teachers in higher education..."
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101 Ways to Cope with Stress
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Dealing with Teacher Stress
"Teaching is a stressful profession. The causes are many but solutions are available..."
link to article

Seneca Employee Assistance Program
"Confidential counselling for you and your family"
1-800-268-5211

Seneca Professional Development

Centre for Faculty and Staff Development

Teaching and Learning
"Teaching & Learning at Seneca offers resources and information, consultations, workshops, and professional development programs to all individuals who teach at Seneca."
link to website

Seneca Libraries' SPARK Sessions
"Seneca Libraries' SPARK sessions provide faculty and staff the opportunity to learn about scholarly research and library resources."
link to website

FCET Professional Development
"Workshops are free of charge to all part-time Seneca Instructors. For online modes, regular fees apply..."
link to website

Using Professional Development Tracking
"PD Tracking is the college’s official professional development application. Using PD Tracking, you can: view information about upcoming workshops in a calendar format, register for workshops, view workshops you are scheduled to attend and have attended in the past, withdraw from workshops you no longer wish to attend"
link to document

Personal Development
Including information about tuition assistance, wellness program, and the payroll deduction program.
link to website

External Professional Development

Brock University, Continuing Teacher Education

OISE, Continuing Education

York University, Continuing Education

Athabasca University, Centre for Distance Education

Georgian College, Teaching and Training Adults