Lectures / Talks
Lectures and talks cover various topics and can be customized based on the requirements of the institution and/or group of educators. They are designed to raise awareness of the importance of innovative studio teaching techniques that respond to today's students' demands in standard but also in online education. Lectures are an excellent way to promote a dialogue about the nature of studio pedagogies. Who is it for? All-level educators within studio disciplines or anyone interested in advancing their experiential or PBL teaching practice. You might also consider a workshop in case you would like to get more hands-on training.
Below is an indicative list of topics. The duration of a talk is typically 90 minutes and it includes a 30-minute Q&A session. Handouts are provided to all participants.
Key topics for online and in-person teaching:
Strategies to enhance online studio teaching;
Establish a positive learning culture;
Make studio teaching more interactive, involving & more meaningful;
Develop and use creativity in learning;
How to give effective and useful feedback to students;
Communicate for motivation – how to bring the best out of students;
Create a nurturing, and stimulating studio environment;
Instructor self-development and self-assessment techniques.
Workshops
Workshops offer focused instruction on topics relevant to experiential teaching in an online and in-person environment. Informational and hands-on, workshops introduce participants to innovative and transformational strategies that can be implemented in studio teaching. Workshops are adaptable in format and tailored to suit specific group’s needs. Your institution will benefit from the practical knowledge and skills necessary to transform studio education, as well as strategies that can be used to motivate students of all levels in standard and distance learning formats. Choose the topic that’s right for your institution and stakeholders, and it can be further customized to address your specific needs.
Below is an indicative list of topics. The duration of the workshop is typically 2 days and it includes a one-hour Q&A / discussion session each day. Handouts are provided to all participants.
Key topics:
Discover your potential as a studio instructor;
Make studio teaching more effective and exciting;
Understand your students learning styles and emotional needs;
Communicate to motivate your students and foster curiosity and creativity;
Cultivate a culture of care in the studio classroom;
Build your students’ autonomy;
Give useful and meaningful feedback;
Build strong relationships with students;
Discover ways to build collective efficacy;
Address common challenges in studio teaching;
Subject-specific workshops.
Individual Mentoring
Mentoring is a semester-long one-on-one partnership that serves the educator to examine, improve and enhance their professional teaching practice. After the initial training, ongoing support is provided in the form of guidance on how to implement learned techniques and translate them into practice. Who is it for? Suitable for educators of all levels but very beneficial for junior faculty who need additional guidance in course(s) planning, delivery, and assessment.
What’s included in the mentoring process:
Meet with the educator and define the objectives of the mentoring process;
Select the appropriate ways to reach the objectives;
Class observation through video recordings and review of positive/negative practices observed;
Assist in constructing assessment tools;
Examine how to integrate technology in the class;
Collect feedback from students about the course content and delivery;
Redesign learning space (physical or virtual) to promote inclusion;
Model approaches and techniques required to improve or enhance educator’s teaching;
Demonstrate effective personal skills that promote connection, reliability, and trust;
Develop long-term strategies for implementing the skills and knowledge gained.
Professional development for passionate educators
With our societies in flux, and a shift to online teaching, students' demands are evolving. Rapid changes uncovered the need to re-examine the ways we educate and develop teaching approaches that enable educators to transition from knowledge/skill providers to caring mentors and facilitators of learning.
The programs, offered by Dr. Zinka Bejtic, empower educators to adequately respond to these demands through a variety of hands-on instructional techniques centered around topics related to both in-person and online teaching, such as how to examine and define one's teaching style, establish a positive and nurturing studio culture, develop trust and meaningful relationships with students, demonstrate care, stimulate students' autonomy, make feedback more impactful, and develop personality traits found to have a positive impact on students' motivation, creativity, and overall engagement.
Programs are suitable for individuals as well as educational institutions interested in customized training that focuses on specific areas of design and/or delivery of learning experiences.
Are the talks/workshops suitable for all academic disciplines?
The skills and techniques taught in the talks & workshops apply to any academic discipline that incorporates experiential learning. Aside from arts, they can be used in humanities as well as social, natural, formal, and applied sciences. Any setting that enables ‘learning by doing’ with a limited number of students (usually less than twenty) allows the instructor to engage with each student individually. Experiential education is very different from the traditional teaching experience. It does not rely on lectures, textbooks, and formal assessments. Instead, it embraces individualized improvisational instruction, customized feedback, critique, and direction and is directly driven by the work created by students. Although all academic disciplines have the potential to practice experiential teaching, below is the list of disciplines that studio-teaching techniques stem from:
Fine Arts: Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Photography, Pottery, Printmaking, Ceramics; Design: Architecture, Interior Design, Design-Build, Visual Communication, Fashion Design, Product Design, Interaction Design; Media Arts: Film, Visual Effects, Motion Graphics, UX Design, Animation; Performing Arts: Dance, Drama, Music, Theatre, Choreography; Literary Arts: Creative Writing, Poetry, Songwriting, Scriptwriting.