TA/TM Day is presented by the Centre for Educational Excellence in cooperation with the Office of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Fellows and with consultation from the Teaching Support Staff Union at Simon Fraser University
This workshop focuses on participatory learning to tackle how we as TAs and TMs can structure our tutorials, labs, online messages and build up our classroom cultures in ways that produce not just equal opportunities to succeed, but equal outcomes of success (justice) for marginalized students, such as EAL learners, students with disabilities, racialized students, and folks with limited financial resources? In this workshop, we will... • Review what oppression/anti-oppression and cultural responsiveness mean, and how they are maintained through institutions (not merely at the level of individuals). • Identify what groups face marginalization, in our own regional context and also on a broader scale. • Cultivate an awareness of how the university is structured to benefit students with privilege at the expense of marginalized students. • Critically assess sample course outlines and lesson plans to identify how they reproduce privilege and oppression in the university. • Develop and implement anti-oppressive course-design and lesson-plan strategies. This workshop is intended for either beginning TA’s and TM’s or experienced educators from any discipline to begin the work of re-orienting their own teaching practices beyond the traditional understanding of higher education.
