McMaster Centre for Leadership and Learning

Today for Computers and Education class Prof. Rockwell took us on a tour of the variety of different learning spaces that can be found on McMaster's campus. One of our last stops was to the Centre for Leadership and Learning.

The idea of this space and the people who work there is to provide services to professors (new and experienced) who are willing to learn how to teach, or how to teach better. They do this through a variety of different methods including e-mails informing faculty of teaching workshops and other services this organization provides.

One of the issues that came up in the discussion on this topic was how to get professors to want to learn how to teach. This made me think back to the camp I spend most of the summers of my life at; Camp Ponacka. The owners of the camp did something I had never heard of being done before with respect to welcoming new campers. They made home visits to every single new camper before their camp session that summer, no matter the city (or sometimes even country). I feel like this could be an effective way to make new faculty feel more welcome entering the McMaster community and even perhaps more willing to attend the teaching workshops they provide. This in turn would lead to more 'technology confident' professors willing to apply computers to their teaching! I know trying to turn the professor-University relationship into a loving family is unrealistic but I think this is something that could potentially make a difference.