SALTISE recognized Dawson’s team of Faculty Hub pedagogical counsellors for their work supporting teachers. The Faculty Hub team received the 2021 SALTISE Best Practices & Pedagogical Innovators Award at the conclusion of the SALTISE conference in June.

“Madeleine Bazerghi, Ildikó Glaser-Hille, Einat Idan, Karina Leonard, Julia Lijerón, Monica Lopez, Azra Khan and Rafael Scapin were instrumental in providing inter-services support to enable Dawson faculty to teach remotely during the pandemic,” wrote Director General Diane Gauvin in her nomination letter.

Support from OAD, HR and IST

Julia Lijerón accepted the award on behalf of her Hub teammates from the Office of Academic Development (OAD), Human Resources (HR) and Information Systems and Technology (IST).

In her acceptance speech, Julia, who coordinates the Hub activities and manages the website, thanked Liz Charles and the SALTISE awards committee, Director General Diane Gauvin, Dean of Academic Development Catherine LeBel, the OAD team and Dawson faculty collaborators, particularly those from the communities of practice.

Julia recalled how the Faculty Hub ped counsellors drew together and came up with solutions when the College shut down. “I saw these ped counsellors over Zoom more than I saw my own family who lived in my house,” she said. “We rallied as a team, leveraging each person’s strengths – and leaning on each other. My fellow Faculty Hub ped counsellors are all so dedicated, knowledgeable, creative, and generous.  I am truly grateful to be able to work with them every day!”

One-stop shop

The Faculty Hub is a one-stop shop for help with course design, student engagement, assessment, technology, one-on-one consultations and more. It was launched in January 2020, only two months prior to the pandemic shutdown.

Over a few intense weeks during the winter 2020 semester, the Faculty Hub ped counsellors developed a Moodle course for teaching with Moodle, organized over 70 webinars to help equip teachers with strategies for online teaching, created a number of guides for a variety of online subjects, coordinated a mentorship program and provided one-on-one support. In the following academic year, which was mostly online, the Hub kept up the steady support to teachers through the website, virtual professional development workshops, ped days and individual and group consultations.

Appreciation for the Hub

In her nomination letter, the Director General wrote that according to faculty, the Hub was key in saving the remainder of the Winter 2020 semester and preparing for the 2020-2021 academic year.

Chantale Giguère, Co-Coordinator or the E-Learning COP and a French teacher, collaborated closely with the Hub Team and was impressed by their efficiency.

“In a short period of time, they accomplished a tremendous amount of work to develop a variety of high quality resources to suit different needs related to online teaching, from individual live support to flexible asynchronous resources,” she said. “When teachers had to migrate all their courses fully online, some of them mentioned to the E-learning Community of Practice that the Hub team was anticipating their questions before they asked them. The success of the Hub was recognized by many post-secondary institutions and the SALTISE award is well deserved.”

Selma Hamdani (Coordinator of the Psychology Profile and Co-Coordinator of the Dawson Active Learning Community) also collaborated closely with the Hub and had this reaction to the news:

“Congratulations to Dawson College’s Faculty Hub for this very well-deserved award! The Hub has mobilized an incredible task force to respond to teachers’ demands during the remote teaching period.  They have supported teachers and communities of practice and went beyond what was expected. Thank you Faculty Hub team!”

The pedagogical counsellors continue to provide support for teachers as everyone adjusts to a return to campus and a new academic year.