HETRU and McGraw-Hill Ryerson sponsor international conference on teaching and learning

The Health Education Technology Research Unit (HETRU) is pleased to announce the very successful implementation of the 2nd Annual Conference, "What Really Works: Strategies to Improve Teaching and Learning."  This year HETRU partnered with McGraw-Hill Ryerson to co-host the conference as part of the McGraw-Hill Teaching and Learning Conference series.  Conference themes focused on e-learning, simulative environments for education, and the emerging field of serious games in education.

Conference activities began Saturday, November, 21st with a keynote address by internationally known scholar Richard Katz, Vice President of Educause. This was followed by a set of research sessions that provided engaging and substantive discussions on what really works in education, for whom, when, how, and with what outcomes. A marvelous array of instructional strategies were examined in the context of effective use of advanced technologies to improve educational outcomes while retaining and engaging students in activities that improve higher order reasoning.

On Sunday, November, 22nd another set research sessions and two seminars allowed participants to continue thinking about and discussing evidence-based learning. The closing keynote was provided by Alec Couros, Professor of Educational Technology and Media, Faculty of Education at the University of Regina.

This busy weekend, included 15 sessions of research papers and two seminars, with over 45 educators and researchers presenting high level work on evidence-based learning frameworks for instructional methods and materials. There were a total of 235 Conference participants, with representatives from Australia, the United States, and from 9 different provinces across Canada. Sessions covered a diversity of discipline areas including Health Sciences, Science, Business & Information Technology, and Humanities & the Social Sciences. Both UOIT and Durham faculty and staff provided support during implementation of this Conference. HETRU wishes to thank faculty and staff who contributed to a very successful international conference at the main campus of UOIT.