BC TEAL 2025 Annual Conference

BC TEAL is proud to present our 2025 Annual Conference: Disruptive Educational Practices: Strategies for Transformation.

Please note that the Friday evening event, the TEAL Charitable Foundation Awards & Fundraiser, requires an additional ticket purchase. Please register here to secure your spot and join us in celebrating the awardees while fundraising for a better cause in TEAL.

Educators shine in times of change to face unexpected challenges. This is when creativity flourishes by combining proven practices with fresh and innovative ideas. These times call for transformation which can be rooted in tradition or experience, or it can arise through unexplored approaches. The synthesis of old and new ideas drives meaningful progress. Join other insightful and creative educators as we flourish within the power of our community.

8:30am PDT

Avenue Management Strategies for Administrators and Coordinators

Friday May 2, 2025 8:30am - 9:15am PDT

TBA

Effectively managing Avenue.ca resources within your organization is crucial for optimizing educational outcomes and ensuring a seamless experience for both instructors and learners. This workshop covers these areas:
1. Startup Strategies: Initiating the use of Avenue.ca requires thoughtful planning and knowledge of all of avenue’s features. It's important to familiarize your team with the platform's capabilities and inform all staff through initial training sessions can help new educators establish courses more efficiently.

2. Organizing Materials: A structured approach to content management enhances accessibility and learning efficiency. Develop a content naming convention for files and modules, categorize materials logically, and utilize Avenue.ca's folder systems to keep resources organized.
3. Leveraging the Content Bank: The Content Bank sees as a repository of reusable H5P learning objects. Encourage educators to and utilize this resource to ensure that future updates or augmentation can be resolved with less effort through the Content Bank.

4. End-of-Term Best practices: Concluding each term effectively involves several steps. Archiving completed course records for future reference is an option. Collecting and analyzing feedback from learners provides insights into course effectiveness and areas for improvement. Additionally, reflecting on term's successes and challenges can inform strategies for subsequent sessions. Resetting courses is also an important practice.
5. Avenue Manager Roles: Defining the roles and responsibilities of Avenue managers is vital. Determine user permissions and ensure that the platform operates smoothly while protecting course and student data.
6. Completion Tracking and ePortfolio: Utilizing Avenue's completion tracking features allows managers to monitor learner progress systematically and discretely. The ePortfolio tool enables students work to be measured for potential suggestions of improvement or promotion.
7. Reporting Options: Avenue.ca offers various reporting tools that provide insights into course participation, completion rates, and learner performance.
8. Organizational Collaboration Courses: Creating collaborative courses allows for professional development, resource sharing, and collaborative planning, leading to a more cohesive and supportive teaching environment.
9. Professional Development Pathways: Investing in ongoing professional development is essential for instructors to stay abreast of educational technologies and pedagogical advancements. Offering workshops, seminars, and courses focused on effect Avenue.ca utilization and other relevant topics ensures that educators are well-equipped to deliver high-quality instruction.
By focusing on these areas, organizations can maximize the potential of Avenue.ca, leading to enhanced educational experiences and outcomes.

Speakers

Nancy Van Dorp

Manager, Distributed Learning, New Language Solutions

Nancy Van Dorp, M.Ed., is the Manager of Distributed Learning for projects at New Language Solutions.She is fascinated with the affordances of edtech solutions.

John Allan

Manager of Training Development, New Language Solutions

John, certified Ontario teacher, is as an experienced e-learning developer, instructor mentor and live support operator. He has been working on the Avenue project since the inception. He presented his first BCTEAL session in 1996.

Friday May 2, 2025 8:30am - 9:15am PDT
TBA

Administration/Leadership, LINC

11:00am PDT

Helping New Teachers Become Part of the LINC Team

Friday May 2, 2025 11:00am - 11:45am PDT

TBA

Teaching in LINC requires specialized knowledge and specific training which can be overwhelming even to experienced EAL instructors. Teachers without understanding of task-based teaching, CLBs and PBLA have little time when starting a new position to grasp their program’s and students’ expectations before needing to deliver CLB-aligned lessons and PBLA assessments in class. While supports are available, such as the online CLB Bootcamp and facilitated PBLA training, these cannot always be completed before the first day of a teacher’s new class.

From long experience, particularly with the high turnover of teachers due to illness, retirements, and changing of professions during and since the pandemic, and the smaller number of teachers entering the EAL field, ISSofBC has developed a model to quickly and smoothly onboard new, inexperienced and/or untrained teachers to the requirements of PBLA and teaching in LINC. The process and components ensure teachers experience success and learn by support and immersion rather than feeling confused with too much to remember. The result, according to the new hires themselves, is a much higher degree of satisfaction with teaching in the LINC program, even with all its requirements.

To support the sector and hopefully grow the pool of teachers wanting to work in LINC, the ISSofBC Instructional Coordinator team would like to share its successful model with other providers. Administrator participants in this workshop will have opportunity to share their issues with onboarding new teachers and then work through how these common challenges are addressed in the ISSofBC

Speakers

Claire Pinkett

Instructional Coordinator, LINC, ISSofBC

Claire Pinkett  is a Lead PBLA teacher and ISSofBC Instructional Coordinator with 35+ years of teaching experience in LINC, EAL and TEFL.

Lisa Herrera

PBLA Coach, CCLB

Lisa Herrera has an MA in Educational Administration from UBC and is a PBLA Regional Coach, training Lead and classroom teachers online since 2014. She taught in LINC for 15 years and has been the Lead Instructional Coordinator for ISSofBC LINC since 2008. Lisa has also been the... Read More →

Alla Sotnikova

Instructional Coordinator, LINC, ISSofBC

Alla Sotnikova is a Lead PBLA teacher and ISSofBC Instructional Coordinator with 35+ years of teaching experience in LINC and EAL.

Sandra Carignan

Instructional Coordinator, LINC, ISSofBC

Sandra Carignan has been in EAL for 30+ years teaching and supporting teachers. She also taught in and supervised the ISSofBC LCC TESOL Program.

Friday May 2, 2025 11:00am - 11:45am PDT
TBA

Administration/Leadership, Teacher Education

11:00am PDT

Social enterprise as disruptive educational practice: A case study of MOSAIC Engage

Friday May 2, 2025 11:00am - 11:45am PDT

TBA

In 2021, MOSAIC Engage re-launched its fee-for-service English program, a social enterprise providing English classes to underserved newcomer communities. Through this program, our goal is to challenge traditional business practices in TEFL by combining the social mission of a non-profit with the entrepreneurial practices of a business.

As a social enterprise, we are able to deliver accessible and affordable EFL education to those who are both excluded from LINC eligibility and lack the means to access the for-profit industry. Over the last four years, we have grown into a thriving community of educators and students with a focus greater accessibility, personalized learning, real-world relevance, and mutually beneficial partnerships.

This presentation will describe the history of MOSAIC Engage as a social enterprise, the challenges and triumphs encountered along the way, and the disruptive potential of social enterprise in the TEFL industry.

Speakers

Zach Jurista

Business Manager, MOSAIC Engage

With my team at MOSAIC engage, I run programs that support newcomers to BC with affordable and accessible English language training.Our programs are open to all, regardless of status, and we welcome hundreds of new immigrants each year into our community-based English classes. I am... Read More →

Friday May 2, 2025 11:00am - 11:45am PDT
TBA

Administration/Leadership

BC TEAL 2025 Annual Conference

From CA$115.47