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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.
Venue: Rm 415 clear filter
Saturday, May 3
 

8:30am PDT

SCULPT to SLICK: Applying Accessible Design Principles in Digital Resources
Saturday May 3, 2025 8:30am - 9:15am PDT
In this interactive session, participants, whether instructors, administrators, or content developers, will learn the basic principles of SLICK from TMU, which was adapted from Helen Wilson’s SCULPT framework.
  • Introduce some statistics to participants about people who identify with disabilities
  • Brief overview of SCULPT and SLICK origins
  • How to apply the principles of SLICK in everyday use
  • Demonstrate to participants how a screen reader would read a document, slide, H5P, or video CC
  • Discuss in a group what SLICK principle they would like to start implementing and why they chose it to begin, i.e., importance.
  • In a brainstorming session with other members, use the time-blocking handout to make a feasible action plan, and you can stick with it to start implementing the SLICK framework in your educational resources.
  • Share their plan and call to action with other members and gain insight and ideas from other group members on applying the principles of SLICK.
As the facilitator of this interactive session, I will use the objectives mentioned above to introduce the need to make all created resources digitally accessible, using statistics from the Canadian Census and WHO presently and in the future. I will briefly introduce the SCULPT framework and go more in-depth with the principles of SLICK depending on my audiences’ profession, i.e., instructor, admin, or developer. If a mix, I can talk about all of them briefly. I will also demonstrate with recordings a screen reader reading text with and without the SLICK principles to see the difference. After going in more depth with the principles of SLICK, I will ask participants to brainstorm in a group and discuss how they could make their content more accessible using the principles in this session. Then, as a group, they will complete their plan using a weekly time-blocking handout and discuss it.
Speakers
avatar for Brooke Witkowski

Brooke Witkowski

Instructor Support, LINC Home Study Ontario, Achev
She has experience teaching in Canada and abroad. Her professional interests include digital accessibility in educational resources and creating eLearning content.
Saturday May 3, 2025 8:30am - 9:15am PDT
Rm 415

10:00am PDT

Using Roshi.ai to Generate Assessments, Rubrics, and Feedback
Saturday May 3, 2025 10:00am - 10:45am PDT
This workshop will teach instructors how to ensure that AI aligns with standards when creating assessments and feedback.
Nowadays, there are countless AI tools available for creating lesson materials. However, a paradoxical gap remains between the vast capabilities of AI and the narrow, specific needs of teachers when assessing students. For example, ChatGPT can easily generate countless questions, but it won’t directly reference the specific CLB benchmarks when creating those questions. As a result, teachers often still have to manually flip through curriculum documents and struggle to write rubrics.
The same gap exists when creating feedback on assessments. Many AI tools can provide general feedback on a student’s writing assessment, but teachers often need the feedback to be directly based on the rubric for that assessment.
Roshi.ai, an AI tool used by teachers across Canada, has recently sought to bridge this gap by providing tools that let teachers create standards-aligned assessments, detailed rubrics, and automated feedback based on those rubrics.
In this workshop, we will discuss in detail how these tools were developed in tandem with Canadian teachers to tackle this issue, and we will walk through exactly how teachers can use these tools in their assessments.
Specifically, teachers will learn to do the following:
  • Generate content for assessments that is both realistic and tailored to the assessment’s level
  • Create forms (e.g., dentist intake forms), brochures, and other documents
  • Develop dialogues and monologues with high-quality voices
  • Craft illustrated stories
  • Generate detailed rubrics that are both aligned with standards (e.g., CLB) and relevant to the assessment content
  • Get AI recommendations for feedback on student submissions, directly based on the rubrics
Presentation Outline:
  • Introduction
  • Why AI still struggles with assessments

Speakers
avatar for Jonny Kalambay

Jonny Kalambay

Founder, Roshi
Jonny is an education technology expert and the creator of Roshi.ai, a tool used by teachers across Canada to create lessons and assessments.
Saturday May 3, 2025 10:00am - 10:45am PDT
Rm 415

11:00am PDT

How New Directions used AI to Transform and Improve Assessments
Saturday May 3, 2025 11:00am - 11:45am PDT
New Directions and Roshi.ai are the proud recipients of the TEAL Charitable Foundation Settlement Language Resource Award. This workshop intends to tell the story of the transformative initiative that the award enabled us to undertake, and to share the practical knowledge we’ve gained in the process


Since the start of the year, we have set out to reimagine the process of creating CLB-aligned modules for LINC teachers across Canada. Born from the challenges of creating differentiated materials for diverse learner levels, our project harnessed AI to develop materials that include the following:
  • Real-world documents such as forms, brochures, and invoices
  • Situational dialogues with high-quality voices
  • Interactive exercises such as matching exercises and questions
  • Detailed rubrics for any CLB skill and level
  • Full assessments comprised of all the above
  • AI-generated assistance in writing feedback for students
  • Training resources for the AI tools used
This presentation will walk you through our story—from the initial challenges to the breakthrough moments that redefined our approach. Along the way, live demonstrations will illustrate how we used our AI tools to create interactive real-world tasks, generate assessments, and dynamically adjust lesson material levels.
The workshop is structured as a narrative interwoven with practical demonstrations, culminating in a Q&A session where you can ask about the tools, the challenges we encountered, and how you might apply these techniques to your own practice.
Rough Outline:
  • Introduction: Who we are and the challenges we faced
  • Project Vision: Our proposed solution using AI
Speakers
avatar for Jonny Kalambay

Jonny Kalambay

Founder, Roshi
Jonny is an education technology expert and the creator of Roshi.ai, a tool used by teachers across Canada to create lessons and assessments.
Saturday May 3, 2025 11:00am - 11:45am PDT
Rm 415

1:00pm PDT

Exploring Strategies: Engagement, AI, and new best practices
Saturday May 3, 2025 1:00pm - 1:45pm PDT
This presentation is an interactive panel discussion that explores some of the challenges that EAL instructors have had to face and how they are overcoming them. The EAL profession is again facing uncertain times, but we have overcome the challenges in the past and will continue to do so now. The topics which are in the form of questions to be shared at tables include switching to online, engaging students, assessing without AI, and sharing new skills/techniques.
The presenters will address each question sharing from their perspectives (LINC, EAP, teacher education). The audience will have an opportunity to share their perspectives on each question in smaller groups and leave with a better understanding of how to navigate changes that are constantly occurring in the EAL industry. This type of presentation would work well in either a workshop or a panel discussion stream.


Speakers
avatar for Amber Lavoie

Amber Lavoie

EFP Coordinator and lecturer, UBC Okanagan
Amber Lavoie has worked in the EAL industry for over 20 years and is currently a lecturer in the Okanagan School of Education at UBC's Okanagan campus. She is passionate about working with EAL students, B.Ed students as well as Practicum students in the TEAL certificate program... Read More →
avatar for Amanda Zotto

Amanda Zotto

LINC instructor, UBC Okanagan
Passionate EAL instructor (8 years) and LINC Facilitator (2.5 years), specializing in Real-World English, student-centered learning, and empowering newcomers to build confidence and communication skills.
avatar for Anita Veal

Anita Veal

Lecturer, UBC Okanagan
Since 2010, Anita has been teaching various English courses such as EAP, English Composition and Cross-Cultural Communication.  In addition to teaching, Anita has experience assessing placement tests.
Saturday May 3, 2025 1:00pm - 1:45pm PDT
Rm 415

2:00pm PDT

Educator Wellbeing in Times of Change
Saturday May 3, 2025 2:00pm - 2:45pm PDT
The workshop will delve into three initiatives undertaken at a private business school to ensure the overall well-being of the faculty members under English Studies from the years 2020-2024. As a member of the management team, one of the challenges has been to find ways to support the team members and focus on wellbeing is not emphasized as the members are sessional who work on a contractual basis. The three wellbeing initiatives that will be discussed are
  1. The ‘wellbeing afternoon’ was introduced as a short-term program during 2020-2022 that allowed all staff and faculty members to finish work early one day of the week (usually Fridays) and use the time to relax and focus on their wellbeing. However, this initiative was not available for sessional or part-time members including faculty.
  2. ES Faculty social is an evening arranged on a term basis to allow faculty members to disconnect from work and relax. The invitation is extended to all English Studies faculty members only. 
  3. Healthy snacks are provided exclusively for English Studies faculty members who need a quick energy boost between classes. 
Like all post-secondary institutes, financial constraints are a big hurdle to be crossed when trying to implement wellness initiatives, but in the private sector, most of the conversation does not proceed as everything boils down to contractual obligations. 
The purpose of this workshop is to connect with individuals and initiate a conversation on finding ways to support the well-being of our educators.  
Speakers
avatar for Garima Yadav

Garima Yadav

Manager, Student Learning Commons, Acsenda School of Management
A dedicated, passionate and optimist professional who seeks to create safe spaces for students, faculty, and staff to engage in meaningful dialogue on important issues.
Saturday May 3, 2025 2:00pm - 2:45pm PDT
Rm 415
 
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