TESS 2023: Supporting the Digitally Empowered Learner

We are thrilled to announce that this year’s TESS will be held on November 1 and 2 at the Globe and Mail Centre in Toronto. This year we’ll explore how technology can open new doors to the knowledge and skills learners need to achieve the future they imagine.

Learn more

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Last year’s TESS theme —The Hybrid Experience: Designing the Future of Learning —explored the evolution of an integrated digital and in-person education environment, what it means for the future of delivering vibrant learning experiences, and the steps we take today for a more effective and sustainable tomorrow.

TESS 2022 was focused on creating space for conceptualizing what’s possible; investigating whether hybrid learning systems can deliver on their promise of digital inclusion; and exploring the theories of hybrid pedagogies and how they translated into on-the-ground blended learning methods for delivering immersive experiences for all learners.

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Last year’s TESS theme of Humanizing Learning reflected our early experience of the pandemic’s impact on teaching and learning. We now emerge into a “new normal”, shifting from emergency remote education to a pedagogy that is digital by design – delivering high-quality online and hybrid programming at scale.

We have learned that we have the ability not only to survive but thrive together in the future. TESS 2021 is focused on how we co-create that future. Conversations will highlight learning from the pandemic – and the actions we can take, individually and collectively, to crystallize that learning.

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Inclusion is the backbone of innovation and is critical to building spaces that reflect the full range of human diversity. As technology continues to advance education, deepening human interactions in online learning environments is critical for success in higher education. Recognizing diversity, inclusion, and equity, TESS Online 2020 will examine the conference theme from the student perspective. Presenters will take into account access to learning, nurturing online communities that create spaces for all, and opportunities to create a more connected experience in both synchronous and asynchronous environments.

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Featuring the theme of Experimentation and Impact, the event combined presentations with a day of hands-on workshops, where attendees had the opportunity to experiment with technology in real time. For more information, recordings, and resources from TESS 2019, click on read more.

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The theme of TESS 2018 was The Empowered Educator, derived from Simon Bates’ model of the 21st Century Educator (2014). In this model, the 21st century educator is also a teacher for learning, an experimenter, a technologist, a collaborator, a curator, and a scholar. At the two-day TESS conference, located at the Globe and Mail Centre in Toronto, over 80 presenters gave 36 peer-reviewed presentations that aligned with one of the six tracks of Bates’ model.

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This TESS, we extended our program beyond the showcase format, providing a forum for educators from across Ontario, Canada and the United States to share experience and insight across a range of topics important to post-secondary educators. TESS also provided students and attendees with an opportunity to participate in the Student Experience Design Lab (SXD) where they explored methods by which faculty, institutions and students might work together in future to co-create content and shape new ways to improve student experience design.