Pixel International Conferences

The Agora is an open, blended faculty development experience co-developed by the Justice Institute of British Columbia, Canada and the University of Guadalajara, Mexico. The program was designed to create a unique learning experience for university faculty to confidently integrate student-centred strategies and activities using mobile technologies to enhance learning outcomes. An additional goal of the program was to shift faculty to be more open with sharing their knowledge, teaching and learning practices, and reducing faculty and discipline silos.

While the program was originally created for 400 faculty at the University of Guadalajara, it was intended to be adapted to any institutional context. Designed around a series of F2F and online, hands-on studios, participants are required to complete and share openly a number of challenges – small, achievable tasks that centre on active learning techniques or mobile/multimedia creation – within the context of the studios. Throughout the program, faculty are facilitated into local communities of practice (by institution or discipline) and gain feedback and support through participation in triad groups. Communities of practice and triads continue to exist long after the program is completed through a variety of means including an open tool called Discourse used as a semi-open online discussion space. 

More than 400 UdeG professors have completed the program and a formal research study is underway to evaluate the effectiveness of the program in transforming teaching and learning.