Coordinator, Curriculum & Instruction
Associate Professor of Teaching, Department of Language & Literacy Education
MET Faculty
Email: leah.macfadyen@ubc.ca
MET Courses: ETEC 500, ETEC 520, ETEC 542, ETEC 543, ETEC 581 MET Practicum, ETEC 590
Web / Social:
“Originally trained in the experimental sciences, I fell into the world of eLearning in 2002 and never looked back. I’m excited that I can bring my hybrid academic background and skillset to the MET program. My early eLearning research (mostly qualitative) drew on my interest in theories of culture and intercultural communication and was motivated by the reality of our increasingly diverse learner audience.
Later, the rising tide of learning data captured by learning technologies spurred me to dust off my analytic and scientific skills to the study of virtual learning, inspired by the potential for learning analytics to offer actionable insights into our teaching and learning contexts and practice. But I’m also keen to engage learners, researchers, and practitioners in ongoing critical discussions about the limits of ‘big data,’ the challenge of data literacy, and the ethical and social implications of this work.
I believe (and have experienced) that online learning can be engaging, inspiring, and transformative and seek to infuse that belief into my MET adventures.”
Leah is co-author (with Dr. Hyoshin Kim) of ETEC 542, author of the completely revised ETEC 500 course, and author of ETEC 543. She completed redevelopment of ETEC 590, and launched and inherited ETEC 520 (from Dr. Mark Bullen), revising it substantially for the post-COVID era. More recently, she developed the new ETEC 581 MET Practicum course.