This month, Steven met up for a virtual hallway chat with Tracy Ho, the Organizer-Advocate and Ombudsperson for Douglas Students’ Union. Tracy shared her insights based on student experiences taking courses during the 2020 emergency education delivery. We discussed things we learned and hopeful indications for the future.
This week Steven and I met up for a virtual hallway chat with Kira Tomsons, a Faculty Member in the Department of Philosophy at Douglas College. Kira is an experienced and innovative online instructor who enthusiastically delves into new techniques and methods for engaging students in virtual learning environments. (She is also pretty good with stick people drawings!) She shared with us some of the ways she is setting up her courses for Fall 2020. In addition, Kira reflected on how feminist care ethics can help us consider how to care well in these novel times.
If you want to read further, Kira has some suggestions:
I’ve enjoyed working with and conversing with Florence Daddy a few times, and was pleased when we had this chance to record an interview.
Current Teaching Florence Daddey, currently teaching in the Faculty of Commerce, Business and Administration in the Business Management Department
Background I am grateful for the opportunity to have lived in 3 continents. I was born in Ghana- West Africa, lived in England where I did most of my post secondary education and then moved to Canada in 2003. After University, I trained with Price Waterhouse in London to be a Chartered Accountant. I quickly realized that I did not enjoy auditing and through many volunteering opportunities with youth in inner city London, I discovered my passionate and love of teaching. Therefore, I decide to choose education and teaching as a career. In the last 17 years, I have had the opportunity to work as an instructional designer-supporting faculty in developing curriculum for different programs and supporting faculty in adopting appropriate teaching and learning pedagogy for their context in which learning takes place. In addition, to that I support faculty in using technology to support teaching and learning and I think we met each other attend various Educational Technology User Group – (ETUG) workshops. Given my personal experiences, I’m passionate about accessibility, inclusion and diversity issues. I’m certainly aware of the numerous barriers that can prevent certain groups of students in accessing post secondary education. Growing up in Ghana I quickly became away of my status and privileges. I witnessed true poverty where my family provided for many children. However, in Western nations we are given the impression that there is no poor person and the social security system is a buffer. As I engage with students I quickly realized that is not the case so I develop a passion for open education practices and advocates how the use of open textbooks and resources can benefit both faculty in terms of having control over your teaching resources and materials and helping reduce the educational cost for students.
“How can we respond, in our roles, to the increasing calls for change? Especially in regards to post-secondary education?” It is important to decide what is important to you about teaching and your pedagogical belief and identity. I want my students to have a positive learning experience and especially in the current environment where a lot is changing around us and the change is happening so quickly. I have to take a step back and reassess my purpose and my role as an instructor. By doing that, I’m able to figure out how best to use all the tools and resources available to meet my needs and to adopt an appropriate pedagogy for the student to learn given the context and learning environment. In my practice, I get students to think about the learning environment as a community and the importance of building relationships. I like referring to the image on the text book “Pulling Together: A guide for Indigenization of post-secondary institutions. A professional learning series”.
Different cultures emphasize the importance of family and community and I try to use that belief to our classroom and learning experience. I emphasis the strengths within a learning community and I promote learning through collaboration and get students to appreciate the contributes of everyone to our learning. So, as I think about my discipline in the light of all the calls for actions I’ve certainly considered the changes that I can make, for example, by bringing indigenous perspectives and knowledge to our conversations as we discuss leadership.
I use examples of indigenous entrepreneurs and highlight their stories, how Indigenous businesses are set up… to give back to their communities. Even if it’s for profit, it’s not always individual profit but share. Let these be reflected in the textbooks and materials that students are reading, along with other ways to use stories from minorities and ethnicities. Faculty can create their own materials and resources reflecting inclusivity and diversity by engaging in open education. We can help change the narrative, and consider the impact on students who may have financially challenging situations by creating and adopting more open educational resources and strategies.
This week Steven and I met up for a virtual hallway chat with a Douglas College student taking courses for the first time online this summer. Among other things, Charlene is a mom to twins and has her sights set on a career as a dental hygienist.
This week Steven and I met up for a virtual hallway chat with Eamonn O’Laocha a Douglas College Faculty Member in the Department of Business Management. Among other things, Eamonn is working with the Douglas College Facilitating Faculty Online Group and kindly shared some of his observations about the challenging path facing faculty. In addition, Eamonn spoke to some of the work he is doing to address tech inequity and access to education.
We would like to acknowledge that we live, learn, work, and play on the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish Peoples of the QayQayt and Kwikwetlem First Nations.
Dr. Eamonn O’LaochaDialogue with Eamonn, Lisa, and Steven—June 23, 2020
Like many in quarantine, I decided to try making sourdough bread. I pulled the neglected jar of starter out of the fridge and read the instructions from the friend who had given it to me months earlier. I realized the starter did not look too good, texted my friend for further directions, and accepted the response that I had been a “bad bad boy”.
Neglected starter
After resuscitating the starter, and following the recipe, I succeeded in baking a passable bread. My subsequent attempts were disappointing. One time I had to bake the dough because it was so sticky, I otherwise could not figure out how to dispose of it.
way too sticky
I do not like failure; so, I kept trying. Other people’s recipes and suggestions, internet searches, the Tartine Bread book, live chat with an experienced baker. I was still making less than hoped for loaves….
One over-tasking, multi-pressured morning, I lost it. I blamed the crummy scale that kept turning off midway through refreshing the starter. I blamed the recipes, the flour, the water, the process itself, the absurdity of life. I felt discouraged and angry at the whole endeavor. As my fit subsided, I did a bit of self-reflection (and apologizing). That is when the thought came to me, maybe many of the instructors I had been trying to support over the last many weeks in the sudden transition to remote teaching were experiencing analogous frustrations with Blackboard, online anything/everything, and technology in general. Maybe my frustration had some parallel to what instructors feel when they are trying to learn unfamiliar tools and strategies—following the various “recipes” provided.
The little leaven of fellow-feeling activated something in me. Learning a new skill is hard work. Learning under pressure, in new environments, and in isolation is even harder. The loaves are getting more consistent, the process more familiar, the bread delicious and well-raised.
Baking bread is nothing like remotely instructing dozens of young people, and ensuring they have the best possible educational experience. Producing an instructional environment is necessary. Not the only, but a very important, aspect of instruction. Each iteration shows development and improvement. Maybe analogous to bulk fermentation. Rest and “folding in” are critical elements as well… the analogies keep coming – (“faculty mentors are like sourdough starter” “too much incorporated fermentation is like an over-bloated course”) – I think you get the idea.
I am a beginner, learning to value processes. My own, and those I am attempting to support, and feel humbled and encouraged to keep going. I have a growing appreciation for the opportunity to work with so many fine educators.
when things go sour, add some flour
We would like to acknowledge that we live, learn, work, and play on the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish Peoples of the QayQayt and Kwikwetlem First Nations.
A conversation with
Angela Heino, Learning Strategy and Quality Coordinator in Health Sciences, and
Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) faculty at Douglas College.
Angela
is one of two instructors in the BSN program currently teaching N2215:
Leadership and Interprofessional Collaboration (IPC) course. This class
encourages reflection on various aspects of leadership and IPC while providing
students with the opportunity to engage in the lived experience of
interprofessional education (IPE) as well. In this course, students explore the
roles and responsibilities of team members to both patients/families as
well as to the other members of the health care team. This process draws on
various viewpoints and acknowledges the diverse knowledge and
skill-sharing required of a successfully integrated team. Students learn
strategies for facilitating interdependent collaboration, explore ways of understanding conflict
constructively, and how they as individuals can help to create a healthy
workplace.
The
SWITCH event brings students together from different programs (BSN, Psychiatric
Nursing, and Disability and Community Studies) to work on an ethics-based case
study. Then the students converse on three different health related topics
selected because of their timely, and complex, nature such as: vaccination, the
legalization of cannabis, and medical assistance in dying. The students do a
“speed switch” and within this relatively brief time frame, each student
briefly shares their own views on the topics. The goal is that students learn
to appreciate distinct and diverse world views, build awareness of their own
assumptions and biases towards these topics, as well as exchange ideas in a
respectful and professional manner. This
unique event allows every voice at the table to be heard, and boosts the
collective intelligence of a team.
The
well-attended morning event looks and feels like a conference, and includes a
hot breakfast. After this term’s event, the students were able to provide
feedback through an online survey on how SWITCH benefited their learning and
how they plan to take what their learned forward into their practice.
Faculty
also involved in the planning and organization of this Winter’s event included:
Jennifer Kane (BSN), Tracey McVey (PNUR) and Aaron Johannes (DACS).
We would like to acknowledge that we live, learn, work, and play on the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish Peoples of the QayQayt and Kwikwetlem First Nations.
There are people in post-secondary education who seek each other out for support and encouragement in developing exemplary practice. We (the learning designers) are fortunate in meeting with and sometimes introducing these dedicated instructors and staff to each other. Shannon Cox is one such educator who proposed recording an activity she uses in her Marketing course. Ritual Dissent, a classroom activity that involves students discussing a fellow-student’s work while the she is sitting nearby, with her back to the conversation, might seem like an unusual way to demonstrate whole-person learning (Shannon’s idea to record the activity came up in a Whole-Person Learning Community of Practice meeting).
The value lies in the listening that is required. The breakout group listens to the presentation intently, and then the student-presenter “listens in” on their respectful (guidelines are provided by the instructor) dissent or disagreement with the presenters assumptions, or suggestions of alternate approaches.
Listen to a discussion with Shannon, Steven, and Hope where she describes the whole process and answers the learning designers’ questions
