“Julia volunteered her time to teach us, as we had a shortage of instructors for the Practical Nursing program and took on the task of teaching pathophysiology and professional practice. She shows how much she cares for the future of nursing and wants us to succeed. I appreciate her dedication to our group.”
Julia L, one of this year’s Teacher Recognition award recipients, has been a faculty member at Camosun for 12 years but has been teaching for 25. Before becoming an instructor, Julia was educated in Victoria and attended Camosun and UVIC as part of her nursing education. She then moved to Mississauga, Ontario where she worked in a teaching hospital. “I was an orthopedic nurse but when I had children, the shift work became impossible, so I went back to school to study gerontology, which has always been a love of mine.” She then worked in a day center for people with Alzheimer’s disease and dementias. “I worked there for several years before I began to feel the need for another change,” at which point she met some people who convinced her to go and teach at Humber College. “They were starting a bridging program to upgrade Personal Support Workers’ education. So I started teaching evening classes for Humber, and later for Sheridan College. From there, I worked my way up to full time at Humber, coordinating the Personal Support Worker program.”
In 2009 Julia returned to Victoria and started a job at the University of Victoria, coordinating Health Sciences programs in Continuing Studies. “I wasn’t teaching, but I was using all the key components of what makes good education. However, I missed being in the classroom.” Eventually, Julia decided to check out Camosun College’s Health Care Assistant (HCA) program, which was similar to the one she coordinated in Ontario. “They were looking for people to teach evening classes, so I interviewed and started teaching at Camosun. Over time I was given more courses, in evenings and during the summer, and eventually left UVIC completely for Camosun.” In addition to teaching in the HCA program, Julia also has taught in the Practical Nursing program.
“Throughout my years at Camosun I’ve taught many, many courses, labs, field practicums, I’ve done curriculum development, and worked with accreditation, and during COVID I taught online and worked with one of the first groups of students allowed back on campus in the lab under heavy COVID restrictions. It was a challenge but what an opportunity to exercise our creatitvity!”
I asked Julia what she enjoys most about teaching. “It’s the people. I have been so fortunate to have worked with some of the very best people on the planet and that has made work a joy! When you present heavier topics, it takes work to make it interesting for students, especially when working with challenging topics such as death and dying. Teaching can be exhausting for me, however when you try something new and creative and it works, the students get it, they’re having fun, they’re all engaged…that’s magic to me. That’s Disneyland. It is worth every milligram of effort you put into your classes. I always also hope that I’m making a positive difference for all. I love hearing back from students who have graduated and knowing that I’ve somehow helped them along the way to achieve a job that they are enjoying. There’s no better reward.”
I asked Julia if the past few years, after the COVID move to online teaching, had an impact on her teaching. “At that time, I found it so challenging to keep them engaged. But I learned that we have to keep working at it. At the time, I was teaching HCA’s and Practical Nursing courses and engagement was challenging, especially in Collaborate with their cameras off. I couldn’t see their facial expressions, I couldn’t read the class which was frustrating. So, I started putting up the white board at the start of the class, and wrote student names on it asking them to write down five points from last class, one at a time. And they loved that.” Julia brought that whiteboard activity into the in-person classroom. “The classes move very quickly and there is a huge amount of material students need to understand. So, I divided them into pairs, and each pair was responsible to give a summary on the board in the classroom [although they could opt out if they wanted to very few chose to do so]. At the start of the class, they had 15 minutes to summarize what they thought were the main points from the last class, (I could fill in the gaps afterwards, if necessary). Students are brilliant when you give them the opportunity to take charge of their learning! They would come in early and fill the boards with review material. They asked each other questions and then at the end of the course they voted on whose presentation they thought was most useful – not the best presentation, but the most useful. Other students would also correct presenters if they saw something inaccurate – it was a peer review rather than a teacher review. We had a lot of fun with that exercise.”
But one thing Julia has noticed since coming back in person is the rise in anxiety levels of students. “We do a lot of testing, and many students are struggling. COVID changed how we teach, but I think our teaching perhaps needs to change even more. We need to look at how do we deal with the anxieties and ask questions like, is testing still the best way to assess students?”
One of the cohorts Julia co-facilitates is the ESL HCA cohort which runs for an entire year rather than six months. “Students take HCA courses in the morning, Monday through Friday, and they have ELD (English Language Development) courses Monday to Thursday afternoons with Friday afternoons off. The ELD instructors work closely with the HCA instructors, sometimes coming to the labs, listening to the types of things students need to say and the kind of work they are doing. Then the ELD instructors will go over terminology and the language skills students need in their classes. Classes are small, and we work at a slower pace.” Julia has co-facilitated this course with another HCA instructor, Heather, for years. “We have a rhythm, and work with language skills alongside the practicum skills. They are dedicated students, who have been very successful.” What Julia and other instructors have discovered is that the methods they use with the HCA ESL classes can also be used to support other regular HCA courses where there are often large numbers of international students or students who have English as a second language.
One of Julia’s favourite memories to share from her years of teaching was “Moving from the Lansdowne campus to the new CHW building at Interurban and into new lab space. The building is a beautiful space to teach and learn in. We have been able to provide so many engaging experiences for students. We are so privileged to be able to engage in such a phenomenal place.” Another more recent highlight which provided much pride and joy was participating with the Practical Nursing students in this year’s IDE Festival. The students ‘rocked it! I was so proud of each and every one of them.”
I asked Julia, who is retiring this July, what advice she might have for new faculty coming to teach at Camosun. “Let the students guide their learning. Yes, we hold knowledge, but we need to be able to share that stage and share the load, and work in partnership with students. We can then become facilitators, not just instructors. Every time you run a course change it up a little. Put a little of yourself in your course, share some of your own stories and connect the content to something real.” As for final words for all of us, Julia says what she ultimately wishes for our students is that they will find a strong passion during their journey here, just as she has found throughout her journey of teaching.