Finding Hope Circuits: A CETL Book Club Reflection

This past Winter term, the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Book Club participants read Hope Circuits: Rewiring Universities and Other Organizations for Human Flourishing by Canadian educator, Jessica Riddell. I chose this book after it was introduced to me at a meeting of the B.C. Teaching and Learning Council last May. Aside from the word “hope” in the title (aren’t we all searching for hope these days?), I was especially intrigued because the book is grounded in a Canadian post-secondary education context. In this post I will introduce you to the book in general, then jump into some of my own thoughts coming out of the discussions our group had over four weeks. Note that I will be presenting points from the book based on my own takeaways, and the ideas I have chosen to focus on arise from the context in which we find ourselves today, both in our post-secondary institutions and on the world stage.

Riddell poses many questions in Hope Circuits, but in general asks: “How do we model abundance and generosity – in teaching, in learning, in leading organizations, particularly non-profits – when dealing with fiscal austerity and other forms of scarcity thinking?” To explore this, she has divided the book into a series of chapters related to what it might mean to conceive of and build what she calls “Hope University.”

In Chapter 1: “How do we Hope?” Riddell explores the nature of higher education and the connection of post-secondary institutions to our broader societies. She explains the concept of hope circuits, which was inspired by research into mapping electrical pathways in the brain, saying “if we can understand the logic of how an electrical system is wired, how a brain uses wiring to transmit information that shapes behaviour, and by extension how we live and work within systems that wired us in certain ways, then we can begin to illuminate where and how we might go about rewriting systems for human flourishing.” And we can ask “what does it look like if we can build hopeful systems where individuals and communities flourish?”

Not surprisingly, Riddell recognizes the many disconnects when considering institutional values (which should lead to flourishing) versus what we reward and support systemically in our institutions (which often lead to conflict and discouragement,) stating “to move past what is rotten at the system level, we must be willing to remember and unlearn.” In other words, maintaining our status quo will not lead us forward into a flourishing future, or into Hope University. To move beyond our current state, Riddell advises us to acknowledge some of the realities of our higher education systems:

  • Our systems are built on mystification and exclusion.
  • Our systems are built on precarity and insecurity.
  • Our systems are built to be siloed and hierarchical.
  • Our systems are built on conditions of austerity and scarcity.

While we like to believe we are moving away from these realities by embracing Indigenization, decolonization, equity, diversity, inclusion, Universal Design for Learning, innovation, etc., Riddell wonders if this is true when our current systems “are built on mystification and exclusion, predicated on colonization, racism, ableism, classism, and other forms of discrimination” and when “many [of our] policies no longer serve our communities, and many more never served equity-deserving and historically excluded groups.” She adds, in fact, “at many of our institutions, innovation, delight, and transformation happen despite the conditions in which we work and learn, not because of them.”

Finally, in her discussion of the concept of “hope,” and creating frameworks for it, Riddell states that for her purpose, “hope is a theoretical framework and a verb, a moment and a mindset
hope is as much a thought prompt as a call to action. It will be different for each reader.” Most of all, though, she says “hope is deliberate and intentional
[and] manifests when we intentionally perform incremental steps toward solutions we imagine. Only then can hope move from a thought experiment
to a set of actions, a mindset, and a social movement.” And most importantly, for the discussion in our book club group, hope is NOT optimism, and “in our pursuit of hope, we must also be mindful there is room for hopelessness
” The last thing we need when trying to navigate through challenges and crises is to deny that hopelessness (as well as rage and heartbreak) is an integral part of the process, rather than the opposite of hope. Then, to build hope circuits (and Hope University), Riddell tells us we need to slow down, surface our systems, practice divergent thinking, commit to learning and unlearning, live in the questions, stay with the trouble, reimagine authority and expertise, take a systems-level approach, change our language to change the world, and build intentional community.

From there, Riddell plunges us into Chapters 2 through 10 which are concerned with specific themes around what Hope University can be and how we Value, Learn, Teach, Mentor, Lead, Research, Govern, Fund, and Build it, with each chapter exploring these concepts as they exist in post-secondary institutions now, and how we need to rethink them to create something new.

Throughout the book, Riddell poses many questions based on conversations with hundreds of people in the post-secondary sector, but she provides us with no easy answers, acknowledging the presence of a certain amount of “gappiness” in her discussion. Some specific ideas that stood out to me as I read and discussed the book include:

  • The timeliness of this book and the subject of finding hope and rethinking higher education considering the current conditions Canadian post-secondary institutions are finding themselves in.
  • The idea that crisis is a feature of life and the world, not a flaw, and that we should use times of crisis to lean into creativity (and my own thought around this is that this is very difficult if you do not feel that your entire institutional community is on board with leaning into creativity.)
  • The definition of learner (humans) versus students (units) and how we are often encouraged to count/track student numbers to support our financial stability.
  • The concept of governance versus leadership and how governance exists to sustain an institution over the long-term, while leadership is temporary and based on an individual’s short-term goals and vision.
  • The puzzle of what it means to flourish, and that happiness is a moment whereas flourishing is a mindset (and for me, flourishing takes a village – it is very challenging to flourish if you feel you are alone.)
  • How in some ways we are trapped as part of a hierarchical, colonial institution which leads us to ask ourselves: can we simply renovate our systems, or do we need to demolish them and rebuild them in a new image? I wonder though, can we truly re-vision post-secondary education if we leave existing governance, support, and policy systems in place? Can we truly Indigenize and decolonize an institution without pulling apart institutional systems (it’s not just about Indigenizing your curriculum
)?

In the end, my own conclusion around the concepts Riddell discusses in Hope Circuits is rebuilding or re-visioning our institutions is challenging when people in various roles (from the faculty who support students in the classroom, to institutional leadership, to governance bodies) have different ideas of what post-secondary education should look like. And right now, we seem to be stuck between our belief that education is a fundamental human right that should be accessible to all, and needing to make money to survive (in part due to decision-making outside of our institutional control), therefore making post-secondary education inaccessible to many.

Our discussion group, on our last day together, asked ourselves what gives our work as educators meaning, and we wondered: Is the purpose of higher education to produce workers or to support students to grow as human beings? But whatever our purpose, in order to realize it we need to take a systemic approach – it’s not about us as individuals, or even as an individual institution – we are part of a much larger network. But for the moment, what we can do is to discover what creates meaning for ourselves, to see students as learners, not beans to be counted, and to lean into what we do well and support each other to do better.

If you are considering joining the next faculty book club, please see CETL’s Calendar of Upcoming Events.

(Interview with Jessica Riddell)

Zero Textbook Cost Courses at Camosun Story #3: Community, Family, and Child Studies (CFCS)

In this third story of Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) at Camosun, I take a look at the Community, Family, and Child Studies (CFCS) department, which offers five diploma and certificate programs along with their health university transfer courses:

The CFCS diploma program itself, which “prepares [students] to promote, support and strengthen the well-being of individuals and families [and] where graduates work as caring, ethical professionals who adapt to meet current and emergent community needs,” already offers nine ZTC courses and is committed to eliminating costly course materials for more of its courses in the future. The courses in the CFCS diploma program which are currently ZTC are:

  • CFCS110: Foundations for Practice
  • CFCS114: Professional Practice 1
  • CFCS140: Introduction to Community Resources & Supports
  • CFCS141: Service Learning
  • CFCS210: Diversity Across the Lifespan
  • CFCS214: Professional Practice 2
  • CFCS230: Support Strategies 1
  • CFCS240: Practicum 1
  • CFCS241: Practicum 2

The EACS program, which prepares students “to support individuals with acquired and/or developmental disabilities both ethically and professionally in the context of home, school, work, and community settings,” offers five ZTC courses:

  • CSEA111: Practicum 1
  • CSEA112: Practicum 2
  • CSEA115: Current Practice Issues
  • CSEA175: Ethical/Professional Practice
  • EDUC 116: Health and Disability

Finally, eight other courses in the CFCS department are currently flagged as ZTC:

  • In the ELC program, ELC160: Community Observations, ELC212: Guiding Relationships 2, ELC240: Practicum 2, ELC241: Infant/Toddler Practice, and ELC242: Inclusive Practice
  • In the IMHA program, IMHA536: Professionalism in Practice and IMHA540: Practicum
  • In the MHA program, MHA140: Practicum
  • And HLTH113: Creativity and Health

I would be remiss if I did not include links to a few stories about some of the amazing faculty in these programs:

  • Danielle from ELC who spoke about an open pedagogy project her students worked on,
  • Asha from EACS (interviewed during COVID), who has been working to move more of her courses to ZTC,
  • Robin from CFCS (interviewed during COVID) who was also a colleague of mine in CETL for two years,
  • Kristin from MHA, who is currently working on a faculty workshop related to the many challenges we (faculty and student) are currently facing in our classrooms,
  • Jessica (interviewed during COVID) from ELC who is always excited to try new things to better support her students, and
  • Michelle, who is currently the department’s chair, and is always interested in exploring new ways to offer courses and programs.

I want to thank Michelle Jaworsky, chair of the CFCS department, and all the faculty in her area for taking the time to provide me with this information.

Camosun Story #105: Diane and the Self-Care Cafe

Diane is a faculty member in the BSN (Bachelor of Science, Nursing) program at the college, starting in 2012 as a term instructor. Before teaching, Diane looked forward to the days when nursing students would come into her unit at the hospital “I was always proud to see the students and walk them through their day in the unit, and I wanted to be a part of that process. Then one day one of my former instructors suggested I bring my resume to the BSN department chair, who asked if I would like to teach Consolidated Practice Experience (CPE) during the spring term. I thought it would be a good opportunity to teach because I enjoyed having the students at the bedside with me. That’s when I fell in love with the process of taking novice learners from a place of uncertainty to the next level, a place of being able to provide care safely and with confidence. The look in my students’ eyes as they step into their own nursing practice with intention and joy filled me with purpose, and I love fostering an environment of growth.”

Diane taught CPE for a few years, then her chair asked if she would be interested in teaching the lab section. “The lab precedes CPE, and I was curious to see how I could prepare students for the practice experience. I taught the lab a couple of years while also nursing. I was fortunate to have a supportive nurse educator at work who knew and understood how important it was to allow full-time nursing staff to explore other avenues, and because I was supported, I would come back refreshed and with a new appreciation for the work I did during the year as a nurse at the bedside.” I loved my work as a nurse and as a nurse educator.

After a few years, Diane’s life shifted. There was a choice to make. In taking a full-time nursing position, there would be no further opportunities for teaching. She asked herself “at this stage of my life, what is most important and meaningful for me to do? I realized I needed to choose teaching, this way, if I wanted to pick up shifts as a nurse I still could. In 2017, I started full-time as a term instructor, becoming continuing in 2020. Since then, I’ve worked with students in all three years of their program.

I then asked Diane if she could talk to me about an initiative she brought to the college from Island Health, called the Self-Care CafĂ©. “When I was a new nurse, I was working on a very heavy medical floor. One of my fellow nurses, Laura, who was also a close friend, and I realized we needed a place to process and talk about our moral distress, ethical decision making, and the challenges of the reality of our work.” Thus, the Blue Fox Cafe became a go-to place once a month after night shifts for conversation. One day, we thought, wouldn’t it be nice if we had a place where we could talk with other nurses as well to learn about dealing with the complexities of our work. We floated the idea with our peers, asking, what would you think if there was a little space and time provided each month where nurses could revisit self care practices with an opportunity to talk about subjects that we deal with but seldom discuss (moral distress, stress, etc.). Everybody we talked to said, ‘we need a place to do this
we do want this.’ My friend Laura and I believed we needed space to gather for connection, with beverages and nibblies, and in 2019, The Self-Care CafĂ© was born. We booked a large room for two hours, once a month and waited. We noticed that while all kinds of people from the hospital were coming (lab, pharmacy, medical imaging, and so on), the nurses were not, because they could not get off the floor. We used colorful hand made posters to promote activities like art and music to draw people in and we moved to a drop-in model to accommodate more people. Additionally, we also started a guest speaker series for those who could come and be present for a specific period of time (but still provided a drop-in space). These sessions were offered in person and as well as online via zoom. The drop-in sessions enabled people to stop in for the time they could. And nursing started coming. Laura and I were funding the project on our own for several months and after doing this for 6 months or so, one of the managers from the hospital joined a Self Care CafĂ© and we quickly received support from administration. They covered the coffee and goodies as well as our photocopying.” The self-care cafĂ© has continued to grow, but then in 2020, COVID hit. “You couldn’t do things in person, and Laura and I believed that the self care cafe had to be in-person, so we took a pause.” During that time, Diane transitioned to Camosun full-time. When restrictions lightened, Laura created a team, and the Island Health self-care cafĂ© came back and today is thriving and has grown exponentially. The Self Care CafĂ© in island health is now known across a variety of hospitals and each session sees easily over 250 people (or more).

In 2020, now at Camosun, Diane decided to start a self care cafĂ© in the Health and Human Services (HHS) building to support students who need to be practicing self-care. “I asked my chair if I could put out coffee and tea and see what the appetite was.” Diane brought in the coffee, tea, and goodies and it didn’t take long for the students to find them. “I find that people need to be nurtured mind, body, and soul – and people love a treat, so the coffee and the tea are essential.” Students are invited to be creative in the self-care cafĂ© as well. “The art activities open the door to people’s creativity and while they busy themselves with art they decompress, chat, laugh, and share a moment or two with a friend. Even if they don’t think they are artists, the next thing you know, they’re there for an hour, painting with their knapsacks on. Students enjoy having a space where there are no rubrics and no expectations. I even had a student come, sit down, close his eyes and just rest in the space with all the hubbub going around. Afterwards, he told me it was just what he needed to recharge. Having time and space allows for gathering, sharing, talking and connections are made. It’s important for students to meet other students from different programs. Sharing a moment in common builds community. And there’s laughter and joy. This spice of life reminds us to be at ease and to be ourselves. This is also an important aspect of renewing our energy.

In 2023, faculty members then working as Multimedia Support Specialists (MSS), Cristina Petersen and Sarah McCagherty, visited the self-care cafĂ© and asked to join in. “It was getting harder to do by myself. Sarah and Cristina showed up and with passion and zest drafted a proposal to advocate for a small budget to allow us to get the basics, like coffee urns, a little cart to put everything on, and the ability to set up a self-care cafĂ© on both campuses. In 2024, Nick Travers and Beth Konomoto also joined, as time permitted, and we ran the cafĂ© twice a month for two hours, one at each campus, with coffee, tea, goodies, and an opportunity to create art projects for people to take away with them. Another person who has been involved is Rebekah Prette, our librarian. Rebekah has offered to curate books for each of the themes. When Rebekah comes, we have a Little Book Nook where students can sign out books of interest while at the CafĂ©. It’s been a beautiful experience to work with such lovely and interesting colleagues who believe in student support and connecting students to resources. As well, these individuals are also invested in creating space for the practice of self care in our lives.

“Art is something we can do together – it’s encouraging and fun and gets people talking and sharing. At one session, Mary Willbond donated little terracotta pots with little plants. These succulent babies were such a hit
everyone wanted a little plant. I thought the students were going to paint rocks, but they loved decorating their little pots instead. In 2024, we had different themes each month to inspire our activities. September was Intention, October was Gratitude. November was Reflection. December was Celebration.”

While everyone is invited to the self-care cafĂ©, it is mostly students who come, although Diane finds “that some instructors who know about it will include a short break in their classes so their students can come down and refresh themselves. Sometimes they will also come in with their students and participate.” Diane does think the self-care cafĂ© needs to ‘travel’ to different departments to provide those staff and students with a little pause in their day. “We need to make it easier for people to stop in the middle of their day for some self-care. If a self care activity comes to us, and we’re offered a little break, then taking some time becomes permissible and more feasible.” I asked Diane, could others at the college join in to support the self-care cafĂ©? “Yes. Because with people from different departments, we could expand the focus from just HHS students, for example, we could do an English department focus.”

I wondered if Diane could share any memories that reminded her of the importance of the cafĂ©. “A young student, whose first language was not English, came in, and I offered her a cup of tea. She asked where she should pay, and I told her she did not have to pay – this space was for students to sit down and be with others, maybe to create some art, or not. She took her tea, looking thoughtful, and I asked her if anything was wrong, and she started to cry. I asked her why she was upset, and she told me she couldn’t believe there was a place where other people cared about her as a person encouraging her to take time out to relax and do something enjoyable – that had never happened to her before. She always had to study hard to prove herself, and here was someone she didn’t know doing something for her.

Another time, I had a student come in who just needed to talk, and that day I was a listening ear. And a group of students at Interurban, told me, ‘You know what we like about coming here? There’s no expectation. We don’t have to strain to hear your instructions. We don’t have to worry about doing the right thing. It’s ok okay for us to just relax.”

Diane does have dreams for the self-care cafĂ© at Camosun. “Perhaps we could work in partnerships with programs where their students could come in and offer program-related services during the cafĂ©, like massages or music. We could also offer a guest speaker series on self-care like we did at Island Health, although that is a bit more challenging because students can’t always come for a longer period of time. But if we recorded guest speakers, those recordings could be shared and used either as part of a class or for anyone to watch on their own time.” Finally, Diane would like to give the cafĂ© more of an online presence, perhaps using Instagram to share and promote it for the Camosun community. Diane is running the cafĂ© off the side of her desk, not as a part of her regular work.

As we came to the end of our time togethers, Diane wanted to thank all the people who have supported the self-care cafĂ©. “It takes a team, a community, to make the self-care cafĂ© work. I’m especially grateful to Artemis (the Indigenous Coordinator for HHS) who has been a huge supporter and promoter of the self care cafĂ© since day one.” I appreciate the time and energy Sarah, Cristina, Nick, Beth, and Rebekah have given. As The Self Care CafĂ© is an initiative we participate in our spare time and while balancing our work responsibilities, I am grateful and mindful that folks participate as time permits.

I would enjoy the following:  Connecting with an Elder to discuss and design a meaningful communal art project. I think the departments of arts, woodworking, steel, and machinery need to be included. The artwork itself would be ‘Self Care in action’. All students across the college would have a hand and a part to play in this process. The Legacy of it would be a monument or a display or a mural that stays on location. This would serve as a visual reminder that we have been here, that we shared some time together, that what we do matters, and that as a part of our Journey at this College, we have left our mark. I think the process of crafting the art would allow for hours of self care thus showcasing self care with purpose and meaning. What more could I ask for?

And like Diane, I thought that would be an amazing idea.

Camosun Story #104: Allison

A long-time Human Resources (HR) professional, Allison has been teaching in the Management & Human Resources Leadership (MHRL) program at Camosun for over eight years. “I started teaching at MacEwan University in their HR program when I got a little bored with my day job. But when we moved to Victoria, after talking to a Camosun instructor at a Christmas party, I sent the only cold email I’ve ever sent in my life to the MHRL department chair who asked me to send in my resume. then that summer, the chair called to see if I was still interested in teaching, and they loaded me up with two courses that fall. I taught as a term instructor for three semesters before becoming continuing, and eight years later, here we are.” And so, Allison moved from a full-time HR professional teaching part-time, to a full-time instructor continuing as an HR professional on the side.

Allison told me she loves teaching HR Management Foundations. “I had a section of Sport Management students last semester and they’re a hoot. I also teach Training and Development, Current Trends in HR Management, and Strategic Compensation.” And I wondered what she enjoyed most about teaching. “Oh, you should have been in class with me on Tuesday night, with my Current Trends in HR Management class. In this course, we don’t use a textbook – we build the curriculum together through research, guest speakers, etc. and the course culminates teams delivering a symposium on what they are interested in. The work of the three teams this semester was exceptional and in the room that night there was joy, there was magic, and there was learning. And the students do it all. I just hold the space for them, supporting them, answering their questions, and giving them ideas if they get stuck.”

I asked Allison more about how she mentors students in her courses. “I took my 400-level class to an event called DisruptHR where a number of speakers have 5 minutes each to talk about something they think is highly disruptive in human resources. We went as a class, which was a wonderful bonding experience, then debriefed during the next class. But the side benefit for me was running into 40 or 50 people I had crossed paths with at various stages of their learning. To see them now at this exciting HR event, making connections and succeeding in their HR careers, is about as good as it gets as a teacher. But I was also introducing my current students to these grads, who could ask them question about where they were working, and what they were doing. So, it was a both a good networking opportunity for my students and a glimpse into their futures.”

Allison also has past students come into the classroom to talk to her current students. “We’ve had graduates come to the Open House at the beginning of November, and three past students participated on a panel for my 400-level class. One works for an HR consulting firm helping various organizations, one started as s co-op students in government and is now leading strategic communication for an area in the provincial government, and the third one works for a small Victoria company as the sole HR person. The fact they have a full-time HR professional is amazing, and to hear what it’s like for her to be the only one driving all the HR work at her organization, was a big eye opener for students. Many students in the course wrote their panel reflections on the HR grad panel (the other panel was workplace leaders), because what was relevant for them in that moment was hearing from those graduates.”

Allison was recognized for her work with accessibility in 2024 and I asked about how she got here. “My father is a retired educational psychologist who worked in post secondary institutions. I remember dinner conversations about challenges students faced in those institutions, international students, new immigrants, Indigenous students, and at that time, we were also just starting to understand learning disabilities and my dad had to provide support for those students. So, I grew up understanding that you had to always consider what was going on for other people, and that the way you learned didn’t necessarily work for somebody else.” And her experience working in HR over the years has affirmed that everyone’s story is indeed a bit different, and you need to keep opening your mind so you can support them.

One example Allison shared was from her training and development course. “We teach students how to write training objectives.  For the mid-term, I chose what I thought was a simple topic for them to create training objectives for: making a bed. Most students talked about folding hospital corners and making sure pillows were fluffed, but one student said that you have to follow the instructions and bang the nails in until things are secure. And I realized, oh, make a bed. I share that story with the training & development students, because you can think you’re giving them crystal-clear instructions, and someone will tell you about going to Home Depot to get the lumber to make the bed.” In the end, Allison says, “I have 35 unique individuals in my class, and all of them learn in different ways. My job is to support them as much as I’m able and I have a professional obligation to keep learning about people and adapting. As soon as I stop doing that as an instructor, I will have passed my best-before date.” I asked Allison how she supports that diversity in the classroom. “It can’t just be once a year during SD. It has to be every day. When a student is struggling, you need to pause and really listen to why are they struggling – don’t assume. You’ve got to pay attention. If something doesn’t seem to be connecting, check in with the student and respect what they tell you and ask yourself what’s within your sphere of control to change.”

I also wondered how trying to support the diverse needs of students shows up in Allison’s assessments. “The assessments change all the time, sometimes just a tweak, but recently we made a massive change. About a third of our students were struggling with the assessments in HR Foundations, so we revised the structure and eliminated ambiguity where we could. We provide them with a template to complete, and every step of the template has a link to an example. While some people wonder if we are spoon-feeding, I don’t see it that way because we’ve seen students who were struggling succeed; students who might have failed before are now passing. The format of the assessments is rigid in some respects, but that rigidity helps them build good habits, and if we start them off with the best possible habits, then they have a solid foundation to lean on as they move forward.”

Allison has been doing a few new things with her teaching recently. Last fall, she piloted a new asynchronous online class. First, she told me that this particular course is her favourite to teach. “We coach students working in teams, and every semester without fail, seven of the nine teams hit it out of the ballpark. The eighth team does ok, but the ninth struggles. In the 2 two fully online pilot sections, there were seven slightly larger teams in each. Five did really well, one trundled along not too badly, and one struggled. I didn’t assume this pattern would be the same, but somehow that is how it turned out.” But overall, Allison said the asynchronous course went well. “While some content for this class works better in person than other content, if we can offer an asynchronous section of it once a year for students, I think that’s important, and it’s something that we can be proud of as our builds up our roster of high-quality asynchronous courses.”

Last year in one section of the new online course Allison piloted Bongo, a video assignments tool which integrates into D2L (note that we do not currently have a licence for this tool but are only investigating it with the support of a few faculty.) “Kristina Andrew knew that I had been considering a video final exam, and after participating in a Bongo demo, I wanted to try it in the pilot online training and development course for both the final exam and the team Training Project – to try to make the Training Project more engaging like it is in the in-person class classroom. I knew it would not be the same, but I wanted students to have the same sense of collaboration and learning from each other, in the online classroom, and Bongo seemed like a great solution.” Allison ended up with two sections of the online course, but because the Bongo pilot only allowed for one, Kristina introduced her to H5P as an alternate solution for the second section. “While Bongo is a video creation tool. H5P objects can create slides into which you can insert video. What I found fascinating is that the assignment in the H5P section has, in many ways, been more creative than in the Bongo section.”

But Allison also set up the final exam for the Bongo-pilot course using Bongo as well. “Students read a case incident, have two hours to practice, and their final submission is a three-minute video explaining their solution to the case incident.” Allison told me that if the final exam worked well (our interview was before the final exam), she would consider switching the final exam in all sections, online and in-person, to a video final exam.

For some additional context, Allison did give students a heads-up email about being a part of the Bongo and H5P pilots. “I told them about the pilot and warned them that no matter how well I’ve planned it, things are going to go wrong because it’s new technology. In addition, coordinating a team project in person is hard, and even more challenging in an asynchronous course with a heavy reliance on creating video. And I said, if this is not for you, the course will be in-person in the next term.” She also built in practice with the tools for both the team assignment and the final exam. A full final exam practice using the identical process to the actual final exam was included in both sections. And Allison’s impression of the pilot?  “I will be cautiously optimistic and say that the pilot has gone pretty well.”

Finally, I asked Allison what advice she might have for new faculty coming to teach at Camosun. “I would tell them to breathe – it will be okay. You will feel completely overwhelmed for at least a few weeks, and that’s normal. We are here for you, to get you through. I’m proud to say that in our department our goal is to give each new instructor as much support as we can: syllabi, Master D2L courses, to-do lists built right into D2L. And then we connect with them when their first assignments come in, when their first quizzes are completed, etc. If you’re overwhelmed and disoriented, that is normal, and it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you! There’s so much to learn when you start so let us help you. We’re here to support students, but we’re also here to support each other.”

Camosun Story #103: Natasha

Natasha has been one of my Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) colleagues for the past four years and is our Education Developer for Indigenization, sharing “my Haida name is Sk’ing lĂșudas, which means Bow Wave and I’ve been in Indigenous education for over ten years.” Natasha is a certified B.C. teacher and completed her professional diploma for teaching at the University of Victoria (UVic) saying, “my pathway to Camosun was through my work in a local school district where I spent seven years teaching in Indigenous education during the COVID years.” During this time, she also completed her Master’s in Indigenous Governance also at UVic.” But when Natasha saw the job posting at Camosun, she thought maybe it was the next step for her. And in her role here, Natasha “supports faculty and others in their learning journey towards decolonizing and Indigenizing both professionally and personally.”

I asked Natasha if she could tell me what her work was like in the school district compared to her work at the college. “My role was similar in that I supported teachers and staff throughout the school and within the school district. But it was a little different because the focus was to meet with students who self-identified as Indigenous, support them academically, meet with families, work on lessons in collaboration with teachers, bring in guest speakers, etc. I have brought many similar aspects into my work at Camosun. Here, I enjoy collaborative projects, try to bring Elders into learning opportunities, and engage in experiential learning where we’re getting up and moving around all of which fits well with what we already do in CETL around active learning and relational practices. I also recognize that I’m not Coast Salish, which is why it’s important to bring Elder/Knowledge Keeper voices or resources or videos into our spaces so we can hear directly from ləkÌ“Ê·É™Ć‹É™n and W̱SÁNEĆ viewpoints.”

Natasha’s work in CETL runs from providing one-on-one support, through running short Indigenous learning opportunities and longer-term workshops, to supporting Indigenous learning opportunities run by others at the college. “We are supporting TELĆŠIN TĆŠE WILNEW: Understanding Indigenous Peoples (TTW), ƚW̱,È»ENEáčˆITEL: Doing Good Work Together (TTW2) (both run by Eyēʔ Sqȃ’lewen), and the KAIROS Blanket Exercise (run by Human Resources (HR)) which have all been very powerful experiential learning opportunities for people. The KAIROS Blanket Exercise is a three-hour session with a trained facilitator who leads participants through 500 years of colonization, with each participant taking on the role of Indigenous person and feeling and seeing the impacts of colonization over time. It started as a CCFA-funded opportunity but has been now taken up as a regular HR offering, demonstrating ally-ship across Camosun College.”

As for how she approaches working with people, Natasha says “my starting place is always to ask where someone is at and what they are interested in so we can explore how to expand from that position.” One of the initiatives Natasha has picked up to help people explore, is the Indigenous Education Community of Practice (CoP), which was initially led by Ruth Lyall. “The CoP has evolved over time and people have come and gone. Right now, in addition to general discussion, we are exploring W̱SÁNEĆ values, one in each session, to set the tone for our time together. For example, during one session we had an hour-long conversation about initiative, and what it means to us as educators. Thinking about these values is a way helping us reconnect with our humanness and the way that we want to be in the world.”

Natasha says the most important work she has been engaged with is co-facilitating the Working Together: Indigenizing your Curriculum workshop series with Charlotte Sheldrake, who specializes in curricular alignment, which is “an eight-month commitment for faculty. Charlotte and I facilitate four three-hour sessions with a group of instructors, where we talk about why they want to Indigenize their courses what their personal commitments are to it, and about how to do it. The nature of the program is interdisciplinary, and we learn from each other. It’s exciting because people from all over the college participate: from accounting or computer science or biology – anybody can Indigenize their course, from one small aspect of the course to a complete revision. As long as course learning outcomes stay the same, instructors can integrate new assessments, add a book club, or build relationality into the classroom and it’s amazing to see how instructors Indigenize in different ways.” Participants also select an Indigenous learning framework to work with for the program. “They could choose the Circle of Courage or the five R’s of Indigenous Pedagogy Research (Relationships, Respect, Relevance, Responsibility, Reciprocity) and then align the framework with their course learning outcomes.

Natasha also works with individual faculty members and department or program groups who have questions about Indigenizing their courses and programs. “In our Curriculog system at Camosun, course developers are asked how they have Indigenized their course or program. But they are also asked, in what ways are you making space or providing learning or teaching opportunities for Indigenizing which helps people think about the how. Developers might reach out to me, which is opportunity to have a discussion and be curious together.” Natasha also runs Sparkshops on Territorial Acknowledgements. “That’s been a big part of the puzzle for me at Camosun, and over time, my own understanding around Territorial Acknowledgements has changed and shifted.” In addition, Natasha notes the importance of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its place in post secondary education. “One gap we’re currently exploring is how the Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) affects us in education. This 2019 B.C. act is derived from the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and addresses anti-racism, using a distinctions-based approach where we start with the territories our feet are planted in (localization of knowledge and language) then go from there.” This work was highlighted as an action item by the Truth and Reconciliation Action Committee Phase 2.

As we moved into discussing UNDRIP, I wondered if Natasha could share a bit about her work with Camosun’s Anti-Racism and Decolonization Action Committee. “I’m very aware that I’m a person of privilege: I’m educated, middle class, female, white passing and I hope I can use my voice to support social justice and equity. In 2022, I was asked by Artemis Fire to co-facilitate the Anti-Racism and Decolonization Action Committee at Camosun which includes people from all areas of the college. We meet once a month bringing action items to the table and have written letters to leadership and raised awareness around various issues, including mitigating harm when it comes to faculty feedback. We also work to support the Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion role in a variety of ways.”

I asked Natasha what she is working on now and what she might be planning for the future. “Last year, we held a movie event to watch the documentary Lii Michif Niiyanaan: We are MĂ©tis and Camosun faculty and students, as well as people from community, attended. It’s important to bring attention to the MĂ©tis and Inuit perspectives as well to First Nations perspectives, and to increase our understanding of other Indigenous peoples in what we now know is Canada.” Another project Natasha and CETL will be involved with is the development of a SENĆOĆŠEN language course, in collaboration with SENĆOĆŠEN speakers. During the spring, Natasha also runs an on-the-land learning series where people can learn more about these territories with each other. “These workshops have involved learning in Camas Gardens, visiting the Royal BC Museum, getting out to PKOLS, and taking the ləkÌ“Ê·É™Ć‹É™n spindle whorls tour downtown.” But Natasha knows that sometimes limits of time and capacity means some events need to be put aside. “Last year, we participated a sweat lodge with Elder Robert George of Cowichan Nation. I’d never done one before, and it was a wonderful experience. These learning opportunities mean a full day for faculty and Knowledge Keepers and take a lot of behind-the-scenes organization. It’s important to slow down and thoughtfully consider when/how/where to engage in these wholistic on-the-land learning opportunities.” Then Natasha told me what these opportunities meant to her: “We need to get back on the land and recognize that the land and the waters are our first teachers. Our ancestors learned by, over thousands of years, watching the seasons, watching trees grow, watching animals come and go. In our Indigenous ways, we’re taught to watch the landscape and to follow the lead of the environment, which is something we don’t really do today.”

I wondered if, in her four years so far at Camosun, if there have been some standout moments for Natasha. “My work on the Integrated Curriculum Council (ICC) has been interesting, as we explore the power of learning outcomes, recognize that our scope as educators is connected to those learning outcomes, and reimagine what education could look like. One recent change is that the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program now includes learning outcomes on anti-racist and positionality. Faculty in these programs need support, which is why the Camosun/UVIC BSN (Nursing) Curriculum and Evaluation Standing Committee (CESC) reached out to CETL for guidance. Together, we are co-creating a BSN Anti-Racism Faculty Development Project.  “We consider the power of learning outcomes and the words that we use to describe them; we need to consider from whose perspective the learning outcomes are being created. For example, are our learning outcomes inclusive of an Indigenous student’s understanding of the world? We need to ensure that we make space for Indigenous voices and knowledge to exist in their own right alongside western ways of knowing, being, and doing.” This can be difficult because sometimes it can feel like Indigenizing is another layer to add onto everything else faculty are having to do. “As people are feeling time constrained, we need to ask, what are those things we’re holding onto that we can let go of – for example, if activities or assessments are not relevant for students, or don’t build relationship within the classroom. It’s okay to keep evolving and changing and asking, what do our students need 
 how can we support students to be all that they can be?”

As we began to come to the end of our time together, I asked Natasha what kind of advice she had for faculty just starting out at Camosun. “I would encourage people to know what their rights are in terms of professional development time. The time we have through our collective agreement has nurtured my connection with my own community, to be able to go to Haida Gwaii, spend time with my mentors and stay connected to my culture. I would encourage new faculty to seek out and find people who you really connect with and just grow together. I also want to highlight CETL because we have so many amazing workshops and learning opportunities. The Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW), for example, is a wonderful way to increase your confidence in teaching and help you find new inspiration. And finally, connect with instructional designers in eLearning as you develop your courses – the whole team of instructional designers work hard behind the scenes to make your life easier!”

Natasha added that “the learning never stops and there are many amazing people here, and from all over, you can learn from, so keep an open mind and consider everything as part of your learning experience. Finally, Indigenizing, decolonizing, is about intentionally transforming the way we think and the way we do things, and it can be hard. Take time and take care of yourself but also push yourself into the learning zone as you engage in the hard work of decolonizing. Continue to ask, is there another way to do what we’re doing, are there things we can get rid of to make space for Indigenizing, and explore how different Indigenous values like the 5R’s can help us reimagine what education can look like as we move into the future.”

Camosun Story #102: Steve

Steve is a faculty member and chair of Camosun’s Management & HR Leadership program. “I am a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) and have worked in hotels and hospitality for many years. While I liked my job, something was missing, and I was curious about what else was out there for me. Then, one of my CPA friends who also worked at Royal Roads University (RRU) asked if I had ever considered teaching. So, I started teaching online classes as a term faculty member at RRU and loved it. Eventually, I reached out to the accounting program chair at Camosun and asked if they were looking for instructors, but at the time, I was working during the day when they needed people. Then, in 2011, I quit my day job and called up the chair again, who said that they would love to have me on the team.”

Steve has taught several different courses over the years. “I’ve taught financial accounting course, three levels of managerial accounting, food and beverage cost controls, and strategy courses, which is what I’m teaching now in addition to my role as chair.” I asked him what he enjoyed most about teaching. “I like seeing the spark in people, and when students tell me they liked the way I ran the class or supported them to feel safe and engaged within the classroom. I also like seeing where the students go afterwards and when I see requests through LinkedIn for a reference. I love that I’ve helped meaningfully change someone’s life.”

I asked Steve what being the department chair was like for him. “Before I was chair, I was a program leader in Hospitality Management, working closely with students and their program and career planning. During that time, I had an excellent relationship with the hospitality chair, who was my mentor and coach. Then, the chair role in the MHRL program was posted during the pandemic. Some people view being a chair as a punishment or a rite of passage, but I don’t see it that way. As chair, you interact with term faculty members and are a point of contact for everyone in the department. I believe in servant leadership where I help the people around me.”

I asked Steve how he supports term and continuing faculty in his chair role. “Regarding term faculty, I remember what it’s like not to know how to turn on classroom projectors or what key gets you into your office. I wondered how we as a department could show term faculty the proper care when they start here and if we could formalize this process. One of our fantastic program leaders developed an orientation session. Even if it’s only one hour before term starts, it could be the most productive hour they spend before starting to teach. And part of what we want is to hear those term faculty say that this is a place they’d love to work at full time.”

As for Continuing faculty, Steve works to engage with faculty and support them to feel secure in their jobs. “I want to ensure they have the right tools and feel respected and engaged in their work. I schedule one-on-one time with each of my 16 faculty members every month, although sometimes people are too busy marking or on vacation or Scheduled Development. During this time, we talk about schedules, what’s happening in the classrooms, and solutions to issues like the number of academic integrity violations we see. I like to connect with people and understand their personal lives and how to support them when things don’t always go according to plan. Part of what I want to do is empathize – not necessarily solve their problems but just offer an empathetic ear. Kindness is appreciated, and I also try to be transparent. For example, I’ll ask them if there are any courses they don’t want to teach anymore or a course they would like to teach because one of the most vulnerable things an instructor can say is that they would like to teach a course someone else has been teaching for a long time. Then, I can try to support those requests. Sometimes, I know it will be a tough conversation because people can become attached to the courses they teach, but other times, an instructor will want to try something new. I’m also very aware that the chair role is a peer leadership role, and I always try to approach the job with humility, knowing that I work with a talented team.”

I appreciated how Steve builds community in his department and how he supports building relationships and community in his classrooms. “I like a loud classroom. For me, if you can hear a pin drop, that isn’t a good thing. When I can see relationships forming and ideas getting kicked around, that gets my heart going. I set my classes up in the spirit of team-based learning (TBL), organizing students into groups of five and ensuring teammates have room for discussion with each other. I also consider students’ attention span, so I only talk for 15 minutes before having them do something else. For example, after I’ve talked, I’ll pose a larger topic to the class for discussion. They then must agree on an answer as a team and share their conclusions with the larger class. The door is open for other groups to agree or disagree. I’ve always said during the course you’re allowed to change your mind if you have a good reason to – we are not working in absolutes.”

Steve splits assessments between teamwork and individual work. “For individual work, there are reflective pieces and engagement assessments where students interact with other students. When it comes to group projects, I’ll explain that working as part of a team means doing things equitably, not equally, that I’ve been part of some wonderful teams, but I’ve been part of some disasters, and that the same thing will apply in whatever job they land. Along the way, I’ll ask them to consider their strengths and skills and think about how they can use and develop these skills. Then we discuss what lessons we learn if a team crashes and burns – what could have been done differently? And what each student’s responsibility is. Remember that leadership isn’t limited to only one person. Leadership is a collective responsibility.”

During our conversation about teamwork, Steve mentioned that his students work with business entrepreneurs to present suggestions and recommendations for those businesses. I was curious to learn more about how this worked in his course. “I used to ask students to pick a business for us to analyze, such as West Air Canada, Starbucks, Apple, Visa, etc. But last term, I decided to pick a couple of local businesses. I picked a local yoga studio and a local brewery but advised students that to come up with recommendations, they had to understand the businesses and their owners. This time, we ran the presentations as a seminar. I sat on the side, and one part of the assessment was to show that they understood the theory behind their recommendations. This first time around, I didn’t invite the entrepreneurs back for the final presentations, but I may do that in the future.”

Steve is never content with his teaching but continually pushes himself as a teacher. “I realized I wouldn’t be any good at teaching if I didn’t invest the time to improve my practice. I feel sharpest when I study. After I completed the Camosun/SFU Masters Program, one of my professors encouraged me to complete a doctorate. I study for the love and curiosity of it. After analyzing different programs, I decided on Western University’s Doctor of Education program. It’s all online and largely asynchronous, and you could focus on a social problem you want to solve. Steve was accepted into the program in 2021 and began a new learning journey. “The program’s point is to reflect on your ideals and ask yourself if you are living them. I started thinking about things I like doing, like volunteering at Our Place, where you work with less fortunate people, which I found tied into my studies as I read and changed perspectives. Ultimately, you have to understand the problem you are trying to solve, so while I wanted to write about the BBA program for my coursework, my professors asked, what’s the problem you’re trying to solve?” Steve realized that the BBA program was not the problem he wanted to write about and had to let that go. “That was hard, and I wondered what to do. Then, in one course, I started to explore faculty engagement and thought there was something there to start with.” So, Steve tucked away bits and pieces that struck him in each class. He didn’t know how to put them together but knew they would eventually play a part.

“Along the way, I started thinking about collegiality, the alignment of collegiality with engagement, and how groups rally as a team. Then we explored different change management frameworks, and finally, through that curiosity and exploration, I found a place to land for my dissertation: supporting people through collegiality and engagement and providing opportunities for whoever wants to be a part of them.” This reminded Steve of the PhD dissertation written by Martha McAlister in CETL, so he chatted with Martha and other people he held in high regard to help him flesh out his ideas. “I realized that if people can find meaning and purpose in their actions, they’ll be more engaged around it.” After successfully defending his dissertation (Stimulating Faculty Participation in Supporting and Developing Change Initiatives), Steve thought he should do something with it. “I started organizing my thoughts around grassroots leadership, collegiality, the idea that we’re not helpless, and I remembered Martha saying, ‘go with the power of yes,’ and ‘if you have two people who agree with you, your movement will start with those two people.’ I floated my ideas at a department meeting, explaining that I thought we needed to do more work with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the principles for responsible management in our classrooms, and several faculty members agreed. And here we are.”

As we ended an incredible conversation, I asked Steve for his advice for new faculty coming to teach at Camosun. “I’ve learned that there’s no shame in asking for help. When I started, I had an awesome chair, and she said, ‘You know the great difference between this job and other jobs? When you have a terrible day here or teach a class that goes wrong, you don’t have to relive it every day.’ Sometimes, a class will fall flat, but what did you learn from that? What can you do differently tomorrow? And if a faculty member thinks they messed up, I say, things happen – let’s talk about how to keep that from happening again and learn from it. Sometimes just creating these opportunities to share makes all the difference, especially for people who may not know where to seek help.”

100+ Camosun Stories!

contributed by Martha McAlister and Pat Parker

In honour of Emily Schudel’s 100th Faculty Story, Pat Parker and I decided to ‘interview the interviewer’ to find out how the project has evolved over time, and what stands out from the years of collecting these incredible stories.

Q: Why did you start writing these stories? A: “Picture the year 2020. It’s the fall, and everyone has moved online for teaching. We finally are coming out of the worst part of the pandemic pivot, and we are still working flat out with faculty to help them teach and support their students online. I’m hearing all these stories of faculty and their struggles, and they’re doing amazing things, working so hard to support students. I started wondering, why aren’t we capturing this? How do people find out what everybody’s doing? Because it was crazy amazing what people were doing in spite of being really stressed out about everything going on. So, I decided to start capturing their stories
 and I had no idea what was going to happen
 I just felt it was really important to capture the stories of people who were doing this work under really horrible conditions, and not – as far as I could see – being recognized in a larger sense.” Over time, this has become an SD project for Emily.

Q: How has it evolved over time? A: “The focus has changed. As faculty started coming back to campus, the question about how you are adapting to a new environment became less relevant, and I shifted to asking – what are you taking from that experience and bringing forward into your teaching now? Because it was clear that people had learned lessons. Lately the questions seem to revolve more around how they are supporting students with EDI, UDL, challenging behaviours, or a specific focus based on that person’s area of interest
 like trauma-informed teaching or team-based learning.”

In the beginning Emily was picking people she knew, and trying to get people to volunteer. Now with the Teacher Recognition Awards, the Open Education Awards, and the Accessibility Certificates, she contacts everyone who was recognized each year and asks if she can interview them. But every once in a while, someone will reach out to her to say “hey, you need to talk to so-and-so because they are doing something really amazing”.

Q: How do you think the process of being involved with these stories has impacted you and the people you’ve interviewed? A: A comment Emily has heard a lot from people she has interviewed, especially during Covid, was how nice it was to have someone listen to them and to have a chance to share what they were going through. At that time people were really struggling, feeling so isolated, and often felt imposter syndrome – like they were failing. It’s a bit different now, but people are still eager to share. They’re starting to get to know Emily and trust her with their stories. In addition, she says that the interviews have improved her skill as a listener. “I’m very conscious it’s not my story and I want to honour what’s in their story. I try not to miss anything important and want to be respectful. But sometimes they’ll say ‘don’t include that in the story!’ I tell them upfront what will be shared, and they get to edit the whole thing before anything goes out… Everyone’s been really generous!”

Some people easily talk for long stretches and others need to be drawn out more, but a common thread for almost everybody is they will start off the conversation saying “I don’t know if I have anything interesting to say
” and Emily will say “Let’s just see where things go
” There’s always a nugget and she always know when she’s hit it because “that’s when they can’t top talking. Because they really get excited about what they’re doing.”  Emily has benefitted by being an ear to the ground, and being able to know a bit more about what’s going on across the college, helping to cross-pollinate ideas and connect people together.

In the beginning, she talked to people who were very reticent to do anything online but after Covid, everyone was doing more with D2L. “Some of it was still pretty small, and some people really wanted to get back to the classroom which wasn’t a surprise, but every single person I talked to had kept something. Even the people who were adamant that they didn’t want anything to do with D2L at all. It wasn’t just because students were asking for it, but because they recognized it had value. It was fun to watch that transition.”

Emily was able to see wider patterns and how transformational things were during the Covid time. And it wasn’t just about D2L.  “Faculty also said things like: ‘I now realize what it’s like for my students when they come into my class and they don’t know what they’re doing.’ That pivot online was a great equalizer. A lot of faculty now tell me that they learned to be more flexible in their teaching, assessments, and deadlines. It really opened their eyes and helped them recognize that students have lives, and have challenges. One person said ‘I saw into their lives.’ It gave them a lot more empathy.”

Unfortunately, Generative AI has started to erode some of the flexibility that was gained during that time, though many instructors are exploring how to mitigate that fear, while recognizing it is a lot of work. Emily wants to share these stories, hoping someone else will read them and realize maybe they can do something differently.

Q: Where do you see this going from here? What’s next? A: Emily definitely wants to keep doing these stories. She’s working now on putting something together that is a bit more interactive. She’s collecting stories for the deans to make sure they are aware of the recognition faculty within their schools have been receiving – including the Faculty Stories, Teacher Recognition and Open Ed Awards, etc. She sees this might be valuable particularly with the college’s restructuring, because deans will have different faculty and this could be a way for them to get to know some of them. Maybe this might help that transition a little bit.

Emily has interviewed faculty from every school and department across the college and also some CUPE employees and college leaders. She’s learned through these stories that many of Camosun’s services have completely changed their approach to student support since Covid. And she’s had the most fun with group interviews, where it ends up being a deeper a conversation, so she’d like to do more of those as well.

One of the big rewards for Emily in the end, is when she hears back from people who have read one of the stories and want to know more. While she doesn’t really know how much the stories are being read, she sees some of the connections that are being made. For example, people on the BC Teaching and Learning Council have given her positive feedback, she has presented about the Stories Project at an ETUG conference (Educational Technology User Group) and apparently, even Camosun’s Board of Governors has read them!

But it is not just the 100+ stories that Emily has written. She has also written a number of Open Education stories, which sprang out of the Open Sustainability project funded by BCcampus, and now is writing stories based on the Zero Textbook Cost metrics she has gathered for the Strat Plan. She’s very adamant that it is not the metrics that are most important and impactful, but the stories. She has other ideas for stories, such as how to create communities and mutually support each other within the schools, but doesn’t want to reveal it all here just yet, so stay tuned!

She ended by saying she could talk all day about this, but that she’s really surprised she had anything to say!

Camosun College 3rd Annual Open Education/ZTC Recognition Awards

In times of uncertainty and change, it is vital for our well-being to find support in and gratefulness for our community and to celebrate the amazing work people around us continue to do despite challenging circumstances. So now, I would like to take a moment to recognize this year’s Open Education and ZTC Recognition Award nominees: people from around the college who have made profound contributions to open education at Camosun College and demonstrated an impact on student learning and student costs by utilizing, designing, or adapting open resources in their instruction and/or moving their courses to ZTC.

See our special Open Education News … and stuff for more information!

Access

Crystal Lomas (course developer) and Puja Gupta (project initiator, manager, and contributor), Math Community Learning Partnerships; Project: Math 097 (self-paced)

The self-paced version of the Math 097 course is an alternate to Math 12 that gives students an accessible and self-paced pathway to completing math prerequisites. Their goal was to remove one more financial obstacle for students, the purchase of textbooks, by integrating an Open Textbook and the open homework platform MyOpenMath, offering a totally ZTC experience

Arts and Science

Thomas Nienhuis, English; Project: English 151 Open Textbook creation and move to ZTC

Thomas Nienhuis teaches composition and technical writing courses and last winter decided to develop a supplementary textbook for his English 151 course. He created the book to enhance and contextualize the course grammar content, to give students something to refer to, which did not cost $130. He has also created H5P interactive practice activities for students to test their understanding of the content within the context of the text.

Larry Lee, Chemistry; Project: Chemistry 120 – moved his section of this course to an Open Textbook for Winter 2025

Chemistry 120 is a University Transfer course, and to reduce costs to students, Larry adopted an Open Textbook from OpenStax “Chemistry, 2nd edition”, by John McMurray, which also contains problem sets that can be set up in the D2L Quiz tool. Larry says “I like to give special thank-you to CETL for the workshops and assistance with webpage design as these are extremely helpful in transitioning to no cost textbooks.   This has always been the goal to achieve Universal design to enhance student learning and delivering success.”

Tara Tudor and Nicole Kilburn, Social Sciences; Project: Making Anthropology 104 ZTC

Camosun Anthropology faculty members have been working with Open Educational Resources and moving to ZTC for several years. Their latest project, spearheaded by Tara Tudor and Nicole Kilburn, was to move Anthropology 104, Introduction to Anthropology, to ZTC by creating and curating course materials and providing them to students through D2L.

HHS

Stephanie Won and Shannon Keyser, Bachelor of Science Nursing; Project: Creation and development of the Practical Nursing bridge to Bachelor of Science Nursing Program utilizing Open Educational Resources

We recognize Shannon Keyser and Stephanie Won for their hard work and leadership bringing open educational resources to the “Practical Nurse to Baccalaureate of Science in Nursing Bridge” program. Their tremendous effort and hard work have resulted in courses that use open resources to learn assessments rather than relying on historic practices of printed textbooks. They truly are pathfinders in the nursing department’s pivot towards using more of these resources and courses in the “Nursing, Baccalaureate of Science” program are building upon the work they started.

Kendal Adam, Sonography; Project: HLSC 264 – Interprofessional Practices

Kendal has adopted Open Educational Resources (OER) created by Lynelle Yutani and taken over the HLSC 264 course WordPress site. Her students created simulation/learning tools using H5P, engaging with students through Open Pedagogy projects that they will be able to leverage later when in the workforce to create teaching and learning materials themselves. Kendal as also been quietly making some of her other courses Zero Textbook Cost by moving from traditional textbooks to a combination of OER, library resources, digital modules, etc.

Learning Services

Aditi Gupta and Ying Liu (UVic Libraries), Robbyn Lanning (Library), and Natasha Parrish (CETL); Project: The open-access document and website: Culturally Responsive and Inclusive Pedagogy Toolkit.

UVic Librarians Aditi Gupta, and Ying Liu, and Camosun Learning Services colleagues Robbyn Lanning, and Natasha Parrish have collaborated on the Culturally Responsive and Inclusive Pedagogy Toolkit, an open access guidebook and website created to address structural inequalities and support diverse student populations. The toolkit includes strategies for integrating culturally responsive teaching, inclusive pedagogy, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and decolonizing teaching practices. It offers practical scenarios to help librarians promote anti-racist practices, enhance cultural fluency, and foster a sense of belonging for diverse students.

The Open Education/ZTC Advocacy Team

Finally, we recognize the Camosun College Open Education/Zero Textbook Cost Advocacy Team which brings together Open Education champions from across the institution to provide advice and advocacy for Open Education at the college. The team is:

  • Adam Maurer, Bookstore
  • Asha Rao, Community, Family, and Child Studies
  • Dean Schimpf, Academic Upgrading
  • Emily Schudel (team facilitator), Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
  • Erin Howard, Learning Services
  • Gwenda Bryan, Library
  • Haydn Lloyd, Copyright
  • Katie Waterhouse, Social Sciences
  • Michel Turcotte, Student Society
  • Michelle Clement, Marketing
  • Puja Gupta, Community Learning Partnerships
  • Robin Fast, Community, Family, and Child Studies
  • Will Meredith, Library
  • Rebekah Prette, Library
  • Rob Thompson, Ombudsperson
  • Young Joo, Library

If you would like to join our Advocacy Team, email Emily Schudel!

Open Education Week 2025

Open Education Week is March 3-7, and I wanted to share with you some virtual events happening around Canada and the world. And you can find out more about our Open Education/ZTC Recognition award recipients on this previous post.

What’s happening

For a list of events from around the world, visit OE Global’s Open Education Week site. I recommend going to their calendar and refining the search by Event Category or Country.

Virtual Events from Institutions around Canada

Some Virtual Session Recommendations from Me (Emily)

CHALLENGE: For Open Ed Week I challenge you to reach out to me, or to your subject matter librarian, or to any of your colleagues who are already doing this work, to find out more about how you can adopt, adapt, or create OER or go Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC). Replacing expensive course materials with Zero cost materials is a great SD project. And we want to recognize and celebrate your work, but we can’t do that if we don’t know about it.

Zero Textbook Cost Courses at Camosun Story #2: Community Learning Partnerships

In this second story of Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) at Camosun College, I take a look at Community Learning Partnerships (CLP) “a department of the School of Access, that takes education to community-based sites to make it easier to begin or return to learning. Students learn in a comfortable environment with other adults who share similar backgrounds and get help from friendly and compassionate Camosun instructors and staff. CLP can be a starting point in getting ready to transfer to on-campus college programs.” Current CLP sites include Victoria Native Friendship Centre, W̱SÁNEĆ College, Bridges for Women, Island Community Mental Health, and Malahat Nation.

CLP offers upgrading courses in Math and English, in-person, blended, and online asynchronous. There is a long history of creating ZTC courses in CLP, especially in the math courses through the adaptation of open texts and use of the open homework platform, MyOpenMath to create problem sets that can be shared with faculty across the department. MyOpenMath is “an online course management and assessment system for mathematics and other quantitative fields. It is also a collaborative community of users. Questions and pre-built courses are all created by faculty in the user community and shared with others in the spirit of openness. Experienced users provide peer-to-peer support through discussion forums.”

Because CLP programs are tuition free for domestic students, and because faculty in CLP are dedicated to ensuring that their courses are as accessible as possible, moving them to ZTC makes a lot of sense. But like all faculty at Camosun, faculty in CLP face challenges doing this work, and one of the biggest challenges is time. Time to fine alternate zero-cost resources to a paid textbook and/or to adopt/adapt/create Open Educational Resources (OER) for their courses. And this is especially true for term faculty who do not have scheduled development time, or any development time beyond keeping up with teaching the courses they are hired to teach. While we currently don’t have options for funding or release for faculty doing this work, CETL and the library do provide some support to help faculty find resources and around how to adopt and adapt them, and BCcampus is also a great source for support around course materials and platforms for open delivery.

I want to thank the CLP Chair, Doug Harrison, and all faculty in his department for taking the time to send me this information. Now, here is a list of CLP ZTC courses from Fall 2024:

  • MATH 021, 022, 023, 024, 025, 026 (4+ sections of each)
  • MATH 037, 038, 039, 072, 073 (at least 1 section of each)
  • MATH 052, 053, 057, 075 (3+ sections of each – these sections also use MyOpenMath)
  • ENGL050 (6+ sections)

In addition, several course sections (including courses other than those listed earlier) are using Open Textbooks, including adaptations of open textbooks by Puja Gupta who teaches Math 052, 053, 072, 073, 075

I will be back again on a few weeks with our next ZTC at Camosun Story!