Camosun College – Page 2 – Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

Camosun Story #96: Max

“Max is a phenomenal instructor that made our first-year class so interesting and educational. She provided us with detailed in-class lectures partnered with informative slideshows that were easily accessible via D2L, and she frequently updated us with any changes well in advance. To make up for lost classes due to holidays, Max dedicated time to post recorded lectures with the same amount of depth. Her labs are very engaging, and she provides well-structured feedback on each assignment. For our final project, she broke it up into chunks which allowed for feedback and correction throughout the course. She actively acknowledged the challenges that come with our lives and continuously led with kindness.”

Max has been a faculty member in the Psychology department at Camosun since 2017. She told me her PhD was in environmental psychology, explaining that her research was around the question “if we spend more time in nature, does it positively impact our psychological well being and our physical well being?” Some of the courses she teaches include Experimental Psychology, Contemporary Issues, Interpersonal Skills, and Human Development: LifeSpan. And she sees “a whole range of students, coming from high school, returning to school after being in the workforce for a long time, and of course a good component of international students.”

I wondered what Max enjoys most about teaching and she told me that, because research is still her comfort zone, she loves showing her students why research is exciting. But she also said that she enjoys “the connection to students and the engagement in class. There’s nothing like seeing students who are quiet or struggling finally find the confidence to speak up in class because they know it’s a safe space for them.”

Max was one of the many instructors who was teaching here when we all moved online during the pandemic, and I wondered what that experience was like for her and if she had brought anything with her from that time. Maxine said while she gained more “online savviness from having to deliver all my courses online, with support from our department and CETL,” she had previously taught courses online. But she added “what I recognized during that time was just how isolated some of our international students are. It’s one thing to be a student who is surrounded by family during a time of isolation, but I really felt for the international students who didn’t have their family and friends around them, many of whom were living on their own. So now, I have more empathy for international students who may not have the same supports as domestic students.”

I asked Max if, like some other instructors, she has seen differences in students now as opposed to before the pandemic. “I hear this over and over, that students have changed, and I believe that they have, but subtly rather than drastically. Yes, I see students struggling a bit more with boundaries, deadlines, etc., and perhaps we pulled back on those during COVID to give everybody a bit more flexibility, but for my own classes, I provide the same guidelines around expectations now that I did pre-COVID to post COVID: there are deadlines, but if a student who is struggling or needs a bit of extra time reaches out to me, I’ll support them as best as I can.

I wondered if Max had any memories from her years of teaching to share. “The moments for me that are most meaningful are when that shy student who hasn’t said anything for two months finally finds their footing and begins to share and make observations. Because our brains work better when we’re relaxed and if our stress levels rise too much, it impairs our cognition, I try to make the classroom a safe space. And I’ve had students tell me that they feel safe to share their thoughts or ideas in class, and that even when students have differing ideas, everybody still feels that their position is heard and validated – those are the memories that mean the most for me for me.”

I wanted to know a bit more about this last point, especially in our current world where opposing discourse is often seen as ‘I’m right and you’re wrong.’ “One of the courses I teach is interpersonal communication, and it is important to establish from day one of saying that the classroom has to be a safe space, while also making the students accountable in that space. They need to be able to share but be careful about what they are sharing because I can’t control if a student says something outside of class, even though I’ve asked them not to. So, part of it is acknowledging that I try to keep class as safe as I can, but they also need to keep themselves safe in that space. Then in that space, we talk about how we manage conflict and how we can have dialogue in spite of having differing opinions without falling into the name calling or nastiness that can happen when we become emotionally charged.”

Another question I had for Max was how she is working with students around Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) as it becomes more pervasive in our education systems. “That’s something that I’m still working on, to integrate it more in my classes. I talk about GenAI as a tool because I would guess for a lot of these younger students, within three to five years, AI is going to be part of their workplace environment. So, I feel like part of my job is (which is the part that I haven’t integrated as well as I would like to) is to teach them how to use AI well and how to be transparent about it. If, as instructors at a post-secondary institution, we’re educating students how to search online effectively, decide if a journal article is good or bad, and create proper APA in-text citations or reference pages, then I feel we should do the same with GenAI and help them consider when it’s appropriate to use it, and how.”

One of the ways Max has mitigated the potential use of GenAI in her classes is to have students engage in applied work, which is one of her passions. “Many of my assignments are applied which makes it tricker for students to use GenAI, but not impossible. For example, in the communication course, students need to write down and quote conversations they’ve had with friends and loved ones and give me context around the conversation using the communication tools we talked about in class.”

I wanted to know more about the applied assignments Max works with in her classes. “A part of it is making the course concepts more relevant to students, so for example, in the communication course, students complete a questionnaire about their listening skills, we learn about what good listening looks like, and then they redo the assessment again at the end of the semester. They then think about how their listening skills have changed from their perspective. So, they’re writing about their own behaviours and bringing content from the course into those reflections about what they’ve learned about themselves, which I think students enjoy.”

As we came to the end of our time together, I asked Max what advice she might have for a new faculty member starting out at Camosun. “Go to one of the new employee orientations and use the resources available to you. For example, the Arts and Science team is fabulous, and they’re more than willing to help you…you just have to reach out. Everybody here is willing to lend a hand if you just reach out.”

Camosun Story #95: Melissa M

When I asked Melissa to tell me a bit about how she came to teach at Camosun, she called herself ‘the accidental teacher,’ saying, “I worked for Tourism Victoria for 22 years, finishing my time there as the senior VP of Marketing and Communications. Then I went into consulting and wandered around the world for a while. But something haunted me in the back of my mind. Back in the late 1980s, I had taught part time at Camosun in what was then the new certificate in tourism management. And I loved it. So, when Marina Jaffey called me to say they were looking for someone to teach their media communications course, I jumped at the chance. I taught on a term basis for awhile, and then they couldn’t get rid of me.”

Right now, Melissa teaches Global Business Strategies, Services Marketing, Marketing Communications Portfolio, and her new love, Current Trends in Marketing (MARK 485). MARK 485 is a new course (taught for the first time in Winter 2024) designed to cover a topic that marketing is influenced by and/or that marketing can influence, for example climate change or Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the topic is meant to change every few years. When I asked my students in Fall 2023 what topic we should cover they almost unanimously said AI.” And it is the story of MARK 485 that Melissa shared with me.

But before we talked about this new course and how it worked, I asked Melissa what she enjoys most about teaching. “I confess when I taught in the 80s, I was the sage on the stage. I loved moving from one end of the stage to the other and delivering stories with great anecdotes. But while that was well received back then, when I returned to teaching, students didn’t seem to respond in the same way, so, I started to introduce activities into my teaching. Even if I have to deliver a lecture (to set the tone for example,) I try to make it interactive, and I get the most amazing adrenaline rush from seeing a group of students engaging and thinking out loud. And when I walk out of a class and say to myself, well, I learned something new today too, I love that!”

In the MARK 485 course, Melissa took student engagement even further turning almost everything over to the students. There were 25 students in the first offering, and Marketing and AI was the topic. “It was a risk for me because AI is changing constantly. I had done some Scheduled Development the summer before to prepare, but so much had changed by the time I taught the course that I knew this would truly be a collaboration between me and the students.” To support the students in co-creating the course as it moved along, Melissa walked the students through Bloom’s taxonomy. “I showed them how their four years in the program progressed, from first-year courses where they were asked to write multiple-choice exams that tested their recall and worked my way up to the most exciting part of taxonomy, explaining how they were now analyzing, creating, and using their critical thinking skills. Then I introduced them to the BOPPPS model for lesson planning. No one had heard of it, although no doubt they had seen a host of instructors model it for them in past courses.” The final piece was talking to students about how to read and analyze the journal articles Melissa had chosen to support possible class-led session topics. Pulling from an activity she had encountered in a class she took in an MEd class at Simon Fraser University, Melissa picked a 12-page article and handed it out to students. Students looked horrified, but she walked them through how to read a journal article, how to analyze it, and how to look for three quotes in the article that resonated the most with them. “I also had them write a guided reflection (for a 2% grade) on each article before class so they would come prepared for the student led class sessions. If they hadn’t read the articles, I didn’t grade them harshly because I knew that reading the articles themselves was just the first step, and hopefully they would learn a lot more from their peers during these student-led sessions.”

With the foundation for the student-led class sessions laid, student teams then picked their topics from Melissa’s suggested list. “The first group’s class session topic focused on AI, marketing, and stakeholder relationships. This team modeled the BOPPPS approach brilliantly and the session was very interactive. The team leading the class session appeared confident and engaged, setting a high bar for the rest of the class-led sessions.”

About halfway through the class, Melissa raised the topic of AI and the students’ future. “I asked how many of them would be graduating that term and planning to go directly into marketing jobs. Then I told them that there would be a good chance they would be hired in part because of how current their AI education is, including their newly gained knowledge about the impact of AI on marketing (and vice versa.) Helping students see how AI likely will fit into their careers and how they likely will take an early leadership role in making significant recommendations to their employers, perhaps even proposing how a company should go about rolling out an AI strategy integrated with their marketing plan, made this course all the more practical and significant to this first class of MARK 485 students.”

Melissa also had students write critical reflections three times during the term. “For the first one, they could pick any topic related to AI and marketing. Many of the students wrote about being worried whether they were going to have a long-term career in marketing, or if AI would take it away from them, and I, in turn, was worried that I had sparked this anxiety. But by the second reflection, I started to see a different theme: that AI is just another tool in their marketing toolkit. The evolution from anxiety, through to ‘I think I’ve got it,’ to their final reflection where AI was not seen as a significant threat to their long-term marketing careers, was very gratifying.”

Melissa based the final class assignment on an article written by a marketing professor about an experiment he conducted on himself. “He’d given himself 30 minutes to engage with an AI tool to write a marketing plan, from the initial gathering of research, evaluating the external market and finding what separates you from your competitors, identifying your target markets, developing the marketing mix, all the way to determining conclusions and recommendations for action. So, I replicated this experiment and had students work on it in teams. Each student had 30 minutes to explore one or more AI tools. Their team then had to pick a company, and hand the controls over to one or more the AI tools to “write” a marketing plan for the company. After seeing the results of the experiment, student teams wrote a paper describing the experience, including analyzing how effective the AI tools they used were in producing an effective marketing plan. Finally, I asked them to make three to five recommendations for a senior marketing director in an organization about how someone in this role should move forward with AI.” Melissa gave them class time to work on the assignment and watched them work. “I loved seeing the playfulness of their experimentation, their curiosity, and their critical analysis.” On presentation day, students reported that while certain AI tools collect and report secondary research with an impressive depth and level of accuracy, the AI tools used currently fall down when it comes to creativity. “One team had AI write a marketing plan for Crocs, but when they tried to direct AI to create a print ad, the results were comical. The Crocs pictured in one of their ads had toes sticking out through the holes, another had extra toes on the side. We laughed, but they presented a mature analysis concluding that the number one thing they need to learn as marketers is how to communicate with AI tools effectively so these tools can help deliver desired results.” Overall students proposed practical, well reasoned recommendations for themselves moving forward as soon-to-be marketing professionals and for the advice and guidance they can provide for their employers.

I wondered what was next for this course. “The curriculum for MARK 485 was designed by Joan Yates (retired faculty member) who observed that even though the course would be student led, instructor preparation is enormous, meaning that a topic should be taught at least twice.” So, this winter, AI will once again be the focus of the course, although Melissa wonders how much it will have changed by then. She also worries a bit that the next offering might not be as successful as this first one was. “Numerous students have told me it was their favorite class, and I also looked forward to coming to class every time. But sometimes those magical experiences don’t repeat. Since students are becoming more knowledgeable about AI now and the course doesn’t run again until Winter 2025, I wonder: will I have the same success with this approach?”

Regardless of what may happen by Winter 2025, Melissa is sure AI will still be an important and relevant topic. “I say to my students, when I was a young marketer, it was so much easier for me. There were a few daily newspapers that were seen by consumers as “the authority,” the 6:00 pm news, only three American TV networks, CBC, and CTV. So, when you set out to write a promotional plan, that was all what you had to draw on. But today you can’t keep up with the number of for-marketing communications options that have been popping up over the past 10-plus years, so I empathize with them finding their way through this more complex marketing landscape, now compounded with the addition of AI for marketing. But at the same time, I tell them how excited I am watching them at the start of this AI era in marketing, because I was there for the first consumer websites, the first live e-commerce sites, the first social media platforms – and we had to decide which ones to focus on for our work. And now they will be the ones deciding which AI tools to recommend for and use in their own workplaces.”

Camosun Story #94: Blair and Trauma-Informed Pedagogy

Blair has been a faculty member in the Criminal Justice Program at Camosun College for about 15 years. “I teach criminal justice and the law and legal policy for first-year students as well as case management. I also teach a course called Mental Health Addictions and Trauma (211) for second-year students, which has evolved over time to adapt to the reality of the people our students will be working with when they become practitioners.” Before coming to Camosun, Blair received a degree in criminology with an extended minor in psychology followed by his Master’s in Adult Education. “At that time, I was doing a lot of teaching in both federal and provincial prison systems, so my masters focused on education of people in prison.” Then one day Blair received a phone call from the chair of our Criminal Justice program asking if he would be interested in teaching an introduction to the criminal justice system course. While he had not considered teaching at a post-secondary institution before, Blair found he loved the experience and was happy to come on board full-time a year later after another instructor left for public office.

I asked Blair what he loves most about teaching, and he said, “I like seeing students grow, preparing them for the realities of the work they’re going into, and teaching them how to always keep the whole picture in mind to succeed as a criminal justice practitioner. Some situations they will face can be very draining, for example re-offending clients or client suicide attempts; you need to be able to step back, look at the big picture, and keep in mind those clients who leave and don’t re-enter the system instead of only focusing on the clients who return.” Blair was reminded of a poem about walking a path differently over time as you learn and grow, Autobiography in Five Chapters by Portia Nelson, and he told me that this is the goal of anybody working in the criminal justice system. “Working with people who have experienced traumatic lives and expecting an untraumatic-life version of success is unrealistic. Students have to learn what success looks like through the eyes of their client, not through their own eyes.”

This led nicely into my next question for Blair, which was how he integrated trauma-informed pedagogy into his teaching. “I work with trauma-informed pedagogy in my 211 course which started out as a ‘criminal justice perspectives on criminal behavior’ course. This is my favorite course to teach – we sit in circle and talk about whatever is coming up that day. For example, we talk about anger and where it comes from as well as the interplay between fear and anger and how to understand how people think and behave, so you can react and help them in the best way possible.”

Blair explained that a main tenet of the course is that if you expect somebody to modify their behavior in a criminal justice setting by, for example, abstaining from drugs and alcohol, then you also need to know what it feels like to change your own behavior. “I ask them to choose something they want to change about themselves, for example an entrenched habit like smoking, and track it over the course of the semester. It’s a difficult assignment and whether they get an A+ or a C has nothing to do with the change they’re making, but with their reflection on and insight into the hard parts of that change. Students create a goal statement and a number of objectives to help them achieve that goal. Then they decide on an externally imposed punishment if they lapse, which is not how we would do things in the real world but is what happens in a criminal justice system, and outline how that punishment would be enforced. This is all designed to give them some insight into how hard it might be for somebody to change something that may have been a part of their life for a long period of time.” Finally, Blair asks students questions like: What did or didn’t work for you? Did you have to change your plan? Did you have to change the outcomes?

One of the things students learn is how complicated it is to change your own behaviour without adjusting other things in your life. “I’ve had some students try to curb their drinking behavior, for example, and realize that they also needed to consider how friend groups fit into that behaviour – those are the insights that help them understand how best to help people within a criminal justice system, and those insights can be emotionally draining for some students.”

Because students have conversations about anger, fears, different types of behaviours (criminal and otherwise) and how we react Blair noticed that students were finding it tough to discuss some of the subject matter that was coming up. “I was losing some students because they found the course too emotionally draining.” So, while this course started as a criminal behavior course, a few years ago Blair changed it to a mental health addictions and trauma course to better match with what was happening in the classroom discussions. “Because I was losing students, I explored ways to teach the class differently, for example considering how much trauma is too much to introduce, and what would be useful in preparing students before they go into a system that has a lot of trauma in it.” So, Blair and a colleague at UVic who works with grad students around trauma started talking about trauma-informed practice. “Then, during COVID, I began to ask students to develop a trauma plan early in the course, before getting to the heavy topics. Now, we first have a person from Camosun Counseling come and talk about trauma, how it can affect people, how to identify when things aren’t going well for you, and to provide resources and advice for how to deal with things. Then I ask students to come up with a plan based on what they just heard, a plan for how they will deal with things that trigger them. The plan is private and not shared with me, but every third week we will revisit their plans so they can identify how they are feeling and if they need any supports. If I see anyone struggling during that process, we sit in circle to talk about what they are struggling with. I also tell students on day one that if anything becomes too much for them during class, they can get up and leave, no questions asked, to get some emotive distance so they can look at the subject in an analytical way.”

Since implementing the trauma plan, Blair says that students no longer drop for reasons related to the emotional impact of the course. “This course is like a capstone, because it’s usually at the end of the second year of the program. So, while students know a lot about the justice system, the course is designed to help them learn how people react in different situations by examining their own reactions to challenges.”

I asked Blair what advice he might have for faculty working with students and trauma. “We should not handle it ourselves. I’m not a counselor, and I actually think it’s a disservice not to refer students to professionals. What I can do is make students aware of supports they have access to, which I do on a regular basis, usually at the start of term then around mid terms when things are getting really heavy. I reiterate that they have access to resources, and that if things are getting to be too much, which is just the nature of post-secondary education, I ask them to please take the time to utilize those resources even if they need to take class time to get to an appointment.”

Camosun Story #93: Liz and how GenAI can support student learning

I’ve interviewed Liz before, first way back when I was first talking to faculty in 2021 about their teaching experiences during COVID, and then about her Open Education work as part of our Open Sustainability project. This last March, Liz also received an Open Education Recognition award for her work in Open Education at the college. But this story is different. I was in the Lansdowne office one day several months ago when Liz came running in to talk to my colleague Sue about a Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) assignment she had just finished running with her students. And she was SO excited I just had to see if she would tell me this story too…and she did!

Liz has been a faculty member in the Dental Hygiene program at Camosun for 35 years. In addition to supporting her students, Liz has a passion for keeping up with and teaching students about the use of current technologies and exploring different ways of evaluating learning. “Traditional ways of evaluation just don’t inspire students in their educational journey, so I try to be innovative and to find ways to ignite excitement in students.”

Preliminaries complete, we dove into a discussion of how Liz worked with GenAI in her course during the Winter 2024 term. “I didn’t know a lot about GenAI when I started this journey, but I knew that we are already behind what our students know, and that GenAI is a game changer in the information world.” Of course, there’s a lot of concern in our educational institutions about what the growth of GenAI means for us, resulting in resistance and fear amongst administrators, staff, and faculty. Not that this is anything new, as Liz noted, saying, “I remember back in high school when there was concern about the impact of calculators. I find it interesting how the initial reaction of education is to try to keep new technology out, but can we stop students from using it? I don’t think that’s possible. So, I took a different approach when it came to GenAI.” And related to all of this, Liz believes that one of the most critical things we can do for students is to teach them the difference between information, disinformation, and misinformation. “In a world where so much information comes from unreliable sources, we need to teach students to critically examine what they’re reading and assess it for validity and reliability.”

Liz began by learning about GenAI – what it is and how it works, and also met with Patsy, one of the librarians at Camosun, who helped her understand the benefits and limitations a bit more. Then Liz met with Sue and Kristina, two instructional designers in CETL to discuss what she was thinking. “What we see in dental hygiene is patients coming into clinic after going to ‘Doctor Google’ to ‘research’ their symptoms [research in quotes because, as Liz notes, there is a difference between academic research and ‘looking stuff up’ on the Internet.] Equipped with findings from Google, patients can believe they know their problems and come seeking validation so it’s important for students to learn how to ask patients investigative questions, in a nonjudgemental way, to assess where the information came from to determine reliability and validity.”

To support students to build this skill, Liz decided to add a new assessment to her nutrition course, choosing this course because the outcomes are broad enough to allow for flexibility. Liz chose to create an activity and assessment around the topic of the role nutrition plays in how the microbiome of the gut may contribute to inflammation and how this may impact the inflammation in the mouth and vice versa. “After choosing the topic, we [Liz, Kristina, and Sue] discussed how students could use GenAI to explore it. Students, in groups, chose a topic that related inflammation, nutrition, and periodontal disease, then created a prompt which they entered into ChatGPT. Groups then would examine the information provided for them and had to look for traditional peer-reviewed evidence to determine the reliability of the ChatGPT information.”

Before setting students loose, Patsy came to her class to give students an introduction to GenAI, walk them through how to use ChatGPT (the tool Liz recommended students use), and explain how to check for source reliability. Then they began. “I wasn’t sure how it was going to play out. Students learned something about nutrition, of course, but they also learned about GenAI and how it works,” supporting some soft skills development surrounding the use of AI.

Liz had students use traditional academic research tools to verify the sources presented by ChatGPT. She had broken them into larger groups than she normally would because “larger groups invited more conversation and discussion among the students and presented less risk because only one of them needed to sign up for ChatGPT. We then had a class where students presented their findings. They put up their prompts on the board and we talked about what they’d discovered. Then we put up the information they found and discussed the sources of the information. And that was where the discussion took off, because in each case, many of the sources provided by AI were made up: sometimes the article title was correct, but the author was incorrect, and several of the journals cited were nonexistent which was eye opening for them.” And that direct experience taught them more than Liz ever could.”

The class then moved on to a discussion around how they verified the information ChatGPT provided. “Again, the discussion was very rich. Students noticed that the information provided by GenAI was often general, although they were surprised with how much of the information was accurate overall. The other thing they noted was that ChatGPT provided a lot of qualifiers before answering prompts, for example saying, ‘you know, I’m not a doctor…,’ which they also found interesting.” In the end, students learned that GenAI might be useful to provide basic information as a starting point, but the specific information that may be needed in evidence-based care for patients.

Liz was excited by the engaging conversation the assignment produced. “Students were pumped. It was one of those magical classes where students are all talking, saying ‘Yeah, we found that – did you find that too? and ‘What do you think about that?’ They learned so much more than they could have learned by reading a single research paper which wouldn’t have created that excitement and engagement. When I asked them what they thought of this assignment, they said it was their favorite assignment for the whole year. It was another example of how, when you get out of the way of students and allow them to learn, with you as the guide on the side, it blows your mind.”

Liz’s assignment is also exciting for a few other reasons. First, from an employment standpoint. “One of the things employers will be looking for is knowledge of GenAI and how to use it, but with a healthy skepticism.” And second, a realization that this is the direction we should be heading around student assessments. “Sometimes in education, we’re afraid to let go of control. But we need to look at where our students are today and ask: Who are they? What do they want and need to learn? What kinds of tools are they familiar with? And we have to catch up to them.”

Liz emphasized the collaboration that went into this assessment creation. “I would never have been able to do this without support, to remind me about the concerns about student data or been able to maneuver the intricacies of the technology on my own. When I first sat down with Kristina and Sue the first time and I said, ‘we should be teaching students more about GenAI because they’re already using it but may not be aware of the benefits and limitations,’ they walked me through a thought process that helped me get to where I wanted to be. Then Kristina provided me with a sample, and I modified it from there. But without that collaboration, along with the support and encouragement to take the risk, this assessment would not have happened.”

As we wrapped up our conversation, Liz had some final words. “I think that the whole college community can benefit and learn from an experience like this. We have such a rich teaching and learning environment here, and there are so many instructors doing amazing things, but they are still not well known across the college. I think it’s a shame there aren’t more opportunities for cross-college learning and sharing.” We in CETL agree and will continue to support instructors in sharing their experiences so we can all learn from each other.

Camosun Story #92: Andrea

“Andrea is a compassionate instructor who offers students the individualized support needed to meet high standards with confidence. Her unique teaching approach is built on developing relationships, creating safe spaces, seeking rich learning opportunities, and providing thoughtful feedback. Andrea challenged us to be critical thinkers, expand our self-reflection, and provide exceptional patient care. Her innovative approach stands out in developing excellence in the next generation of nurses.”

Another recipient of a 2024 Camosun Teacher Recognition Award, Andrea has been a faculty member in the Baccalaureate of Science, Nursing (BSN) program at the college for 17 years. A registered nurse (RN) since 2001, Andrea has worked in almost all clinical settings, but early on in her schooling, began to feel like teaching was her path. “By second year I wanted to do what my teachers were doing, but I needed more clinical experience to give me more confidence.” Then her husband began to teach at Camosun. “I saw what he was doing, and I thought, I really want to teach too. And now, I love being in the classroom, in the lab, working with the students because they inspire me to think and learn and grow.”

Andrea told me she has taught everything in the BSN program, including theory and relational practice courses, but she always teaches the clinical courses, and has been in almost every clinical setting, but her heart “is in oncology and palliative care. I’ve also just completed my master’s in counselling which supports the work we do in oncology. I love helping my students support families as they work through grief.” I asked Andrea if her degree in counselling has helped her support students in their own studies, knowing how stressful the BSN program is. “Yes, absolutely. Our students are stretched thin and being a nurse is a busy, demanding job. As well, because many students have anxiety or other mental health challenges, if I can support them in a more holistic way to empower them in their learning, they can identify their own strengths to become the best nurses they can be.”

I asked Andrea what she enjoys most about being in the classroom. “I’m passionate about nurses giving great care to patients and families, and I feel that as an educator, I can help shape that. I understand that a nurse can be very skilled but may not be able to relate to patients who may be experiencing some of the hardest days of their lives. So, I just love being able to support the students in becoming that compassionate nurse for their patients.”

The BSN program was especially challenged when COVID hit, mainly because of the hands-on nature of the program, and I wondered how Andrea adapted at the time and what she might have taken away from that experience. “I learned a lot and got more comfortable with technology and learning in different ways. My experience with the Provincial Instructor Diploma Program (PIDP) gave me a good foundation for using technology for teaching, but moving online forced me to use it more, for example by recording videos or integrating D2L discussion forums. I do think the pandemic made me a better teacher, but it also made me realize I don’t want to teach online because I missed the engagement with and immediate feedback from my students.” As to what Andrea has kept since that time, not a lot since she has only been teaching clinical recently. Immediately after COVID, however, she taught the theory course as a flipped course. “I never would have had the guts to do that before. In that version of the course, students reviewed videos in advance and came to class ready to work on more practical content. And I think the learning improved in those theory classes because they had access to the videos ahead of time.”

I take groups of eight students into the hospital setting, and what I have learned is that some students aren’t ready emotionally to be on units like oncology or palliative care. Some students have limited to no life experience dealing with death or grief or they have recently had a loved one pass, sometimes even from cancer. So, what I’ve started doing is having them reflect on whether they are ready for specific units. I explain that oncology is an amazing unit – it’s so rewarding, but people are going to die on our shift and families are going to be in a lot of grief. I ask them, how they are going to care for themselves and have them self assess if they think they’re ready. Because they have to look after themselves so they can get through their year of school.”

I wondered if Andrea had any specific memories from her years of teaching to share. “I was very inspired by something that happened recently. A student didn’t know if she wanted to go into the oncology/palliative unit, or into the respiratory unit for clinic. I needed more students to go on the oncology side, and I thought she would work well there. She had had a rocky term and was ready to quit, so, we talked about how things could play out for her, and she ended up just doing amazing on palliative. The patients loved her, and they never wanted her to leave. She had the right personality and wanted to learn and grow. In the end she told me palliative was the area she wanted to pursue, and I told her the patients and families would be lucky to have someone like her at their bedside.” Andrea told me how inspiring it was to see how one week this student was ready to drop out, and the next she was blossoming on the palliative unit. “The stories that resonate the most for me are when students become confident and begin to trust themselves, and then surprise themselves when they look back at the start of the term and realize how far they have come.”

Andrea had a lot of advice for new faculty coming to teach at Camosun. “Trust yourself but lean on experienced faculty – I learned so much from senior teachers when I started. Be humble with your students. It’s okay to not know something – that’s where we grow the most. And I really feel that completing some kind of courses on teaching is invaluable. For me, the PIDP made me a better teacher; it made me much more confident and breathed new life into this job for me. Have fun, be creative, and don’t be afraid to try new things. Students love it when you mix it up. Create diverse assignments so students have some choice to demonstrate their knowledge in different ways. And finally, make sure to take some self care for yourself so you can support your students.”

Camosun Story #91: Tara

“I took Anthropology 104 with Tara as an introductory course my first semester, while I was unsure about what to study. It was an online course and Tara made the class so enjoyable! Usually, online courses are hard to get into, but Tara delivered the course material in such an interesting and tangible way. The assignments were intriguing and challenged you to think beyond yourself and develop the anthropology lens. Her style of teaching made me enjoy the class even more!”

Tara, a recipient of a Teacher Recognition Award last spring, started teaching as a term instructor at Camosun in 2000 just after competing her master’s in anthropology from Simon Fraser University (SFU). For a year she commuted between Victoria and Vancouver, where she was living, then someone retired, and Tara became a full-time continuing faculty member. “I actually took my first course at Camosun in the 90s, in a pilot project for something they called ‘coordinated studies.’ After two years of taking courses at Camosun and the University of Victoria (UVic), I went to Trent University in Ontario to finish my undergrad because I learned at Camosun how valuable a small class was. After taking a year off and to work, I started my master’s at SFU specializing in medical anthropology.” Tara’s master’s thesis examined the way health care providers within a hospital system understand the concept of culture, if they feel agency over changes happening within their institutions and communities (often linked with culture), and how that informs their patient care. “I wanted to study how those in power within systems and institutions play a role in shaping our experiences; In contemporary language I would say I was studying institutional racism.” Tara assumed she would continue in a career revolving around research and international development when she finished her master’s, but life had other plans. “I’ve been teaching ever since, and love being in the classroom with my students.”

Tara teaches Anthropology 104, the introductory course, as do her colleagues, but she also teaches a gender across cultures course, as well as cultural anthropology, medical anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and a course on the anthropology of development. “The anthropology of development course studies international development as an industry. We take a critical analysis of international development and ask questions like: what does development mean? How does it play out in countries of the Global South? And we study the criticisms from anthropology about placing such a broad framework onto local contexts without studying those contexts from within which can often end up marginalizing those who need support the most.”

I asked Tara what she loves about teaching. “I enjoy getting students to see the world differently, to check assumptions, to understand how culture informs so much of how we view the world and how what we often assume to be universal is culturally situated and created. And how once we understand those things, we better understand why people act or think the way they do. I’m lucky to be teaching a discipline where students essentially read stories about real people and real lives – there is theory, but the stories are woven in throughout. Whether we’re talking about issues of people being unhoused, undocumented migrants, people in farm work, nurses, it doesn’t matter; we want to understand their perspectives.” Tara provides a safe space for students to challenge assumptions about the world as they explore these different perspectives. “Students are hungry to explore contemporary issues. Many have a basic understanding of gender, racism, settler colonialism, globalization, etc. so my job is to give them grounded examples in that safe space.” But Tara’s favourite thing about teaching a Camosun is the small class sizes. “We really get to know our students and can support them in their learning journey. If I have a student with academic experience, I can push them. If I have a student who is engaged, but doesn’t have the same solid academic background, I can support them to try things they find challenging. I can meet where they’re at, but also have high expectations of them.”

Tara also loves having international students in her classes. “They can speak from experience, and they understand that culture means more than food and flags and traditional dance. And they bring in great examples to share with the class. Our classes include people of different ages, different academic backgrounds, and different cultural backgrounds, which in an anthropology class, is gold.”

My next question for Tara was around what impact the past few years, from the sudden move to online teaching to the slow return back to “normal,” has had on her teaching. “I had already been using D2L and teaching an asynchronous online before the pandemic hit, so the learning curve was not as steep for me as for others. And while I prefer to teach face-to-face, I see the value in online courses. When I taught gender studies online last winter, I had five students who don’t live in Victoria, and because they were working part time or parents, the online format worked well for them. I also had a couple of students who were only taking that one class, but now they’re going to come to Camosun because it was a great experience for them.”

In terms of what she has carried over from that time, that is a more complicated question. Due to challenges around attendance post-pandemic (for a variety of reasons), Tara is not using D2L as much to encourage students to come to class. “I don’t want students thinking that the in-person course can be completed online. Providing course materials in D2L to support in-person courses has allowed us to move away from students having to buy textbooks. I can embed videos that I don’t have to take time to show in class, I can provide them with quizzes so they can check their understanding of content, and I love all of that. But how do we also encourage students to come to class? So instead, we are bringing some of those activities back into in the classroom.”

I wondered if Tara could share some memories of her classes from her many years of teaching. “A few years ago, I unintentionally used an offensive word in class- I didn’t even realize I had done it. After class, this lovely student came up and commented that he hadn’t heard that word in a long time – he was from England and familiar with the word’s pejorative meaning. I turned bright red and said ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t even realize I had used that word.’ He replied that he had been surprised. So, I opened the next class by saying, ‘I need to apologize for what I said. A student very respectfully pointed this out to me, and I am really horrified at my behavior. And I just want you to know, I am sorry, and I will work on this.’ It was good learning moment because we all have to be mindful of the language we use and the effect it can have even when it might not be intentionally used to be hurtful. That was really impactful and the way that student dealt with it was a model for other students.” Tara told me that while it’s lovely getting cards or e-mails from students commenting on how wonderful the class was, for her “what’s impactful is when I when I make mistakes, and how that then changes how I am in the classroom moving forward.”

Finally, I asked Tara what kind of advice she might have for faculty just starting out at Camosun. “Have fun. We have course outlines and learning outcomes to guide us and provide consistency for students, but we also have a lot of freedom to teach courses the way we want to. So, teach to your strengths, teach to your passions, and the students will love it. But most of all, be authentic and true to yourself. Just as students are diverse, our instructional styles are also diverse – I’m sure there are students who are frustrated by my teaching style and some who love it. We need to teach to our strengths, and be interested, invested, and passionate, and open to changing and learning when we get those student evaluations. But, at the same time, be self-aware when you review evaluations. Students are often very perceptive and if they say you really cared about them but were kind of disorganized, there is a pretty good chance you were disorganized. And if you’re aware of that, you’re going to be a good teacher. So, learn from your students, take what they say seriously, and let them help you become a better teacher, because just as we want them to succeed, they want us to succeed too.”

Open Education Story: Puja

Puja has, until recently when she moved into the Acting Associate Dean role in the School of Access, taught Math in both the Community Learning Partnership and the Academic Career Foundations programs. She is passionate about providing her students with access to free resources, especially since her programs are tuition free, and has adapted a combination of existing Open Textbooks for her courses. I was got to know Puja through the Open Ed Sustainability project where she worked to create an extensive math test bank in the MyOpenMath platform. Puja is also very generous with her time and her open resources, sharing them with colleagues across the college.

Puja, currently Acting Associate Dean of Access at Camosun College, has been here since 2008, starting as an instructional assistant in the math and upgrading help centres, then becoming an instructor in both the Community Learning Partnerships (CLP) and Academic Career Foundations (ACF) departments teaching upgrading mathematics and computer studies, as well as conducting math placement assessments for both CLP and ACF. But I know Puja best as a passionate champion of Open Education, working to provide her students, most of whom are in tuition-free programs, with free course materials. I interviewed her back in 2021 as part of a series of stories on the Open Sustainability project at Camosun, and last March she received a Camosun Open Education Recognition award, but I wanted to revisit her open work today.

Puja explained: “For a long time, I guided students to free online resources to support their learning because I didn’t want my students to pay to learn the basic things we were teaching. And in the fundamental Math upgrading courses, we used open textbooks. At the time, the texts we used had a few errors, but we were able to collaborate to improve them, and each term the materials got better. But while students in the fundamental courses didn’t have to pay for textbooks, once they moved up into higher levels, they were paying between $150 and $250 for a text. “It was ridiculous. Yes, some students could access Adult Upgrading Grant (AUG) funding and there were copies available for loan in our help centers, but not every student could take advantage of these options. I negotiated a lower price with the publisher of our textbook, but it was still not enough. We needed to find a way every student could access course resources for free. So, I talked with Sybil Harrison, then director of Learning Services, and she suggested looking at some open textbooks. At that time the idea was magical.” Puja spent a lot of time searching for the right open textbook. Some of the ones she found were American, lacking the Canadian context. Then in 2018, BCcampus awarded Camosun grant funding for open education, and Puja received some of that funding.

“I was doing a bit of this work off the side of my desk, but it’s hard when you’re working full-time. The grant meant I could finally focus on re-starting my hunt for an open textbook. The first one I found I quickly realized would not work for my students, but then I found another through our articulation group. This one had been authored by a colleague at another BC institution who knew the learning outcomes for our courses.” Puja filled in some gaps, made some corrections, and voila! She had an open textbook for her courses.

But since Puja taught online, she also wanted a platform where she could send my students to complete homework. That was when she discovered MyOpenMath, open platform where faculty can create and share math problems and students can complete them. “I was so pleased to find MyOpenMath. I had to learn a whole new coding language to use it, but it was worth it, and I’ve coded over 500 questions based on the open textbook I found. I can now also generate images – so if I give MyOpenMath the parameters, it randomly generates graphs and figures for the problems.”

One of the drivers behind Puja wanting to provide zero cost course resources for students in CLP is that CLP is a tuition-free program. “Students would ask, ‘Why should I pay for a textbook when the program is tuition free? It sounds like false advertising.’ In addition, I have worked in community with groups like the Bridges for Women’s Society and the Saanich Adult Education Centre (now W̱SÁNEĆ College) with students who don’t have access to additional funds for education – and for any student who wants to learn, textbook cost should never be a barrier to education.” The BCcampus grant helped Puja move towards her ultimate goal of having all the courses providing zero cost resources. “If I can make it work for one course, then we can do the others.”

I asked Puja what students say when they hear they don’t have to pay for textbooks. “Newer students don’t realize how amazing it is to not have to buy course materials – it’s normal for them. But my past students who struggled with those costs say that it’s a step in the right direction.” And when those students move on to other programs, they have some things to say about having to buy textbooks, which hopefully will encourage more instructors to move their courses to zero textbook cost.

I asked Puja how we can do better at Camosun to support faculty trying to engage in Open Education and move to zero cost course resources. “It has to come from the faculty members. There are many passionate faculty at the college doing quite a bit of work, and many others know about open textbooks and zero cost resources. They also know who to contact for support. So, the main thing is that faculty should be encouraged to take the risk. Use your Scheduled Development time if you’re a CCFA member – that’s perfect time to explore open textbooks. And often while you’re exploring, you’ll find something that you can use to supplement your courses.” In addition, Puja recommends the college find a way to provide course release for faculty members wanting to do this work because “everyone is so busy with their teaching responsibilities, and some faculty members may need additional support with the technical side of working with open resources.”

Finally, Puja says we need to listen to students. “When we hear directly from students about how they saved $200 on a textbook, and what they were able to do with that money, those are helpful conversations.” And she recommends we share those stories on our websites. “When faculty and others see real impact, they automatically want to do better for students.” And speaking of sharing, Puja says we also need faculty who are willing to share the work they have done. “If instructors see examples of high-quality open resources, and know that there is support available, they will come on board.”

One outcome of moving to open resources is the opportunity have students contribute to course resources in new and exciting ways. Puja said, “I’ve gathered about eight or ten questions developed by my students based on the topics they’re learning in class. I can put those questions in my textbook and give credit to the students who wrote them, so they see themselves in the textbooks. The parameters are that the questions need to be solvable, and that the students know the right answers.”

I wondered if, in her capacity as acting dean, Puja could share some ideas around how we can encourage college leadership to get more involved in open education initiative and support. “What we need to do is provide opportunities for collaboration, to encourage faculty and anyone who wants to learn about Open Education and give space for the work. If we can’t fund faculty ourselves, we should provide information about organizations that fund Open Ed work, so faculty can apply for grants or funds for developing OERs. We can also continue to recognize people engaging in Open Education work to encourage others to join in.” One other idea Puja had was for us to create space and workshops where faculty wanting to create and adapt open resources can come to work together. Of course, time is an eternal challenge for many faculty members, and while “continuing [CCFA] faculty have scheduled development time, we need to find ways to support term faculty to do this work as well.”

Puja also noted one other challenge that has come up in many conversations: the question of how students know if a course is zero textbook cost (ZTC). Currently there is no place to find this information at a glance, although Camosun is working on a course syllabus repository which would help, if ZTC information is included, and if the current version of the course uses the same materials. “We should provide clear information that a course is zero textbook cost. Then we could more easily track how many students register in that course because it is ZTC.”

But Puja also points out that simply having access to free course resources is not enough. “Students need access to a stable Internet connection, as well as a safe and quiet place to do their course work. And since they will incur printing costs if they prefer to have a hard copy of the resources, if we just provide the online textbook, we need to know if students have access to a free printer. There are so many layers to it.” But all we can do is keep moving forward in whatever way we can to reduce costs for students wherever possible.

Camosun Story #90: Nik

Nik is an instructor in Culinary Arts at Camosun, specifically working with the apprenticeship and foundation programs, and now the E-pprentice program. Nik was pointed out to me by a colleague as he is integrating self-reflection practices into the E-pprentice program (the online version of the apprenticeship program), practices that are not typically found in trades programs. I was intrigued, and very happy when he agreed to talk to me.

Nik finished his Red Seal in 1994/95, then moved to Europe for 18 years. When he returned to Canada, to his surprise, his instructor during his apprenticeship at Camosun in 1995 lined him up with a term appointment at Camosun, which became continuing in 2012, teaching the foundation and apprenticeship programs. When the E-pprentice instructor, Gilbert Noussitou, retired a few years back, Nik was asked to take over that program. “It was daunting at first,” Nik said, and as he began to teach the course, a quote from John Dewey, which he had heard while working on the Provincial Instructor Diploma Program (PIDP), stood out to him: We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on the experience. Reflecting on learning was what was missing from the E-pprentice program. “We were struggling with student engagement, buy-in and ownership of learning.” But Monique Brewer, then in Applied Learning, understood what he was trying to do and agreed to help.

Nik worked with Monique and Robin Fast from CETL to develop a critical reflection framework for the E-pprentice course, which incorporated STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) and SMART (Specific Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely) goals into the course revision plan, because “at the end of the day, we want students to develop metacognitive skills to promote self awareness and continuous learning.”

The original document outlining the assignment was complex, so Nik and his colleagues worked with Patricia and Kristina from E-learning, and the Multilingual Support Specialists (MSS) group to make it more accessible for students. “We started with a professional interview, due within the first two weeks of the course. Why a professional interview? Well, we wanted students to identify why they’re in the program, where they’re going, and how they’re going to get there. And what better way to think about that than to talk to someone in the industry. We gave them options for questions to ask, depending on what was important to them – work life balance, progression, etc., and created an overview and instructions,” which framed the reflection and self assessment components around the 5Rs Reflective Writing Scale (Bain et al., 2002), Reporting, Responding, Relating, Reasoning, and Restructuring. Then they created a rubric and a feedback tool for the assignment and were good to go. Nik now considers this to be the most important assignment in the course.

While Nik had originally created four reflective assignments, he decided in the end to integrate just three of them into the course. “I wanted to incorporate the interview because that would set the stage for success. The “SMART goal setting assignment gives students a framework to set and take ownership of their professional development goals for success in the program and culinary industry. The STAR story framework helps them to reflect on their skill growth throughout the program and articulate it to future employers.”

In addition to adding the reflective assignments, Nik worked (with Kristina) to create instructions for the course as a whole to make sure all the content and assignments were clear for all students, revised the content so it is in HTML format and easily accessible in D2L. He is, however, satisfied with what he has done to support students to own their own learning. “That’s what our idea was: to give students the opportunity to explore and stretch and to try new things, because that allows students to excel and build employability skills.

Culinary Arts has agreed to share the developed assignments with whomever in the college community would like to use them. They have been developed in a way that is easily transferable to other trades. Please reach out to CETL if you have questions or would like to talk to Nik more about his work.

Camosun Story #89: Joanne

Joanne is a faculty member, for the second time around, now teaching in the Management & Human Resource Leadership program area. She first started at Camosun in 1992, working as an instructional assistant for the then Hotel and Restaurant Management program. In 1998, she was asked to teach a computing class for the hospitality students and said, “I’ve been in the classroom all my life, earning my accounting designation at 42, finishing my master’s degree at 52. But when I walked into a classroom as an instructor, I knew instantly that was what I wanted to do.” But Joanne decided she still had some work to do on her own career. “I left Camosun in 2003, and I said I’ll be back in ten years – I’m going to develop my career and do some great things, then I’m going to bring those back to the classroom.”

Joanne worked in hotels in finance for several years, then decided to move on from accounting. “I completed my master’s in leadership and transitioned over to operations, and I loved being a director of operations. Eight departments with 200 staff reporting to me – it was dynamic and crazy.” Then, on March 1, 2020, Joanne went to the Delta Whistler Suites as Interim General Manager. “We all know what happened two weeks after that: the whole world fell apart, and the hotel industry was devastated. I couldn’t leave the team without a general manager during a global pandemic, so I stayed there for 2020 and guided that team through the pandemic, which was the hardest year of my life.”

When Joanne returned to Victoria at the end of 2020, she decided it was time to return to the classroom. A role came up in the leadership program at Camosun, and in the fall of 2021, Joanne started teaching full-time. “This is the icing on the cake of my career. I’m so happy to be here and love every minute in the classroom. Students tell me, your stories are what make it all come to life. It took me 18 years instead of 10, but I’m back and I’m sharing what I know and how the curriculum relates to real life.”

Today, Joanne teachers Introduction to Management and Operations Management courses. “Intro to Management is a holistic look at management leadership and organizations. The first-year students in that course are a little shell shocked, but I like to bring life to organizations and encourage them to analyze organizations so they can learn from both the bad and the good. In operations management, students evaluate an organization in the community and apply the theory to that organization, then they complete a capstone group project and present it back to the class.” But Joanne’s favourite class to teach is Leading in Diverse Environments. “In this course, students develop their ability to understand their biases, and to change the lens through which they see the world because the future leaders of organizations need to provide a safe place for people to come and be their whole selves.” Joanne says it’s an impactful course full of deep, awkward, uncomfortable conversations where she shares stories from her personal life and where everyone learns from each other.

I wondered about the classroom diversity in Joanne’s favourite course, and she told me that last year, 100% of the students were from elsewhere. “Because we’re studying how people view things differently, I specifically put them into diverse groups based on where they’re from, and those groups stay together for the whole term. Students tell me they’ve made connections they never would have, and they had no idea people had such varied opinions about such simple things. We talk about religion. We talk about gender. We talk about age, stereotypes, humor, power – everything.” Joanne celebrates diversity in all of her classes. “I’m teaching future leaders, so I encourage them to embrace diversity for their future businesses. We all have a bias toward people who are like us, but when you’re recruiting, you need to consider people who look different, who bring a different approach, and be aware of your own biases.”

I asked Joanne what she enjoys most about teaching. “I enjoy it all. I enjoy learning from the students. I enjoy facilitating a learning environment. I say right up front, you’re not going to learn it all from me – you’re going to learn from each other, and I love the discussions and sharing of perspectives. I’ve had students who were architects, veterinarians, career counselors, engineers – you name it. And they have all had experience that I don’t have. When students can bring their own practice to the classroom, that’s huge for me.”

I knew that COVID had had an impact on Joanne’s work life, but I wondered if she noticed changes in teaching from her first time around at Camosun to now. “The hospitality program I taught in originally was very collaborative, but I classes were lecture focused. But now, many of my colleagues are supporting flexible delivery where students can either come to class in-person or participate through D2L. What I see now is instructors who’ve tried new things because they were forced to during the pandemic, and continuing with those things because they are working. And I definitely see more flexibility to try things and see what might happen.” For Joanne, coming back to Camosun, tools like D2L were new to her but she has been thankful for the support she had from eLearning. “Now I think I can shake things up a bit, make my classes a little more innovative with technology, and find cool ways to engage the students. There are no limits now because the pandemic busted up all the norms.”

I wondered if Joanne had any fond memories from her years of teaching. “My memories are mostly around the connections with the students, but one that stands out for me involved one of my students from Africa. This student felt safe enough in our classroom to talk about some of the racism that she experienced when she first came to Victoria which was a shock for many people in the class, and we had a good conversation about it. One student from Mexico said he had never experienced any of this and didn’t understand what was happening for her. So, we had this profound discussion about white-passing, and the students really got it. For me, it’s those aha moments – those moments when we can expand a student’s lens – that are profound for me. My students have told me that the leading in diverse environments course profoundly changed how they walk through the world. Now they look at every crowd they’re in, every room they’re in, and look for diversity, which gets straight to my soul, because I always tell them on the first day that if by the end of this semester they take a beat before they act on their biases, I’ve done my job.”

My final question for Joanne was what kind of advice she might have for new instructors at Camosun. “Partner with someone in CETL who can work through your courses with you. Then I would say, lean on your fellow faculty and ask questions.” In fact, Joanne’s department has a buddy system for new faculty members coming in. “I was a buddy for the first time this year to a new faculty member coming in to teach BUS 150. It was an eye-opener realizing how many things they need to learn – from how Camosun works, to how to use D2L, to how courses are delivered. And since I was teaching the same course, I took pictures of my class whiteboard, sometimes to show him an exercise that was great, and other times when it bombed and to recommend he try something else. That buddy system our chair set up is brilliant.” And perhaps something every department should start up!

Camosun Story #88: Nicole

“Nicole is a phenomenal professor. Not only does she know the material, but she makes it relevant with real world examples. She brings in examples from her own days in the field and also cutting-edge archeological research and techniques. She is engaging and professional, but cares for all her students. She makes extra effort for those of us that are registered with CAL. She deserves this award because she exemplifies the best in teaching and caring.”

Nicole, a recipient of a Teacher Recognition Award last spring, has been a faculty member at Camosun College for 22 years. When she started, she had no formal teaching experience, but after 22 years she still loves what she does and says it continues to be challenging, interesting, and rewarding.

Nicole started out as a field archeologist. “I completed my undergrad at the University of British Columbia, then did three field seasons in Belize, living in a tent in the middle of the jungle. While I was in graduate school at the University of Colorado, I did consultant archaeology for a large company that sent me all over Arizona, New Mexico, parts of Southern Utah, to get dirt under my fingernails” which is where her love for applied learning was born. And Nicole loves that applied learning has become a focus at Camosun. “My experience with students over the years confirms for me how valuable applied learning is because while some students are not as strong in traditional academia, if you give them an opportunity to apply what they’re learning, more students will become engaged in their learning. It’s a lot more work to teach that way, but it’s also a lot of fun to see students proud of what they’re able to do, and what a great opportunity for them to feel pride in their work and to share it with family and friends and the public.”

Nicole teaches all the archaeology courses within the Anthropology department at Camosun, including an applied field program that she had just wrapped up ten days before we spoke. “I also I teach Introduction to Anthropology which for many, many years has been part of the Indigenous Studies program. I’ve been proud to have been able to Indigenize that content and to Indigenize the way I approach teaching in general because of all the amazing guidance I’ve received from my Indigenous colleagues and from our Elders.” She also teaches a food anthropology course. “I don’t have an academic background in food anthropology, but because that topic was starting to take over more and more of my existing classes, in 2012, I launched its own course.” The food anthropology course allows students to examine history, identity, sustainability, and globalization, but opened the door for Nicole to integrate applied learning. “I created opportunities for students to eat edible insects, for example, and to come face to face with how cultures determine what we think is ‘food’ and what we think is ‘gross.’” Then in 2018, Nicole started teaching an anthropology of death class. “This has been a profound professional and personal experience for me, as I have an opportunity to walk along with people at different stages of their lives – from 18-year-olds to retirees; most people in our culture are both interested in and terrified of death and we tend to live in death avoidance, but in the end we’re all mortal. This course has been an amazing experience for me to learn alongside my students, and while it’s very academic, it’s also profoundly personal.” The Anthropology of Death course partners with the Royal BC Museum, which Nicole says is an excellent opportunity to celebrate being a community college and part of our community. “Bringing what we do out of the classroom and having students teach is a really great way for them to cement their learning.”

What Nicole has discovered in the Anthropology of Death course is that “the more time you spend talking about death, the more time you are actually talking about life. Many of the students are just starting to think about mortality, and I’ve had some amazing experiences where students will tell me about how they were able to use the skills they learned in my class to help a loved one have a good death. To have somebody want to share that with me is very special.” But they also do some fun things in that class. “We did a mock Egyptian funeral in 2018 when the Egypt exhibit was at the Royal BC Museum, renting a coffin from the Victoria Operatic Society and everything. It was a ton of work, and it was crazy fun. We can’t do that if I’m just having students read something or watch a video.” This year, Nicole says the museum has already reached out to her for a partnership in conjunction with their Stonehenge exhibit. “It’s great exposure for the college and promotes what the College says we’re all about in terms of applied learning and being engaged with our community.”

I then turned to Nicole’s field work program, knowing how passionate she is about it. “The program has been offered since 2008, and this year we ran it over an intensive ten-day period which captured a different group of students. The program is designed to build an applied skill set you don’t normally get from traditional academic archeology field schools.” For some background, Nicole told me that 90% of archaeology is consultant-based here in North America, meaning that the work is done in the context of development to uphold heritage legislation. “Creating a safe place to learn is really what this applied program is all about, giving students a chance to build applied skills that will make them more desirable in a field setting. I developed this program in partnership with the Archaeology Branch of the BC provincial government, so students receive both a credential from the college and a certificate through the Archaeology Branch.” In addition, half of the program time is dedicated towards an applied project in partnership with an Indigenous community. “Students are not just learning how to take field notes or use a compass. They are also learning about cultural protocols and building respectful relationships.”

In 2024, for the ten-day version of the program, Nicole co-facilitated with Tommy Happynook, a hereditary leader from the Huu-ay-aht Nation located out of Bamfield who has his PhD in anthropology and is a faculty member at UVic. “It was a three-way partnership between me (Camosun,) Tommy (UVic), and the Huu-ay-aht Nation who hosted us. We first had three intensive days here in town, then we spent five nights camping out in Huu-ay-aht territory just outside of Bamfield. The Nation rolled out the red carpet for us and our students interacted with some of the people working in the Huu-ay-aht Nation’s Lands department. We were able to teach not just from a Western archaeology perspective, but also from a Nuu-chah-nulth perspective with Tommy providing his cultural lens. The Nation had asked us to work with them to help inform their visioning process to build thoughtful economic development. So, the students felt like they were doing something valuable, and they were able to learn by doing in a space where they could make mistakes and learn from them. We had two full field days crashing through the bushes experiencing things that can’t be replicated in a classroom. It was really intensive, and it was a lot of fun.” Nicole notes that when students work in community, the bar is set higher for them. “They put in a lot more work, and then are glowing because they are so incredibly proud of what they’ve been able to do.” Experiences like this make Nicole proud to be working at a community college. “We have opportunities to do exceptional things, we contribute to our community, and experts from our community teach us all kinds of things through our partnerships with them.” And including students in those relationships is something Nicole loves. “When we think about what we want students to take away from post-secondary learning, I’m not just teaching anthropology. I’m teaching students how to work together and build community.” So, Nicole says, we need to continue to integrate opportunities that take more time, take more resourcing, cost more money, because those things, for our students, are transformative.

Knowing how much Nicole enjoys being with her students in person, I wondered how moving online during COVID affected her teaching. “For my own sake, I needed to think about the opportunities that were presented, rather than all the things that we couldn’t do. For example, I use edible teaching aids in my food anthropology course, bringing in something for the students to eat every single class. During COVID, I put together teaching kits in mason jars with everything labeled for the weeks. One week we did a chocolate tasting, so I included three different chocolates. We did an olive oil tasting, so I included vials of olive oil. Then, after learning how to make sourdough started over the holidays I made a video teaching students how to make their own sourdough starter and about two thirds of the way through the course we had a bread night. I taught them about social, political, and economic complexity through the lens of wheat, and we discussed the domestication of wheat and the importance of bread. And at the same time, I taught them how to make dough and cook their bread. Then everybody shared pictures of their bread. That was really cool, and I still have bread night even though we are back in person.”

Nicole also finds opportunities to engage with other departments at the college. After we returned to in-person learning, “Chef David Lang helped us with bread night, inviting us to the Culinary Arts space so we could use their big ovens. I connected with my colleagues in Visual Arts who gave me clay for the students to make their own bread stamps inspired by Roman period stamps. Last year, in my Introduction to Anthropology course, we learned about acorns from a Knowledge Keeper who shared teachings about collecting acorns. We gathered acorns here on Campus, we weighed them, we learned what makes a good acorn and why, and we learned how to process them and how much work that is. Then we tried making a few different foods from the acorn flour, and ate it at the Pit Cook, which was great fun”.

Nicole had already shared so many amazing memories, but I could not resist asking if she had any others that stood out to her over her years of teaching. “When we did the Egypt the Mock Egyptian funeral at the Museum, I was interviewed by CFAX someone who listened to my interview was upset enough by what I had said to email me. This person said they took offense to me using the words death and fun in the same sentence because death is not fun, it is morbid.” The next day in class, while students were excitedly preparing for the mock funeral, Nicole asked them for their opinion about the email. “It was such an interesting conversation because they said the class was both fun and a safe way to think about something scary. Then the person who sent the email came to the event and peppered the students with questions. Later they told me how they tried to educate her about death literacy, and I thought, my work here is done. Seeing students engaged in their own learning is a real honour.”

And as always, my final question for Nicole was about what advice she might have for new instructors at Camosun. “Don’t be afraid to say, ‘I don’t know’ and to circle back when you do. Students appreciate knowing that we are humans. Also, bring your own expertise into the class – students love hearing stories. And don’t be afraid to ask for help, from colleagues, from CETL, from guest lecturers. It’s a learning process, and can be overwhelming but lean into your strengths, have fun learning, ask lots of questions, and above all, build community with your students.”