Category: Camosun College

“Tom exhibited excellence in his approach from the very first day of class, where he explained that his most important value is kindness. He followed through with his promise of kindness each time we saw him, providing relevant examples of effective communication, and encouraging us to care about clear communication. He selected diverse material, for a very mixed-demographic class. Tom was extremely clear in his delivery, varying lessons to meet the needs of both ESL students and students who spoke native English, without resulting in one group or the other being “left out”. He created many opportunities for practice of during class and was entirely non-judgemental with feedback. I’ve spoken to many students who’ve taken Tom’s class, and each one has recounted similar opinions.”

Tom, a 2025 recipient of a Teacher Recognition award, has been a faculty member in the English department for seven years. He taught English at Lambton College in Ontario before moving to Victoria to complete his master’s degree in contemporary American literature, after which he came to Camosun, first as a tutor in the English Help Centre. Then he says, “an opportunity came up to fill-in for a sick colleague, after which I slowly ingrained myself into the department. I’ve now been full-time for about three years teaching mostly English 151 classes,” adding that while he teaches mostly composition classes, he also enjoys teaching technical writing.

I wondered what Tom enjoyed most about teaching. “I was raised in a family of teachers and never wanted to become one myself. But then, I started working for the Learning Disabilities Program at York University, teaching people how to use technology, and realized that I had become a teacher. What I like best about teaching are the interactions and getting to know the students. Connection with students is central to my teaching philosophy. Obviously, we’re here to deliver knowledge and help people build skills, but I also try to build kindness into the classroom. I want these people who are with me for 14 weeks to look back fondly on the experience, and I want them to be able to take a deep breath and relax when they come into the classroom.” Tom says those interactions are what keeps him coming back even when he is tired. But he also recognizes that the communication skills he teaches go beyond the classroom or a student’s program and are “skills that will make their lives better overall.”

Knowing that English 151 brings in a wide diversity of students I asked Tom who those students are. “It depends on the course, but for the most part, I have a mix of students. Some are just about to turn 18 or experiencing their first time away from home. Some are mature students coming back for a specific program. I teach engineering students, business students, criminology students – it’s all over the map, which is one of the invigorating challenges we have at Camosun.” But, while diversity in the classroom can be challenging, it also brings opportunity, especially in courses that teach communication skills. “Students learn that while other people don’t think the same way, we need to find ways to communicate with each other. One thing we talk about in my classes is how we need to rethink ‘argument.’ Argument is not just combative but can be a sharing of different ideas with the purpose of coming together to change how we think. And even if we experience complex emotions when someone thinks differently from us, we can learn to stop, think, and then engage productively with that argument, which is a skill that’s particularly important as we try to navigate everything happening in the world today.”

While Tom does not integrate formal debates in the classroom, he does have students engage with other perspectives, usually in a light way. “For example, early on, I have them debate whether a hot dog is a sandwich, because people have very specific views on this silly little thing. Other times, a topic will arise and I think it would be fruitful to discuss, or we have a reading that lends itself to class conversation. And part of my job is to be there in the room to make sure everyone’s feeling safe.”

I asked Tom if he teaches in-person or online. “I prefer being in person because I like being in the classroom with the students. In my opinion, there’s no substitute for that in-person interactive, iterative learning process.” At the same time, Tom is curious about blended (a blend of in-person and online) teaching. “I have no experience with it, but it seems like an intriguing way to maximize the benefit of both modes. Especially for English, where there are times when you have to sit with a new idea for awhile before you really understand it.”

Tom recently was also a recipient of a 2025 Open Education/ZTC Recognition award, so I turned our conversation to the open textbook Tom created for his English 151 course. “During my Scheduled Development (SD) time, I developed a supplementary grammar text for use in all of my courses, although so far, I’ve only used it in English 151. I can only discuss a certain amount of grammar in class, and I wanted a resource students could use to fill in gaps without it costing $130.” Tom set up an account on the BCcampus Pressbooks site, so he had a place to build his textbook. “I found the process of creating a Pressbook easier than I thought it would be – there are a couple of guides I found useful, but the interface is pretty intuitive. What I’ve done is create an online grammar textbook divided into 13 chapters containing a combination of my own write-ups, and I’ve used H5P to create different types of grammar questions – multiple choice, matching, clickable graphics, etc. This way, I can keep the explanations short and encourage students to engage in the material. And it’s free for them.” Tom is hoping to carve out more SD time to expand on his textbook. “I’d like to add a module on rhetoric and to find a way to integrate the social annotation tool, Hypothes.is, because rhetoric is a concept that I find some people understand quickly, where others need a more support.”

In addition to creating an open textbook, Tom also runs Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) courses. “All of my course readings are either available publicly online (set up as a link in D2L) or are fair use documents I distribute in class. I don’t have a course pack anymore. I do, however, have to be careful to ensure that none of the online documents are behind paywalls. And I’m constantly finding new sources to work with.”

I wondered what students think about not having to purchase course materials in Tom’s classes. “When I let them know that there are no textbook costs, they like it. Students were never happy having to buy a giant textbook. I still use excerpts from traditional textbooks, but now there’s no pressure on me to make sure I use every single part of the textbook, even in places where it doesn’t make sense. In addition, if I am on the fence about a reading, I can change it and students haven’t sunk a whole bunch of cost into something that doesn’t work, so it’s a win-win.”

In addition to the cost benefits for students, Tom feels that creating his own textbook holds huge advantages for him. “Using Pressbooks allows me to tinker, and I’m an absolute tinkerer. I feel like I have a bit more professional agency because I am fully in control of the material. I can link chapters into D2L, I can hide chapters students don’t need to read, I can move things around. It gives me a lot of flexibility and I don’t see any downside, aside from the labour set it up initially. And now I don’t have to worry about creating course packs and meeting those deadlines. And finally, I can write in the level of language that you think will work best for students or for how I will be exploring the topics.”

Moving back to teaching, I asked if Tom could share any memories from all the classroom experiences he has had over the years. “The things that stand out to me are the trajectories of students. I was in an airport looking at a stranger who gave me this guarded look, and I thought, that’s the look I get on the first day of class from new students. But over time you discover all these things about them and by the end of the term, I find myself genuinely feeling sad that I’m saying goodbye to these people I’ve known for 14 weeks. In the end, I think I think they learn better, and I teach better, when we have a connection.” And getting to know new students every term keeps Tom’s teaching interesting. “Every term I meet new people with different stories to share. We’re working on the same skills every term, but we’re doing it in different ways which is invigorating.”

As our time together was nearing an end, I asked Tom what advice he had for new faculty members coming to teach at Camosun. “Reach out to the people on your team – being bashful doesn’t help anyone. I actually didn’t have to do a lot of reaching out because people reached out to me. I’ve got great colleagues. Also, go slow in the classroom and take your time. It can all seem very fast paced and high stress the first time you teach something, and you probably won’t do as good a job on your first time through a course as your tenth. Give yourself a break and remember that you’re there for a reason.” And as for more practical advice, similar to the advice Tom gives students preparing for oral presentations, is to rehearse. “A week or a few days before the start of the term, I go into all of my classrooms to get a sense of the space. I’ll stand up at the front and imagine what it would be like to speak to the people here so that the first day of class I already know that the computer’s at an awkward desk, that I have to pull the mouse cord out, so I’m not having to fiddle in front of the class. For a first day’s piece of advice, that’s definitely it.”

Matt began teaching at Camosun in 2014 after completing a master’s degree in economics and working for a start-up company doing data analysis for mobile advertising. These days he teaches primarily statistics and economics courses in the Economics, Quantitative Methods and University Transfer Business department.

After over 10 years of being here, I wondered what Matt enjoyed most about the teaching experience. He told me that one reason teaching appealed to him was that it is not a nine-to-five, isolated at your desk job, but he says “[e]ven when was young, I enjoyed teaching my younger brother how to write the alphabet, testing him, and then grading his work. And looking back at my life, I can see all these small moments that have contributed to why I’m here and why I enjoy being here. I also think it’s the joy of interacting with different kinds of people I wouldn’t normally interact with. In this job, I get to learn about students’ experiences in their own lives which is something I look forward to every semester. Even though the content I teach rarely changes, the students make it fresh and unique every single semester.”

Because I had heard accolades from other faculty members about how he supports his students, I asked Matt what that support looks like in his classrooms. “I don’t think I do anything differently from other instructors.” But Matt notes that it has not been that long ago since he was a student, so he wonders if its “the similarity in our ages that brings a sense of trust, where they feel supported right away. I tell them I am not trying to trick them, and if they follow along with the process, they should do just fine – but I’m always there to support them.”

Because many of the students Matt teaches are taking his courses as transfer electives, I wondered how he worked with those students who may have a fear of mathematics and numbers. “I often hear from students who have pushed one of my courses to the end of their program because of their fear of numbers. I like to think I support students over that barrier by using examples that relate to their day-to-day lives, for example, examples related to Tik Tok, Instagram, Spotify, etc. If they find something they can relate to, I think that often helps a lot of the students get over their fear of numbers.” In addition, Matt has heard that his teaching approach, to “go through things slowly and intentionally, and address particular exercises several times to ensure every single student in the class has that same foundation before moving into more involved complicated material, works very, very well, especially in that introductory course.”

I asked Matt if he could provide a specific example he has used in class. “One previous exam question was related to Taylor Swift and ticket prices, asking students to discuss what percentage of people will pay X dollars compared to Y dollars, for example. A lot of students understand expensive Taylor Swift concert tickets, so when I ask them to link that concept to statistical concepts, it becomes less theoretical.” Matt says he provides examples like this in most of the exercises in his statistics course. “And in my sports economics course, most of my exercises are relevant to North American sports, for example, basketball, football, hockey, baseball, soccer, because most of the students taking that course are aware of teams like the Los Angeles Lakers or the Vancouver Canucks when I bring them into the discussion. I think that can get them over those initial barriers, by finding ways to relate economics back to sports. That’s how I try to make things as relevant as possible.”

Many other instructors have noted that their experiences during COVID taught them lessons about how to be more flexible in their teaching, and I wondered if the same held true for Matt. “I think I am now more accommodating and flexible with examinations and how I grade, trying to recognize that there is more to the student than being successful in my class. I understand that many of them take other courses, work part-time or full-time jobs, so I give them a lot of time to complete specific tasks in the course. For example, instead of quizzing students at the end of each week, topic by topic, I often give them several weeks, maybe even a month, to complete several of these quizzes, giving them an opportunity to complete them at their own pace. Many students work through them when they have extra time, but they don’t feel pressured to submit something they may not have put their best effort into because it’s due at the end of the week.” Since COVID Matt has also been providing all his students, including those in his in-person courses, with course materials in D2L. “Essentially, many students can now choose how they complete my course. Even if they sign up for the face-to-face version, I still make available to them recorded lectures that are near identical to the experience they would get in class. Some students do rely solely on these recorded lectures, but the majority find that the face-to-face experience is still superior to the recorded version of it. I try to provide them with as much content as possible, and it’s up to them how and when they reference it.”

Matt told me a bit about the students he has had over the years. “When I started teaching, many of the courses were an even a mix of domestic and international students. But for few years after COVID, almost all of the students in my courses were international students. But now I am seeing more domestic students again.” But, given that he teaches primarily service courses that lead into courses required by various programs, Matt doesn’t see many of his students again. “After they take my class, I may see them strolling around in the hallway, getting to their other classes. But there’s handful of students I run into downtown, or who connect with me through LinkedIn to tell me that they’ve found a new job or something like that. That’s kind nice that they keep in touch.”

I asked Matt how, after 10 years, he keeps his teaching fresh. “I always change up the examples I present in class to make them as relevant as possible. Last semester, Moo Deng the hippo was popular, so I used her in one of my examples. In my economics of sports course, I always have to update the material if there are changes in team venues, team names, coaches, etc.” In the course he teaches to sport management students, he has them research their favourite teams for their term project which gives the students agency but also means variety for Matt as well. “A lot of the students have found that project to be interesting, because they take the theory they’ve been taught and apply it to a team they are interested in. Most of the time, students choose teams like the Vancouver Canucks, the Toronto Blue Jays, the Dallas Cowboys. But I also see students (often international students) choosing European soccer teams like Barcelona, and Real Madrid, which they find more relevant to their interests, and some other students explore golf, cricket, volleyball, or even Formula 1 Racing.”

Finally, I asked Matt what advice he might have for new instructors starting out at Camosun. “I would say be flexible, be accommodating, and don’t assume that how you’re delivering the material is the best for all for all your students. Every single semester, every single year, I look back and reflect to see what I can do better – there are always ways to improve.”

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.”