CETL Blog

Anthony is a faculty member in the Centre for Sport and Exercise Education (CSEE).  In fact, he was a brand-new term faculty member in the Fall of 2022 when I first heard his name from my instructional designer colleague, Kristina, who was amazed with the work Anthony was doing in his classroom around assessments and engagement activities.  So, last December, I sat down in Teams to chat with Anthony and Kristina about his experiences.

Anthony came to Camosun in a very roundabout way.  He was born in the U.S., was drafted to Major League Baseball at 17, received a scholarship for a Bachelor of Psychology program which he completed in 2011, got married and moved to Canada in 2012, completed a Master’s of Science in Kinesiology (after starting a Master’s or Education) at UVic, became a master coach developer for baseball in B.C. and Canada, then started applying to teach at Camosun.  After about two years of applying, he finally got the call one week before the Fall 2022 term started!

Anthony was hired to teach SPMA460, which is the Media and Public Relations for the Sport Management program, and with only four days to prepare, he was feeling a bit overwhelmed.  But fortunately he was able to meet with Kristina who introduced him to D2L, and helped him navigate the course syllabus, the assessments, etc. “I had the opportunity to work with several new term faculty in CSEE that semester and the first time Anthony and I sat down, I was captivated by his passion to give the students an authentic learning experience.”  Kristina mused that in our work as instructional designers, much of our time is spent “trying to help new instructors understand various approaches to teaching and how to inspire engagement in students. But Anthony brought all of that from his professional life so those first meetings were more about helping him navigate D2L and the college system versus actually teaching.”  Kristina found this a new experience for her “because Anthony was bringing so much expertise to the table already. We spent more time discussing higher-level questions and had deeper conversations about teaching that we as instructional designers don’t normally have until an instructor has had two or three years of in-classroom teaching experience.”

While Anthony has been a guest speaker and presented to rooms full of hundreds and thousands of people, he had never taught a course over a long period of time.  “I really wanted to do a good job because the classroom is an integral part of these students’ lives and I’m a part of it. I wanted to give them the best opportunity to learn from me and my experiences and my network.” For Anthony, this meant a lot of late nights.  “For the most part, I was finishing the lecture at 1:00 am the night before I was supposed to deliver it, as well as reviewing some of the content the night before so I could better guide the students.”  Because Anthony had less experience with some of the course topics, he brought in guest speakers to enhance the content. “My background in media and public relations was only from an athlete’s point of view.  For example, I had been a participant in press conferences, but I never had to set one up.  But thankfully the head of communications for BC Transit came in and shared some experiences from running press conferences for BC Ferries, etc.”

But Anthony reflected that his background as a coach and as a facilitator for the Coaching Association of Canada helped a great deal. “The rule of thumb is you talk 25% of the time and let the coaches speak the other 75%, and your 25% comes in by asking them questions to help them come up with a better answer. In my class, there were times the students didn’t want to talk, and I had to ask them very specific questions to get them going.”

Anthony also used a model he appreciated from his grad school days.  “We would break up a four-hour classroom day by doing activities throughout the four hours, as well as small group presentations. So, most days, I would plan an activity that wasn’t for a grade, where the students had to put themselves in a role-play type of situation. What I found, oddly enough, was that in-class participation during the ungraded activities was superior to that of the graded assignments because students were not stressed about being graded.”  So, the puzzle now becomes how to reduce that stress when students are being assessed for marks.

Another one of my colleagues, Derek, from the Faculty Development area, also supported Anthony.  “I asked him to come and observe the class, and we’ve since had some very deep conversations about teaching.  My big takeaway was that I wish I could start day one again and add more things to my delivery.”  But as Kristina noted, “the first time around, you’re figuring out the grading, what your expectations are, etc. Next time around you can work on the assignment instructions, the guidance you give the students, because you will be able to anticipate things that come up.”

One other thing I wanted to note about Anthony’s approach was that he had no hard due dates on any assignment.  Everything was ultimately due on the last day of class.  “If a student wanted to turn in their assignment 100 times, I would grade it 100 times and give it back so they could improve and get steadily better marks until they were satisfied. Some students have taken advantage of that – they turned everything in during the first week of class and we’ve been back-and-forth four or five times with me asking questions. On the other hand, some of the class has just appreciated that they could wait until the last minute and then hand everything in on the last day.”  While some students have commented that Anthony is just too nice, he notes that it’s not about being nice, it’s about supporting student learning.  “I want them to understand what they’re turning in so that if I ask them these questions two years from now, they’re going to remember, as opposed to if they cram and give me an assignment last minute. It’s made for some tough grading days, but I think the students appreciated my efforts.”

While Anthony admitted to having some concerns about the sustainability of this model if he were to be teaching multiple courses at once, Kristina assured him that “while the workload increases with more students, you’re able to anticipate, plan, and incorporate for that because you now have a solid foundation (and feedback from students) to work with, and each time you teach, you’re going to add another layer to it. I think if you had tried to add all those pieces at the very beginning, things may have fallen apart along the way. But because you started simple, you were able to deliver that exceptionally and in a way that you can now add too.”

Anthony doesn’t just think of his students inside the classroom.  He also sees his role as linking them with the right people for the information they need, or to help them move forward in their career, or help them discover another path they might want to pursue. “Athletes often don’t have mentors. They typically don’t start school with a job in mind, but rather think that for the rest of their lives they are going to play a sport, become famous, and make money.  But this only happens for a small percentage of those athletes.  So, this class is not just about what students learn, but it’s also about making connections, utilizing networks, and figuring out how this can propel them further. This class may take them somewhere that has nothing to do with media and public relations, but because of the connections they’ve made, they can go anywhere.”  In fact, one of Anthony’s dreams would be to have an entire course of just guest speakers.  “Nobody in the class knew what an agent does except for one student who was a professional baseball player and had an agent, but even he didn’t understand the nuances. We could bring in CEOs or general managers of sports teams – if we had a class full of guest speakers, I think it could be a huge benefit for the students.

Kristina ended our conversation with something I had also been thinking. “When you (Anthony) talk about your teaching, if feel like there is no boundary between the classroom and the real-world. You’ve taken down those walls and you’ve immersed your course material and your students within the context of what they would encounter in real life and connect those authentically rather than teaching the concept and then applying it to an artificial example. I think that’s something very unique you’re giving your students. You have a gift, and sometimes we don’t take the time to recognize those gifts in other people.”  I couldn’t agree more.

You will be happy to know that Anthony is back with Camosun this term, teaching more classes.  I am excited for his students and look forward to finding out what amazing things he is doing!

Nancy is a faculty member and counsellor at Camosun, and I would be remiss if I did not also mention that she has worked here for 45 years.  Over those 45 years, Nancy has filled a variety of roles. “While I’ve served mostly in direct service roles, I’ve also done some admin work in student affairs and student development and have also been chair of our department.  And I’m probably the only person at Camosun who’s worked with all six presidents.”  Nancy reflected that she has seen a lot of changes at Camosun and the experience of working from home and supporting students virtually during COVID was just one of many.  Just as one example, “when I first came to the college, one of my first roles was to look at women’s access to the college. At that time, there might have been two women on faculty and the majority of students were male. But over the years those demographics have grown and changed tremendously.”

When I asked how she adapted to working remotely, Nancy says she was relieved.  “I was getting information from my daughter [whose first degree was in microbiology and immunology] long before the decision was made to work off-campus. There were a couple of weeks where we worried about working so directly with people, when distancing physically was awkward, and also because we work in small offices that are not well ventilated, and deal with a lot of emotion. So, it felt very vulnerable.”

Once the counsellors moved to working from home, they found adapting to remote counselling challenging.  Before moving to Teams, the group worked with students over the phone.  “Very rarely would we have phone sessions with students prior to COVID – to get a sense of a person we felt it was better to meet with them in person. Losing that meant losing important visual information.  It was awkward at first and you really had to compensate for what you couldn’t see by listening carefully, for example listening to breathing more carefully, like when you lose one sense, you compensate by developing another.”  One of the most dramatic phone sessions Nancy had was when she was talking to a student who began to sound jumbled.  Nancy suspected something was wrong, and it turned out the student was suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.  Fortunately, she was able to get help and pulled through ok.  Nancy mentioned that one advantage some of her colleagues noted with phone sessions was that “some students are willing to disclose more easily over the phone because they feel less vulnerable, because they’re not visible. I found that’s true often with male students – it seems to be easier for them to disclose more quickly when they can’t be seen.”

Eventually the counsellors switched from phone to video sessions.  “Teams, while there were some technical glitches, was good. However, it was more work for our counselling admin people to set up Teams interviews. We have a confidentiality statement that students initial in-person but doing this online adds another level of complexity. In addition, when confidentiality needs to be broken, for example if a student wants us to communicate with an instructor, we have to get their written permission to break confidentiality which can be stressful for students to manoeuvre virtually.” However, in spite of the challenges, Nancy has found that some students prefer the virtual sessions and now students are given a choice between being seen in-person, or through Teams, or by phone. “Giving students the opportunity to make their own decision as to how they want to meet sets the relationship off to a better start.”

While student choice was one benefit of moving to online service, using Teams carried with it some challenges as well.  “When we meet with students in person, they can see our environment and that we are honouring their confidentiality. However, they don’t see that when we’re working at home. I’m always very careful to say that I’m by myself, and only my aged cat is with me, that no one can overhear a conversation. For some of my colleagues who have families, ensuring that confidentiality was more of a challenge, so we did try to find places on campus where students could call in. I also think I had more conversations with people sitting in their trucks and cars, and some students would tell me that they had roommates or parents or families which made it difficult for them.”

One other challenge moving to this virtual model was losing the in-person resources of other employees at Camosun.  “We were not able to accompany a student over to the ombudsperson or have an instructor walk a student over to us. That transfer of trust is best done person to person.  So, we had to find new ways to do the same thing.   We added more check-ins and follow-ups, but it was harder to contact people to have them available when we did not know their schedules or where they were.”  Something Nancy noted as one of those little things you don’t think about it until it’s not there.

For herself, Nancy found some good things coming out of the past couple of years.  “I am less reliant on paper, and I think my tech skills have increased. In addition, I think the opportunity to reflect about what we’ve lost and gained, about what’s important to us, has been one of the biggest benefits.  It’s given us a chance to really look at what we value and what we want to keep and what we don’t want to keep for the future.”

All in all, while Nancy finds many benefits to working virtually with students and giving them that choice of how they want to meet with her, she told me “I think overall students prefer a traditional in-person learning environment because they miss the interaction and making new connections.”  She asked me “what do you remember about what you learned in your first year of university?”  After I thought about it, I said what I remember the most is being happy not to be in high school anymore.  She then told me “I ask that question often of people and no one ever says something that they learned in the classroom. It’s always, I learned how to socialize, how to drink beer, how to struggle with values. There’s so much learning that happens outside of the classroom.  And for students learning remotely, are they getting the same opportunities to learn who they are as a person? Post-secondary time is a really precious experience. It’s when young people are learning independence and what they learn during this time shapes them into adulthood.”

Interestingly enough, when I wondered if these past few years were the most challenging time for her in her years at Camosun, Nancy said no, the most challenging time she had at Camosun was when there was a fire in the Dawson building right before Labour Day, “and for an entire year, all of the registration people, advisors, counsellors, physical plant folks, International had to relocate and work elsewhere, and do their work in different ways (remembering that students were expected on campus right away to begin the fall semester), which became a great bonding experience.”  A more challenging time, but as she said to me, good training for the similar challenges that came via COVID.

Finally, if Nancy had any advice to give someone experiencing the kind of change we all faced over the past few years, she says “embrace it and learn from it. Learn about your resilience – we’ve all learned about resilience in a way that we hadn’t experienced before. And take the time to reflect on what’s important and what isn’t. And finally, trust the capacity of human beings to do the right thing.”