Camosun Stories – Page 3 – Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

Camosun Story #58: The Interdisciplinary Education Festival

Lynelle is a faculty member in the School Health and Human Services (HHS), in the Allied Health Technologies Department. Since 2017, Lynelle has been a facilitator of the Interdisciplinary Education (IDE) Student Festival at Camosun College, and I wanted to talk to her about how the festival started, how it has evolved over the years, and where it is headed in the future.

Lynelle started our conversation by sharing that the predecessor of the IDE festival originated out of a program review of the Medical Radiography program. “One of the competencies being added by the Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists (CAMRT) was around inter-professional communication. The hope behind this competency was that if students are taught how to communicate inter-professionally at school, that skill will carry forward into their careers and ultimately improve patient-client outcomes because when practitioners communicate better, they can provide better coordinated collaborative care.” Thus, a project-based course in interprofessional communication was born.

The newly created course was MRAD 264, and Lynelle spoke passionately about its interdisciplinary nature. “Interdisciplinary education is about learning with, from, and about others – it’s peer-to-peer learning, and students were tasked with teaching other students about their profession and providing an integrated learning experience.” In other words, students were not only working together within the course itself, but also required to communicate with students outside of the course. “Students came up with the idea to run a mini conference on campus. They split into groups, and we ran four learning activities, inviting fellow Camosun students to come in and learn about our professions and about some of the unique challenges that we face, creating a moment in time where they could inter-professionally communicate.” Students did not just run the conference itself, however. They had to plan and market the event, ran a post-event pizza party (meaning they needed to get food safe certificates and organize food services), solicited donations, booked space for the event, etc. The collaboration students engaged in went well beyond the course outcomes.

Lynelle emphasized that every element of that conference was student produced, while she supported them to bring their vision alive. “It was hard for the students because they wanted to be told what to do, and how they were going to be graded. We spent a lot of time talking about how to accomplish a shared goal, how to organize their labour, how to ensure everybody understands their individual roles, etc.”

The Dean of HHS and other college leadership attended that first mini-conference, and excitement grew. Lynelle and others applied for and were awarded one of the Camosun Innovation Awards which gave them some budget to work with for the next year so students would not have to look for donations. “The second year, we had enough money to do better promotion and to support participation from more students. That year, we went with poster-style presentations which are very common in health care learning.” Then the following year they applied for another grant from outside of Camosun, and with that funding were able to build out the event even further. During this time as well, students from more HHS programs were beginning to participate in the event.

In 2019, although they didn’t know it at the time, they held the last fully in-person event. “We had almost all of the health programs participating by that time and had to book off two floors of the Ewing building. We had both poster presentations and interactive displays as well as health and wellness activities – all student-led activities for the benefit of other students. We added a passport that listed all of the activities and each time you participated in one of them, you got a stamp. Students were then able to take that passport back to their instructors for bonus points or as part of a required activity in their courses.”

But then, in 2020, COVID threw a wrench in the works when the college shut down shortly before the festival was to take place. Because they couldn’t hold an in-person event they “pivoted in a dramatic way to a WordPress site where we posted all the presentation materials for students to interact with online.” Lynelle reflected that, despite the stress, “ultimately that activity was quite successful and recording all of the work that we had intended to do under the circumstances was brilliant.”

According to Lynelle, the level of engagement in this pandemic IDE was superficial, through comments on the site. But the next year, they took the online format and built on it. “The following year we added another group of students to the mix – students in the Interactive Media Development (IMD)program in Computer Science which had been created by an interdisciplinary team at the College. The purpose of bringing in the inter-professional practices course arose from an industry criticism of graduates from these types of highly technical programs that graduates struggle to communicate with clients. We asked ourselves, I wonder what would happen if we put these IMD students in a situation where they had to learn with, from, and about students in a very dissimilar discipline: health.” This was tactical as well, Lynelle noted, because health students tend to have lower technical expertise, although they are asked to work with electronic health records, digital imaging, app tracking, online health appointments. “Health students in general need to understand how technology works and how to communicate with the people who are building, maintaining, supporting technology in our workplaces.” Hence the decision to bring these two groups together.

Lynelle didn’t teach the first IMD course, but she did the following year. But because of low enrolments in that second pandemic year, they took the two cohorts of students (one from health and one from IMD) and combined them together into one section, a rare event with two cohorts of students in two separate Schools taking the same course. It was a tough year, Lynelle said. “We were all having a hard time with the pandemic, so what we did that year was refine the virtual-only experience. The first cohort of IMD students had built a brand-new website from scratch, collaborating with the health students and instructors; this section of combined students didn’t have the same capacity and we had to discover together what was possible.” And her additional challenge was teaching to two completely different groups of students. “When you teach this particular course to a specific discipline, you work within that discipline’s perspective. But teaching from two perspectives is an interesting challenge. It was difficult for the students to grasp initially, but we walked through the steps and processes, convincing them of their own capabilities, and at about week eight or nine they started to see what was possible, and by week 13, they were pretty darn proud of themselves for what they had accomplished.”

During this iteration, the virtual festival integrated more interactive elements into the website. In addition to the projects, the students included more information about different programs, they interviewed Dean of HHS about interdisciplinary education at Camosun and included some keynote speakers. The focus of the IMD students was peer-to-peer technical support for instructors and for students submitting projects to the website as well as providing troubleshooting support and updating the website.” And along the way, learning skills their profession had been criticized for lacking. Lynelle was proud to report that the whole cohort of IMD students was immediately employed after graduation, and most were hired where they wanted to be hired.

And now we come to the current year (2023). “This semester, I’m teaching the course to Sonography students for the first time. And this year, the students are using H5P to develop an interactive virtual simulation that teaches their profession to people in other health care professions. The theme of this year’s interdisciplinary student festival, which will be held in the spring, is What we wish our colleagues knew: Get the scoop on our scope.” Basically, students are looking at improving communication between professions, for example between nurses, care aids and allied health professionals, to reduce medical mistakes or miscommunications. “The students created a simulation exercise: you click through it, learning bits here and there, watch some patient interactions, so at the end their peer colleagues should have a fundamental understanding of what sonographers need in order to do their job. And that’s the point of this student interdisciplinary festival – improving interprofessional communication.”

As Lynelle and the IDE festival group think about the future, they are reaching out to the interdisciplinary education community of practice at Camosun College to see if there are ways to bring more students in to this kind of student-led learning for and about each other. “We’ve proven that it works with a group of students in a computer science program that realistically have no reason to take a health program, but this course does speak to one of their program outcomes explicitly.” To start, a student in Mental Health and Addictions has been interviewed by Lynelle’s students as a first step in learning about that profession, in hopes that “they will then be interested in learning more about us. Then maybe in the next iteration, they’ll be more interested in learning with us.”

But it’s not just service-education programs Lynelle sees fitting in with the current model. “I want to learn how someone in Economics might see their students participating. When I think about how important economics is to funding our healthcare system, if economics students gained a better understanding of where they might fit in the world through collaborative learning and understanding, how would that improve our society? Because if we understand each other better, if we recognize not only what makes us different but what makes us the same, and what we need in order to work in a more collaborative way, I don’t think discipline matters so much – it’s about beginning to have those conversations.”

And why shouldn’t anyone at Camosun be allowed and encouraged, and even required, to take an interdisciplinary communication course? “I would love for any student to be able to take this course and be able to participate in these kinds of activities – even to go so far as to create open programming where students could choose to take the courses that they’re excited to take.” Lynelle’s point hit home with me. This course addresses an essential skill that ALL students should be engaged in learning. “These are the skills employers are looking for – working with teams, working with clients – capabilities aren’t necessarily included in discipline-specific programs. Everyone who learns to take an X-ray can functionally execute an X-ray, but who can do it with the best client-centred care perspective? Who can interact with other colleagues in the department or interact with the other departments that we have to work with.? This is why the IDE festival was born.”

Lynelle concluded our conversation by telling me “I don’t know where this is going to go, but almost every single allied health, nursing, and health-related credential now includes some sort of inter-professional or interdisciplinary competency, so I think it’s here to stay in all those programs. But what about other essential courses? I would love to see, for example, a course about Indigenous history in every single program. If we’re talking about the skills and capabilities that are going to help graduates function better as employees and be more attractive to employers, we have to look ways to incorporate those important topics and skills into the core of all our programs, so they are not something that students or instructors have to do off the side of their desk.” That should be the future of education – whole and inclusive.

Becoming Unravelled: a reflection from Robin Fast, Educational Developer, CETL

This winter, Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Book Club participants read Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead).

I can’t emphasise this enough: Do not read this book! It will have you tugging at a thread that unravels an entire sock drawer full of sacred bits of teaching practice. It may lead you to re-examine what you value about the letter grade system, your choice of assignments, your assessment and feedback processes, your relationship with students, and maybe even your feelings about the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote!

The text describes ungrading as the practice of providing no letter grades or marks on student work, focusing instead on an iterative and formative process of feedback in an effort to improve student engagement and learning. And if you think this can’t be done in a letter-grade-centred postsecondary environment, they offer examples that undermine this assumption.

Susan D. Blum, the book’s editor, as well as the chapter authors, make a strong case that letter grades are an invention that needs to be chucked. According to the authors, letter grades don’t correlate to later competence in practice, are a shortcut that doesn’t acknowledge the complexity that is the learning process, discourage risk (a key learning ingredient) because students instead focus on meeting the extrinsic expectations of the evaluator, and put instructors and institutions in the business of ranking students rather than encouraging learning.

As I read, I certainly didn’t like the accusatory finger pointing my way. I had to admit, however, I have myself at times, both as an instructor and a student just tried to get through by taking the most expedient, expected route.

I remember when I first started teaching, picking up the threads left by previous course instructors and learning the ropes from my new colleagues, I accepted that I had to grade, and I worked to find ways to make it meaningful, helpful, and accurate. I remember, less fondly, the first time I was asked that heartwarming question, “Why did you take these marks off?” Much of the feedback I provided students was motivated by justifying the grade I was assigning and trying to prevent that question from coming my way again. I spent my weekends diligently providing that feedback only to realize how frequently, when accompanied by a grade, it wasn’t even read.

As a student, how often did I spend time trying to figure out the instructor’s system, often seemingly chosen at random, rather than based on what I wanted to get out of a course? How often did the stress of the needed grade override my original reasons for signing up for a class? How many times did I choose safe and within-the-lines over something inventive and more fulfilling because there may be a consequence I hadn’t anticipated? This book has reminded me that education needs to prepare learners for the autonomy of a less structured world, where creativity, self-direction, and a growth mindset will be key elements of success. Education also built on relationships – between students and between students and instructors – and this is hardly nurtured by the looming judgment in a grade.

I’ve been reminded that we need to encourage mistakes and I’ve been working in a structure where mistakes are punished.

Ungrading offers an alternative and since the examples in the book include continuing to assign a grade at the end of the semester, many of the suggestions are things I can implement within our existing structures, perhaps starting small with a few ungraded assignments to make the change manageable as I try to weave together something new, something more cooperative, more learning centred.

Focusing on Formative Feedback

In Ungrading, the authors suggested assignments that build on each other, and the use of clear, supportive feedback that students can use to improve their work. Students are offered the opportunity to resubmit assignments or use the feedback for their next assignment without the risk of losing a mark: no ‘one and done’ assignments. Students and instructors work together, encouraging risk and growth, to improve performance and deepen learning. The process rather than the product becomes the focus.

The authors also emphasized the value of peer, self, and instructor feedback, and creating a clear structure so that students are able to support each other and are guided to reflect effectively on their own progress. Evidence suggests that feedback alone is more effective in improving performance than feedback with a grade, or than grades alone. With only the feedback to consider, students may build on their skills with a greater intrinsic sense of motivation.

One suggestion I found particularly useful was to ask students to let the instructor know, when submitting an assignment, what they were trying to accomplish or improve, and then targeting feedback to address the student’s specific goals.

Portfolios

In addition to formative, collaborative, and targeted feedback, many authors encouraged students to create portfolios of their work, usually electronic, that they could add to over the course of the semester or longer. Portfolios become a metacognition space and a way to share their work with peers and instructors, building evidence of their learning, and forming the basis for discussions between students and with the instructor during and at the end of the term.

Assigning the Grade

In order to fulfill the grade requirement within which the authors worked, most met with students at the end of the semester to discuss the grade together, usually having the student suggest a grade and provide evidence to justify their choice. Along with the growth demonstrated through their response to feedback throughout the semester, instructors used a variety of assignments that the student could draw from as evidence, including weekly attendance, blog posts, peer-led course units, discussions, presentations, and essays, to name a few. Badging and creating checklists for students to monitor their own progress were also used. Some instructors also described a contract-grading process in which students completed a contracted number of assignments to a specific quality in order to receive a corresponding grade.

If you’re concerned a student will receive a grade they haven’t earned, as Marcus Schultz-Bergin, one of the contributing authors, suggested, then you are still attached to the idea that grades have meaning. Evidence demonstrates that they don’t, and this may be the most compelling reason to ensure students are a part of the process.

Getting Buy-In

Whenever I’ve tried something new in class, I’ve talked with students about the what, the why, and the how. I’ve found that when students understand what is in store, they can ready themselves, make decisions about how they want to participate, recognize themselves as part of the environment and process we are creating together, and engage more fully in the work. Since instructors expect to grade and students expect to be graded, messing with this equation means even more discussion than may be necessary with other, less disruptive changes.

In addition to describing to students the ungrading process, the reasons it is being used, and what students can expect along the way, some authors, where possible or working in environments where this was unfixed, built the syllabus with the class, creating learning outcomes and rubrics together. This approach seems to be a helpful way to demonstrate the ungrading philosophy, by collaborating on some of the foundational elements of the course from the beginning. Referencing the personal meaning that Dewey long ago insisted was essential to learning, some authors also encouraged students to add their own learning outcomes, relevant to them, and to include completing these outcomes as part of their work and portfolio plans.

Results

In the book-club discussions, many of the strategies for assessing learning were similar to those many of us are already including in our courses. The big difference was the lack of letter grades or marks. While some of the approaches described seemed overly elaborate, and assigning a grade at the end of the course appears to compromise the ungrading philosophy promoted in the book, we agreed that the values expressed aligned with our own commitment to an engaged, accessible, and socially just pedagogy. The authors consistently described the positive results, including more egalitarian, cooperative environments and relationships, as well as strong student learning outcomes. They described students who worked harder, had less stress, new learning habits, and more creativity. They described students who had loved learning but hated school, appreciating this one experience where they could love both.

In addition, the instructors were reenergized by their role in education, letting go of the sorting, ranking, and judging and focusing instead on coaching, encouraging, guiding and the socially-just act of teaching.

Ignoring My Advice

If you decide to ignore my advice and pick up this book to begin the unraveling, and continue, as one of the book’s author’s put it, that Wile E. Coyote-level, impossible yet noble pursuit – the perfect teaching and learning experience- please let me know what you decide to adopt and how it goes.

Additional resources can be found with any of us at CETL and:

Camosun’s Assessment LibGuide (Including the use of feedback).

The Reflective Learning Framework: A Guide for Students and Educators.

UNGRADING: Untangling Grades from Feedback

E-portfolio Resources

Camosun Story #57: Anthony

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!

Open Education Story: Charlie Molnar

Charlie Molnar is a biology instructor at Camosun who has long been involved with Open Education, revising, adapting, and creating Open Educational Resources since 2015. Charlie began his Open Education journey by working with Dr. Jane Gair, who teaches at Camosun College as well as at UVic in the Island Medical Program, a distributed site of UBC’s medical school, to substantially revise the open textbook, Concepts of Biology, creating the first Canadian edition which Charlie and several of his fellow biology instructors at Camosun have been using in their courses for the past seven years.

Reflecting back to 2015, Charlie recalled that his Dean “informed faculty that there was an opportunity to work on a project to create resources for students that would be high-quality, engaging, and not carry any publishing fees.” Jane and Charlie (with release time because of the project funding) began working on their project over several months, creating a substantive revision with much support from BCcampus (especially with the building of the textbook in Pressbooks.) Charlie told me that he “made first use of the new edition during the summer session at Camosun in 2015” and commented “how grateful students were to have this resource that they could download and have forever and use for free.” Charlie and his colleagues over the years have also arranged for the Camosun Print Shop to print relevant chapters of the textbook that students who prefer a print copy can purchase at the bookstore for a nominal fee.

But Charlie was not done with his Open Education journey, and since 2015, “nearly every year [on his Schedule Development time], he has been making revisions to the materials in the textbook.” For example, Charlie first encouraged students to look for grammatical errors, labeling problems, or any issues with the open textbook. “They were quite pleased to be part of this process and valued that I wanted their input on how to improve the textbook. What a wonderful thing it was to not only be teaching from this textbook, but to see my students reading it differently because they had input in how to make it better, something which was unique in my experience as a biology instructor.”

Charlie said that “the next major upgrade was to create video content [working with Alan Shook at Camosun] that could be embedded and linked into the textbook, so students could see me, as well as graphics and images, describing not only interesting facets of biology related to the text material, but also some topics that were a little beyond the ordinary context of a biology text. I think now there are 24 five- to seven-minute-long videos embedded in the textbook that the students can access and re-access, something that is not available in a paper textbook.”

Next, Charlie worked with Suzanne Wilkinson and others to integrate Indigenous content into the textbook. “We integrated material related to Indigenous culture, especially of the Pacific Coast Aboriginal peoples, and their expertise in processing food and calories, etc. For example, there’s a portion that talks about camas bulbs and the biochemistry of why these bulbs are treated in the way they are, buried underground with the coals over top of them and what that happens to the carbohydrates there.”

Charlie returned to his videos the next year, working with Sue Doner in eLearning to include accurate closed captioning so that the video materials would be more accessible. “Once again, the people at Camosun, especially Sue Doner, were extremely helpful in facilitating this upgrade to make materials maximally accessible.”

Next Charlie got involved with another BCcampus funded project: adding H5P objects to the textbook. “I worked with a colleague from Kwantlen Polytechnic to move the written questions that appeared at the end of chapter sections into H5P which meant students could answer section questions right in the textbook and get immediate feedback and check their understanding in real time, without an instructor needing to mark those questions.” He also integrated H5P into many of his videos. “Now nearly all of the videos have at least one stopping point where the video pauses and questions are posed to the students about what they’ve heard so that they can get real-time feedback about that as well.”

Finally, this last summer (working with Sue Doner and Kristina Andrew in eLearning) Charlie “created a package of material [on a WordPress site] that was based around the first two chapters of the textbook and included those first two chapters, the first laboratory exercise, and exercises in terminology, so students could preview what kind of text material was most important.” The link to this site was sent to students who had registered in Charlie’s course by the beginning of August 2022. Those students then “had early access to the textbook and materials so they could prepare for the first days and weeks of class and have an idea of what was coming, what kind of materials would be covered and to what depth.” Charlie especially wanted to support those students for whom English is not their first language to give them a clearer idea of what they could expect “so they could preview the course and see if it was for them, whether they were ready for it, interested in it, and perhaps make their registrations and financial decisions in a more educated way.”

Charlie described the past seven years as an evolution, but not one he had anticipated back in 2015 when he first embarked on that original open textbook revision. “I really didn’t know what would be involved, what partnerships could be created. I was not very technologically adept and still am not. The original idea was just to create a resource to help relieve the students from the burden of exceptionally high textbook costs.” So, what made Charlie want to do more? “I must confess that it was a bit of altruism thinking, I have an opportunity to help students get through their college experience with less debt, and with a high-quality resource. It also felt really nice to go to Concepts of Biology first Canadian edition and see my name there with Jane’s.

When I asked Charlie if he considered all his work as a success, he said, yes “while I think students are more familiar with open resources now, in 2015 they were so startled and grateful to have this free resource.” He has also seen some of his colleagues take the open textbook and make their own adaptations to it, “not to necessarily add to it formally, but use it as a starting point, or pull our specific videos and components, or lead students to it for those portions on Indigenization.”

One thing Charlie wishes he knew was who else outside of Camosun is using his textbook. “I hoped there would be a list of colleges that have taken advantage of it, but I know that it’s used around the world because I’ve received emails from people in various locations who stumbled across it and felt grateful enough to write to me and thank me for it. So that felt nice too.”

I asked Charlie what challenges he faced doing this work over the past seven years, and he reiterated the importance of getting all the support he did, from BCcampus, from people at Camosun, the H5P expert from Kwantlen. “I could just be the subject matter expert rather than having to learn all the technology – I could simply create the materials for someone else to insert and embed into the textbook.” And when I asked what advice he would give people thinking of embarking on their own Open Education journey, he said “why do this alone? I’ve always been a person whose loves to work in groups and take advantage of people’s different skill sets so why not recognize your strengths and find other people who could be helpful in other aspects of the production and share this opportunity to create something that will help students so dramatically.”

One thing I personally think we could do better as an institution is celebrating our faculty, students, and employees who do this kind of work: creating materials that are shared around the world, support students, and make such a difference. Charlie mentioned to me that back in 2015 “I was bursting with pride for Jane and I when we created this textbook, and I asked if we could have a display of the open educational resources that we’ve created at Camosun [because there are a lot!] to show how proud we are of this work but it never came about.” Well, I am happy to say that we are going to do just that here in the library in March 2023 to celebrate Open Education Week!

When I asked Charlie if he would recommend that others do this work, he, not surprisingly given his obvious devotion to Open Education, said yes, “it’s a wonderful thing to.” And not just for students. “It also helped me refresh my understanding of unfolding biological and genetic research so that I could include up-to-date examples that the students would have heard about and convey it at an appropriate level both in my teaching and in the textbook.”

Charlie is heading into retirement (he is currently on a two-year post-retirement contract) but he is not likely done with his open textbook yet. “I don’t know exactly what I may be devoting time to when I’m fully retired from Camosun, but it might be that I add to, clarify, and refine materials in the textbook.” I look forward to seeing what he does next!

Camosun Story #56: Nancy

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.”

Camosun Story #55: Allyson

Allyson is an Instructional Assistant (IA) for the BEST program, now called Education & Career Planning program (EDCP). I have already shared stories from her colleagues, Diane and Val, as well as the story of the BEST program review as told by my CETL colleagues Monique and Deidre. So, of course, I wanted to see if Allyson would also be willing to talk to me, and she was!

Allyson started by telling me a bit about her background. “I had a 20-year career as a technical writer and instructional designer. As a technical writer, I wrote curriculum to support classroom learning, but I also developed asynchronous curriculum. But what was missing for me was direct contact with students. In the spring of 2020, I came to the BEST program.” Just as Allyson was looking forward to being in the classroom and moving away from her computer, COVID hit. But while she missed that in-person contact with students, “COVID was a blessing for me because I was right away able to apply my years of experience with online and asynchronous documentation. It was such a gift to have a new job that I wanted and to be able to connect with people, albeit online.”

Because she was new, Allyson was able to approach the new online delivery for BEST with fresh eyes. As you may remember from Monique and Deidre’s story of the BEST program review, they had online content to draw from (unlike many faculty who were creating their content at the same time they were learning to teaching online). “We had adopted the BC curriculum, which was for self-directed asynchronous learning. Initially, the content was structured by topic” which didn’t match with the way the BEST program approached content delivery. “After the first academic year we all agreed that it would be best if we moved to a week-by-week content structure, displaying that week’s content each Monday at 10:30 am. Then we added the Checklist tool which listed the readings, the assignment due dates and what students had to prepare for class.

Adding the Gradebook (and naming it My Progress) was huge help for both instructors and students. We don’t assign grades – we give strength-based feedback. By renaming it to My Progress and displaying the students’ week-by-week progress as they complete assignments, students can manage their own learning. But the Gradebook is also an important tool for the instructors to very clearly determine if a student has met the criteria for the certificate or not.”

With the new week-by-week curriculum organization, the Checklist and the Gradebook, the program design became more accessible and easier to navigate, and some of the weekly content could be lifted out and ported to other programs at Camosun.

Putting BEST online opened literally the world to anyone wanting to come into the program. “Being online allowed us to have a student in Chilliwack who, through our program, felt seen and heard. She turned a corner and is now on the path to following her dream. We could never have helped that student if we weren’t online. And now we now have inquiries and students from Canadians living in Chile, Nova Scotia, Winnipeg and Whitehorse. How amazing is that? We have also successfully added BEST to Camosun International’s roster of programs for international students.” The diversity of students goes beyond geographical location. “We have people who are just out of high school, retirees, and everyone in-between. That diversity is a huge benefit for our students. In the information sessions I talk about how everyone’s going to learn from each other, how the program reflects the diversity of real life.” But everyone in the class is there for the same reason: they are looking for guidance to help them make education and career choices that are a great fit for them.

Allyson explained that a large part of the process is making people feel safe to explore—to try new things. One example is when students try out a Table Topic after attending a Toastmaster mini session. “This is in week two: a couple of brave ones go first, and then the more hesitant students take a risk to join in. They feel safe enough to try new skills right then and there after being introduced to Toastmasters. I can’t stress enough how gifted Diana and Val are in terms of making people feel safe. That’s a huge piece of this program is making people feel safe to try new things.” And all this online!

But while Allyson admires the way Diane and Val work with students, she is equally a part of the team that makes BEST such a success. Val and Diane encouraged Allyson to consider which pieces she might want to teach, and since she has a passion for the power of an effective resume to land a job interview, she developed a four-part resume writing workshop to demystify and simplify the resume-writing process.

I asked Allyson what rewards she sees in the work she does, and she told me the reward “is when a student’s dream is realized by the connections that we help them make; the process of going through the program, going from feeling stuck to having confidence, and having the courage to go out and do something that they really want to do.” And over the past two years, Allyson has seen “many shining moments, even for that person who is just doing one small thing which may not seem like a big deal, but it is a big deal – it’s a shining moment for that person.”

When I asked about lessons learned, Allyson said “what surprised me with the online classroom is how you can have an engaged, supportive learning space in an online environment. It doesn’t have to be in-person, and it may even be better because it’s so focused. Our students are so keen on coming to class on time, and they miss the regularity of the class after the program ends.” In their synchronous classes, they used breakout rooms frequently. “Every seven to ten minutes we’re getting them to do something which increases engagement.” But frequent communication between Allyson and the two instructors was also key to improving engagement. “Every morning at 8:30. I meet with the instructor so we can review the plan for the class. For example, if there was going to be Breakout groups, I know that ahead of time and so I am well prepared to support them. Having that advance check-in ensures that what happens during the class is as seamless as possible for the students.

My job as the Instructional Assistant is to listen for cues from the instructors and to keep an eye on the students’ participation.” You’re another set of eyes and ears for the instructor so they can concentrate on the content and the flow of the class; and you’re an advocate for the students to make sure they are heard.” The better you know your students, the more you can see their progress. “You can see them become more comfortable and less anxious as they open up, as they speak more.”

When reflecting on what she might say to herself of March 2020, Allyson said she might say “it will work out and it will become clearer. And students are going to be forgiving of mistakes. That first online class, those students were amazingly forgiving. They were so understanding because we were trying to figure it all out – I still think of them: even though there were bumps on the road, they still got a lot out of the program.”

Here’s to BEST (now EDCP) continuing to support and inspire students for years to come.

Camosun Story #54: Lizzie

Lizzie is an Instructional Assistant (IA) and tutor for the English Language Development (ELD) program. Her main role is to tutor ELD students, working with them on their coursework and understanding their textbooks, etc., but she also orients them to their program and helps them register and apply for funding. Prior to March 2020, she and her colleagues provided this support exclusively in person, but when everything moved online, Lizzie says “we went completely online suddenly and had to adapt quickly to the technology that became our only way of communicating with students.” And adapting to the technology meant that Lizzie and her colleagues had to gain access to the various tools bring used to support students, namely D2L and Collaborate. Fortunately, D2L was already in place [*although I will note that not all instructors in ELD were using D2L at that time*] and instructors gave us permission to access their D2L courses so that we could help facilitate their classes.” But students faced many challenges beyond learning online. “Many of our students are not technologically grounded and even before they set foot in their online classes, they had to register remotely, complete assessments, purchase their e-books, etc.”

When the world shut down, everyone in ELD’s Assessment and Registrations areas, as well as the IAs, were all on deck getting students into their classes. “Then once they were in their classes, they had to learn how to study online. Many of them were relying on phones, and you can imagine how difficult it is to do a tutoring session or to conduct a class with students who were using their phones. But even when laptops were made available for the students, they had to learn how to use those.” But while initially many ELD students were not prepared for online learning, Lizzie said that learning how to use all this technology has some positive results for them. “By the end of one semester, students had acquired new skills with technology and remote learning, and I think a certain independence came with that.”

Lizzie’s previous experience with D2L was limited to supporting students who came to the Help Centre looking for help navigating their D2L course sites, so the learning curve at the beginning of the pandemic was steep. “We realized quickly how useful it was for us as IAs to have access to D2L course sites. Because students often struggled to communicate what they’d been learning in class, we found it very helpful to be able to directly access the support material instructors were providing their students. Eventually, we also connected with textbook publishers so we could also access students’ e-textbooks as well.” And then to interact with students, the IAs used Collaborate. “We initially also used WC Online (which was already in place for upper-level courses), but we found that it was challenging for the lower ELDs students to learn yet another tool. So, since instructors were using D2L and Collaborate, it made more sense to meet all students in Collaborate.” While the IAs are no longer supporting students online regularly, Lizzie says that she has met with at least one student who was unable to attend in-person classes for a few weeks, so she met with her in Collaborate which meant the student could keep up with her classes when otherwise she would have had to withdraw.

Once Lizzie and her colleagues were set up with, and got to know, the technology, they still faced some challenges. “We book 30-minute appointments with students, but those 30 minutes were often devoured just getting the technology to work, sometimes to the point where actual tutoring time was reduced to ten minutes or less.” And once IAs were in Collaborate with students, they needed to learn how to “communicate effectively in order to help them, to show them how to look for their classes, or how to register for the next class. There were many obstacles just trying to convey information to students.”

I asked Lizzie if the number of appointment requests increased during the pandemic, but she thought the number had actually decreased, saying “I think students were burned out. They’d been sitting in front of a computer all morning with an instructor. They had homework that they had to do. They had families running around in the background. And at the end of the day, they were shutting down. It would’ve been nice if we could have met with students after the kids had gone to bed, but that wasn’t possible.” And Lizzie felt that same exhaustion. “At the end of the day, I was like a zombie. I think it does something to your neural synapses sitting in front of a computer all day.” Lizzie is happy to be seeing students in-person again, “but I wouldn’t say we weren’t effective as tutors during the remote period. Some students really rose to the occasion and took full advantage of our services, but sadly there were many who were lost on the way.”

I asked Lizzie if she felt there were any moments that stuck with her from when she was supporting students online. “I think it was just having regular conversations with students when they didn’t want to be looking at the textbook. I think that they had a strong relationship with their instructors, but they wanted some connection with a person other than an instructor. Many students were feeling so isolated (many had just arrived before the pandemic hit and were missing their families back home) so those moments of just talking about what they were doing over the course of the day were important for them.”

When I asked what lessons Lizzie might have learned during the shift to online teaching, she, like many others I’ve talked to, said “I know that it can be done, that it is possible if we work as a team.” And not just within ELD, but also with CETL and others supporting the move online. “I think before there was a sense that when you work in a specific area, you don’t really have any connection with the rest of the college – you exist in your own little world. But this opened up the world of Camosun.” In addition, Lizzie says keeping a sense of humour was important, as well as being open to anything coming your way. “Things can change on a dime so go with it, be kind, and take your time. If you feel like you’ve had enough then just step away for a little bit – go outside for a walk or pet the poodle between appointments.” Wise words to make sure you look after yourself so you can help others, whether during a pandemic or not.

When I asked Lizzie if the IAs would keep using the technology they learned, she said yes, especially D2L, saying “I never realized how vital it was to tutors. Now we create materials at the beginning of the term and ask instructors to post them on D2L, so students know who we are and how to access us. We see the same students over and over again, but I know there are many more who just need a little push to come in, so if there’s more IA presence in D2L, then they’ll maybe reach out a bit more.”

But she would like access to even more technology to support their in-person work as well. “When we did orientations before COVID, we would use a flip chart, and every semester the students would file in and we would point to the flip chart showing our hours, etc. But this semester I was tired of the flip chart and ready to hit the 21st century. So, we set up a big screen TV (because we don’t have a projector in our orientation space), plugged in a laptop, and ran our orientation that way.”

Lizzie had a few final words about the experience of the last two years, and where she is at now. First, she sees that students are now open to the possibilities remote learning can offer. “Even with all the obstacles they faced, I think many of them came to appreciate the flexibility of learning from home – they didn’t have to catch a bus or take two buses to get to class every day.” And finally, “there are many opportunities out there, and you have to be open to them, and there are people to support you and get you through pretty much anything. All of us, all the colleges and universities, have been through the same things, and while we have lost a lot, we’ve also gained a lot.”

Sarah and Patsy: The story of how one Student’s Open Education project can make a difference

Some days working at Camosun is a joy, when I get to see firsthand the kind of amazing work students are doing with the support of my colleagues, sometimes in CETL and in this case in the library. This is the story of Sarah, a student in the Child, Family, and Community Services (CFCS) program, and Patsy, the librarian who supports that program and its students, and their Open Education project. Before I begin, however, I want to thank Sarah and Patsy for agreeing to talk to me. They had final editing approval on this piece – the voices of our students in advocating for themselves is vital, but we need to ensure that sharing their voices does not exploit them or set them up for being penalized for speaking out. Sarah had nothing but positive things to say about her program and the people working and learning in it, and she only seeks to improve the experience for all.

I first heard about Sarah from Patsy, who contacted me because Sarah was working on a class project to find free alternatives to their textbook. “One of our assignments was to address a social justice issue of our choice and to come up with two actions – they didn’t have to be huge, but some sort of small action to address the root of a social justice issue. And I chose to address the cost of post-secondary education.” Sarah comes from Germany where the postsecondary experience is quite different. “In Germany we don’t pay tuition or for textbooks because our courses are using open resources, or we can borrow the texts from the library. When I came here, I was shocked to see how much we had to spend on textbooks, so, I wanted to find a way to reduce the costs of education for students.”

Sarah started with some general background on her project. “I reviewed Camosun’s website which lists estimates of how much students spend on textbooks per term, then I did the math, and given Camosun’s claim that students pay about $1000 for textbooks and supplies per term (although some programs are more expensive than others) it turns out that textbooks make up around 60 percent of the cost of tuition. We often hear that tuition is the most expensive barrier to post-secondary education, but textbook costs are a huge barrier as well. I feel like we have created like a world, especially in the Western world, where education has become a privilege when it should be a right for everyone.”

So, Sarah had an idea for a social justice project, she had completed some preliminary research, but now what next? Luckily Patsy “came in to teach a library session for Sarah’s class, and after the session, Sarah said she wanted to talk about some projects. As librarians, going into the classroom to teach research skills is so valuable for making that contact with students. Students learn that there is an actual person to help them.” Sarah and Patsy started working together on a couple of projects, including this one. “Sarah asked about the possibility of textbooks being available for students through the library, but I explained that the reality is textbooks are not only very expensive for students, but for libraries as well, and we don’t have money in our budget to provide textbooks for all students.” As Patsy and Sarah talked about what other options might be available, “we decided to look at the possibility of finding open resources that could replace, if not a whole textbook, maybe just some of the chapters,” which was one scenario Sarah was exploring – a class which required a textbook, but only used three chapters of it.

One of the things Patsy says a librarian can contribute when working with students and faculty is networking with people across the college (and beyond). “We are essentially a reference desk. People come to us and ask; how do I do this? Where do I find that? And if we don’t know, we find out. So, as Sarah and I talked about open resources, I thought, oh, I know someone, and I connected Sarah with you, Emily, as someone who could help her with Open Education and how to find Open Educational Resources (OER).”

Sarah had heard of OER and open textbooks before. “In a way, we had used Open Educational Resources in Germany, but I never really questioned where all the free resources were coming from. Then last year I visited the Students Society’s booth [at CamFest] where they were talking about open textbooks, and while at the time I was not sure what that meant, I found it very intriguing because I’ve always been interested in trying to reduce costs for education.” So, after talking to Patsy, Sarah did some more research and “decided that one of my actions would be to present to the CFCS faculty about what open educational resources are, where to find them, and how to use them, including the basic math of how much we could be saving if we were to use open educational resources.”

Once I had talked to Sarah and Patsy about their project and understood what Sarah’s goals were, I sent them a link to the slides for the Introduction to Open Education and OER workshop I run for faculty every year. Sarah says the slides helped her “learn about copyright, fair dealing, and where to find open resources which was helpful for me because I think one reason instructors don’t use OER is because they don’t know where to start, or what their rights are. Now I feel like I know more about where you can find resources, how much you are allowed to take of a resource, and what you are allowed to do with it which was very helpful.” And of course, Patsy notes “open textbooks are not only free to use, but usually allow adaptation meaning you can take the content that works, and then add content that represents the concerns or issues or experiences relevant to our students and community, for example integrating Indigenous or LGBTQ+ voices.”

The first part of Sarah’s project was to examine her textbooks. “I started with the textbook from the social justice class because we were only using three chapters of it, and it was very expensive. I thought we should be able to replace those three chapters with open resources, so I started looking into it.” One challenge for Sarah was not having a clear understanding of what was important in those chapters for the instructor teaching the course. “I asked if she could provide me with the main concepts, but at the time she was very busy and while I was confident that I understood the content enough to decide what was important, I am not the one teaching the course and didn’t feel comfortable making that decision.” So, instead Sarah went in a different direction. “Patsy in the meantime, had found an open textbook that was very similar to the textbook we were using in a different class. We were working very intensely with that book, and I had more confidence that I knew what was important in it. So, I compared our textbook to the open textbook, looking at all the key concepts to see what was lacking in the open textbook, or what extras did it have that ours didn’t, and Patsy helped me with the research. Then I wrote an assessment and sent it to the head of our program, because they are preparing courses for the next term, and she will see if the open text can replace some, or all, of the current text.”

The second part of Sarah’s project was presenting to the CFCS faculty. “Unfortunately, it was not possible for me to present at an in-person meeting with all the faculty members, but I created a PowerPoint presentation with voice-over for them to go through on their own. In the presentation, I began by explaining why this is a social justice issue, why it’s important, and showed how much students could be saving. Then I went into some basic rules about fair dealing and copyright, and where to find open resources. Finally, I showed them what I did with that one textbook, where I found it, and how I worked with it so they could see that it’s not a complicated a process and that there are many resources out there to support them.”

I asked Sarah how it felt, presenting to faculty and potentially effecting change in her program. “It felt awesome to be heard because I feel a lot of the time there is a hierarchy between instructors and students, where the instructors give us knowledge and we feel almost powerless in that process. While in the beginning I was intimidated, our program head trusted my competence and gave me the confidence to work on this project. Knowing how this one small thing could potentially make a big change, is really cool, and even if they don’t replace the textbook with the one I suggested, I got the conversation about using open resources started. I’m really proud of that.” We also need to remember that students have insights that instructors may not. Sarah recalled in one class, “our instructor remarked on the diversity in the classroom, around gender expression, sexuality, etc., and how students come to the course with a lot of knowledge related to this diversity. I think students can also make decisions on what is important for the future of our field, because we are the future practitioners.”

Patsy also feels that there is a lot of potential in students, faculty, and librarians working together to explore open textbooks. “I think we can take small steps first, for example, examining what textbooks are used for core courses with multiple sections then finding some open resources to replace them, and making it a team effort: students, faculty, and librarians working together. Librarians can do some of that initial legwork (finding resources, determining how they can be used, etc.) for faculty because faculty already have so much on their plate. Then they can bring resources to faculty to see if they are relevant, hopefully making the process less overwhelming. All the while including students who are standing up and voicing their concerns over textbook costs.” Patsy, Sarah, and I all agree that this project shows the opportunities afforded by including students as equal contributors in reaching their educational goals. “I’m not suggesting students should work for free, but I think there is a place for students to be investigating the content of their course and exploring alternate resources, looking at other perspectives that could be captured by some of these resources. I think it would help students and help the institution.”

Patsy echoes my own thoughts that “we need to be talking about Open Education as an institution and need to put more effort and even funding behind it because the rippling effect is profound. It can save students a lot of money, and can also save the institution, indirectly, a lot of money.” And as Patsy noted, we have provincially funded organizations like BCcampus already promoting and supporting open resource creation, so we don’t have to be alone in this work; we also already have a lot of expertise around Open Education at Camosun so there is no reason we couldn’t make this an institutional priority.

Patsy enjoyed working with Sarah on her project. “Sarah came to me with a passion and an interest which makes my job easy. I shared her enthusiasm, and had fun using the tools, as well as the knowledge and connections I have, to support Sarah. This project was not just about finding open resources, it was also about getting in touch with the curriculum and the faculty and working with Sarah to bring forward something to the administration which is such a great experience for a student.” I want to emphasize the importance of the curriculum piece: Librarians at Camosun have connections to programs and departments, serving as subject matter librarians for faculty and students (many faculty don’t know this, but you do have a subject matter librarian!) But librarians, as Patsy noted, “face a similar challenge to what Sarah experienced where you don’t know exactly what specific content a faculty member values in their courses, meaning it can be very challenging to take a textbook that faculty use and trust and recommend a new resource to replace it, even just a chapter, without their input.”

Sarah is excited to continue learning more about Open Education. In fact, as she explored OER for her project, Sarah discovered another aspect of Open Education she hadn’t known about before. “During my research, I came across this idea of non-disposable assignments. As students, we write so many assignments that are just graded and then disposed – they don’t have any further purpose. But what I found was that some instructors assign their students course readings asking them to find free resources to replace them. What a great assignment for a professional practice because it would develop our field further, and at the same time, we could work with librarians to learn how to do research. Then we could produce an assignment with a purpose such as replacing textbooks and reducing financial burdens. It could have such an impact if we were to take advantage of all these resources that we already have and come together and work as a team. I would really like to see something like that with non-disposable assignments.”

Sarah wrapped up our conversation by saying “because this has been such a passion of mine, let me know if you ever need me to be a part of presentations, or to give presentations. I want to share what it’s like to be a student and what our financial burdens are – and I want to point out how important it is to remember that, and how much we could save with open textbooks.”

Camosun Story #53: Bob P.

Bob is another one of my eLearning colleagues (like Wendy and the rest, amazing!) He works in our Support area, focusing on our non-D2L tools, like Collaborate, Kaltura, ReadSpeaker, WordPress, and BBAlly, etc. Bob is one of those quiet types, and you don’t always know how busy he is, so I was very interested in hearing his perspectives on our move online back in March 2020.

“One thing I find shocking right now, looking back, is how little I remember of the move and how long ago it feels now. I wish I had video of those last few hours when we were still here working in the office before we had to leave, with no preparation.” But as he began to think back, Bob echoed something his support colleague Wendy told me as well: “I thought it was fun. That sudden 24/7 support where we were doing things we wouldn’t normally do – nonstop support. In hindsight, I’m surprised how well faculty and students adopted the technology, adapted to it, and were able to use it so substantially, because as you and I know many faculty did not use technology in their teaching prior to COVID.”

Bob found the move to completely online support fairly seamless, “maybe because most of the support I provided for people up until then was done over the phone or over e-mail. I liked getting on Collaborate or Teams to have conversations with people and go over things with them. Certainly, it’s a lot easier to do something over Teams than it is over email, which is a slow back and forth, back and forth.” I asked Bob if he found himself wondering why we, in eLearning, had not picked up Teams as a tool to support our work until COVID hit. “Yes, although I will admit that I was not a fan of Teams pre-COVID. I didn’t like the thought of having Teams chat open all the time, so you’re not only answering emails, but answering Teams chat as well.” But now, as with the rest of us, we can’t imagine going back to our old ways of supporting faculty.

And transitioning to working from home? Well, as for most of us in eLearning, Bob says “I found it easy to do. I had a good setup at home, and we had a robust Internet connection, which helped a lot. For a lot of people, terrible home Internet was one of their major stumbling blocks.” But, of course, working from home can blur the lines between work and life. “It was not possible to leave your work at work anymore. Especially because of the volume of work we had. You’re inundated with so many support calls you wake up in the middle of the night and think about one of the calls you forgot, realizing you hadn’t gotten back to the person, and you might jump up, turn on the computer and get back to them right then and there.” While Bob prefers working from home, he admits that there are things that “are easier to do in person, for example quickly bouncing ideas off of others when you can stand around the office talking to everybody at once.”

One thing Bob found about supporting people through Teams was that “I felt/feel like I’ve met them. I’ve talked to them, I’ve seen them, they’ve seen me. I was surprised that, while it’s not the same as face-to-face contact, it gave you the sense that you had met the person and gotten to know them.” At the same time, “the disadvantage to only seeing people virtually is that if you go to someone’s office, you might sit down and look beside you and see something that you wouldn’t have seen on camera. It might have been a poster and you ask ‘Oh, did you go to that concert?’ Or you have a discussion where you find out that they are a friend of a friend of yours. The nuances of human existence can sometimes be limited by Teams and the field of view of the camera.”

When I asked Bob about what the biggest challenge he faced when we all moved online was, he paused for a few moments to consider. “Frustration with Collaborate and the myriad problems people had with it initially and trying to figure out how to support them. Although we in eLearning were familiar with it, we hadn’t yet had to teach an entire two-hour course using Collaborate. And people were encountering multiple issues with their home device, their Internet connection, and especially with not understanding how to use Collaborate for teaching. Sometimes I wished I could just go over to the person’s house and have them show me what they were doing.” All of us in eLearning struggled similarly supporting the complex issues arising from synchronous teaching in Collaborate, but as Bob notes, “for us, we could handle that learning curve because it was our idea to adopt those technologies to begin with, but it was complex trying to figure out someone else’s problem when you’re also trying to figure out how the software works.”

One of the biggest rewards for him from the past couple of years, Bob reflected, was that our eLearning team, which “was a tight team going into COVID, became even tighter. It didn’t blow us apart and we became more supportive of ourselves as a group and around what we were doing and how we were handling things. I think a lot of people never have that in their work life, let alone during a pandemic.” Bob also says that he didn’t resent the sudden increase in workload, “and I didn’t get the feeling that anyone in our group was feeling resentful – we just jumped right in, and it was a rewarding experience.” Strangely enough, however, transitioning back to “normal” has been challenging (and not just for Bob). “Coming back to working in the office and supporting people when it’s not as high pressure is a little boring in comparison.”

When I asked Bob what advice he might have for a new support person coming into eLearning, especially during frantic times, he said “try and put yourself in the shoes of the person you’re helping. Try as best you can to see things from their perspective and get out of your own head. But I don’t think that’s any different than what I would say to a new in-person support person: listen to what people say about their problems.” Bob had a few more things to say about this perspective piece, which was so similar to the experiences of faculty teaching online for the first time, in that they were able to step into the shoes of their students much more easily than when they taught in-person: “There were times I would have to go into someone’s Collaborate class and help either students or the instructor, like I would in other jobs, where I went into someone’s classroom to help them with technology challenges in the middle of a class with all these people watching you and time ticking away. So, while it wasn’t difficult to do the same thing online, it gave me a clearer perspective of what faculty and students were going through.”

If Bob has one regret from the past couple of years, it was wanting to record “certain support cases along with the details of what went on. I kept telling myself that I should do that, but I never did,” which is not surprising considering the pressure-cooker that was eLearning support back then. But he is proud of the work he and his support colleagues did helping people with issues critical enough to make them want to throw in the towel. “We did it in the end, and the people we helped were very thankful.”

Camosun Story #52: Wendy

Wendy is one of my amazing eLearning colleagues, and our D2L Administrator. I wanted to hear her perspective on our move to online support back in March 2020 and the change of what that support looked like up to now (I will be posting her support colleague Bob’s story as well…)

When we all moved online in March 2020, Wendy says she “wasn’t worried about working from home because everything I do is on a computer, and since everybody was going to be in the same boat, they’d know I was at home so they couldn’t drop in to see me. But, as someone with extra risk factors, the biggest thing for me was fear. What if what if I get sick? What happens to my kids? What happens to work if I get sick? That’s what I was focused on – I was watching the updates every day to see what was going to happen.” But she also remembers feeling that “it was a very exciting time. I don’t mind when things are a little bit exciting because it’s invigorating, and it was an energizing period. It was also a chance to feel less like the unsung heroes keeping things running, instead being the ones keeping everyone teaching. I felt needed and very busy supporting folks who hadn’t really used our online tools before, or folks who had to ramp up their use in a big way. In addition, our team worked very well together, helping each other out which made it exciting rather than stressful because I knew the rest of the team had my back and vice versa.”

Wendy found working from home both positive and challenging. “I got to look out the window at the birds and the neighbours, but over time started to feel disconnected because I’m used to water cooler talk, daily banter with Bob [Preston], connecting with instructors and students, and just being around people.” While she prefers supporting people online, not ever seeing people in person was wearing. “I felt quite lonely at times because my kids are only with me halftime, and work is a big part of my socialization. In addition, it can sometimes be hard to stay motivated and focused on work when working from home.” Work can also easily bleed into personal time, because when we first went online, we in eLearning were working sometimes 12-hour days meaning “you had to force yourself to get up out of your chair and take a break.”

In March 2020, eLearning was short-staffed, especially considering the number of support requests that suddenly began to come in. Wendy felt internal pressure to work overtime because “if I didn’t answer questions in a timely way, I knew what an impact that would have. So, I think the biggest challenge was the volume of work and the suddenness with which we went home. It would have been ideal to have a couple of weeks to plan and discuss strategies rather than suddenly one day we’re all working from home.” While being short-staffed was a challenge for eLearning support, ironically another challenge appeared when we were given an extra support position: remotely training someone new in the middle of a pandemic. “Having trained a number of people for support positions over the years I find it easiest if they can start by watching me work to get a feel for the type of questions we receive and the ways to answer. Instead, I had to explain each scenario and trust that the person was receiving and retaining it. I also think that building rapport with somebody is hard until you’ve met in person a few times. And with the work we do, it’s important to feel connected and trusted as co-workers.”

Moving support online meant ditching the office phone and moving to a soft (computer) phone, but then moving away from phone and email and ultimately to our new ticketing system. But the big player for those of us supporting faculty was Teams. “With Teams we were able to instantly communicate with folks and share a screen which has enhanced our ability to help people. We can see what they’re looking at instead of trying to talk them through issues without seeing what they are doing which has always been a challenge for technical support.” We are hoping that students can have access to Teams in the future as that will really change how we support them as well. Wendy noted though that in her experience, in-person support will likely still be a first choice for many students and faculty. But during COVID, when “that option was taken away, we still provided timely support, but by using email and then our ticketing system we were able take more time to review support requests and get back to people with a fuller answer than we may have when answering the phone. And we haven’t shifted back too much.”

Over time, we moved from that more reactive support to more proactive (as demand decreased) but that was challenging in itself – when we moved “from a frenetic pace to more normal it was hard to shift back, especially when working at home.” Since we’ve come back to some in-person hours, Wendy and her colleagues have kept the online service model (using Teams and the ticketing system) they’ve developed. But they find that now, after everyone has been using our online tools for a couple of years, “we’re getting fewer of those basic questions we used to get from brand new or inexperienced users. The bulk of the questions now come from faculty using the tools at a deeper level. They’re not just putting their syllabus or some content online, they’re actually using the tools, and in variety of ways.”

When I asked Wendy about rewards she might have found over the past few years, I had to smile when she said “personally, the ability to foster cats was amazing. I was at home and could have little kitties running around which was fantastic.” She also appreciated being able to spend more time with her kids – “they’d come home from school, and I’d be there, although it was a little hard sometimes to remind them that I was working and not available. As much as I was disconnected from co-workers, I had more connection with friends and family.” And finally, Wendy reminded me about the NISOD Excellence Award eLearning received back in February 2021 (which I had completely forgotten about!) “That NISOD award was pretty cool. It felt neat to be recognised in CamNews. Most of the recognition I receive is from individual saying, thanks you’re a lifesaver, but that wider acknowledgement meant a lot.”

With regards to work, Wendy says “I love the shift in workshop delivery that happened when everything went online. The idea of standing in front of a large group is unpleasant for me but being part of a Teams workshop feels easy. I joined in on many workshops when they were online, sometimes to learn, but also to contribute and help the main presenter, and I really enjoyed the experience. I feel like attendance was a bit better, too, with people able to attend from wherever they were. Regardless of the future I hope we keep offering meetings and workshops this way.

When I asked Wendy what lessons she might take away from the past couple of years, she reflected on another challenge of working from home. “It’s important to not take your mobility for granted. Working from home meant I was eight feet from the bathroom, eight feet from the kitchen, and I didn’t move for a year and a half. I’m still fighting my way back to a level of fitness to keep myself healthy. So now when I’m working from home, I make a point of taking breaks. I’ll take the garbage out or walk a lap of the parking lot or just something to get myself moving.” And also, make sure your home office setup is well organized and ergonomic. And, of course, “we say it over and over – we can do our work remotely. Having two campus locations doesn’t have to be a problem and we don’t have to all travel to one place to have a productive meeting.”

Wendy had some advice for people having to support faculty and students remotely. “I find our new ticketing system to be very helpful. It’s important to have a good system for receiving support requests, assigning them, and marking them.” in addition, make time to connect and socialize with your colleagues. “Bob and Kailin and I have a weekly check-in because we don’t physically all cross paths. That way we have a half hour every week to chat about anything that’s come up, and also to talk about our weekends etc., because I think it makes for a better working environment if you can connect with your colleagues on a personal level too. As for advice to her past self, Wendy says “I would tell myself to relax a bit and not be so afraid of getting sick, and I would remind myself more that I didn’t create the problem – everyone having to go online wasn’t my fault. I took ownership of more than I probably should have in terms of trying to fix things out of my control.”

Finally, Wendy related to me something she heard one of our newer colleagues say. “She said that we have one of the best departments at Camosun in terms of how we interact with and support each other, collaborate, just get along. And I think the way we work as a team was crucial over the past two and a half years. I don’t think we all would have survived this if we didn’t work so cohesively. I’m really thankful that we did work so well together, and we have such a great group because that’s important.” Wendy, it’s been a pleasure working with you over the past 8 ½ years, and I look forward to many more!