Tag: faculty stories

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Robin has always worked hard to make sure her students are successful, regardless of their background or situation. She tries various new techniques in order to facilitate her students’ learning. She engages with K-12 students to promote Civil Engineering and organizes student / industry nights to help students find jobs after graduation. Many students cite her as their favourite teacher. She has always been attuned to the students’ needs and strives to give them all the tools they need to excel.”

Robin is a faculty member in the Civil Engineering department at Camosun, where she also just became the Chair, and a recipient of a 2024 Teacher Recognition award. She has taught here since 2014, starting as a term faculty member and becoming full-time in 2016, but she says “I am first and foremost a mom of two teenagers which is my joy and my life’s priority. Being a parent had influenced how I teach at Camosun, but Camosun has influenced how I parent as well. I came from a traditional mindset – that you go to high school, then to university, and then get a job. But Camosun has taught me that you can take a windy path to get to where you want to go, and it can be a beautiful path. That’s what inspires me most at Camosun.”

Robin graduated with a civil engineering degree from the U.S. and then went into consulting for ten years before moving to Victoria. “When we moved to Canada, I knew I didn’t want to do consulting anymore. A part of me always wanted to be a teacher, so I took a role at the University of Victoria (UVic) in their Co-op program where I helped craft their new civil engineering program.” She also did some teaching and realized she had found what she wanted to do. “My very first term position at Camosun, I was teaching fluid mechanics, and I remember driving home feeling guilty because this was the first time in my life that work didn’t feel like work.” Robin taught as a term instructor for awhile longer, then applied for a continuing position.

I asked Robin what courses she teaches. “I teach the very first design course students in our program take, called Sustainability Project. It’s a course where we teach students how to do design projects and talk about sustainability, but really, we’re trying to teach them how to work together as a team. Then I teach their very last class, which is their capstone class. It’s interesting to bookend their experience here from their first project which may be designing a simple table, to their last project which could be a two-story building. The growth that happens in between those courses is exceptional. But my favorite class to teach is hydrology, which is the study of water: water in the air, water in the ground, and water on the surface. We spend 99% of the time talking about water on the surface because that is what influences civil engineering work.”

In addition to teaching the hydrology course, I wondered what else Robin enjoys most about teaching. “I feel like it’s an honor to be on someone’s learning journey. My approach is that we’re in it together – the students and I are one team trying to reach the same goal, and I get to facilitate how we get there. But as much as I’m directing the ship, so to say, I’m learning from the students as well. I love working with our learners who are sacrificing things and investing their time to be here.” And most important to Robin? “Good discussions, and learners who are brave enough to ask questions. And if I can’t answer a question and someone else in the room can, I’m down with that. Those discussions and interactions are the most important.”

She also loves to see her students grow. “I see that growth between the first design course and the last design course. For example, in the first design course, we’ll have students who don’t say a word to anyone for the first month. Then they are put into groups and by the end of the term, those students will stand up and present their project to their peers, something they would not have considered possible at the beginning of the term. Then in their final term, I realize that they are ready to become graduates and technologists, and it’s amazing!”

Since Robin has been here for awhile, I asked if she had taken anything away with her from teaching online during COVID. “While we try to help students develop good work habits, they are people first, so we have to go into our classrooms with compassion and remember not to sweat the small stuff. While I am very strict with deadlines because of the nature of the courses I’m teaching, I have an open-door policy – if a student is struggling, I want them to come talk to me. We can figure it out even if we have to take a windier path. And even if a student fails a class, I tell them it’s going to be okay. We’ll find another route for them to take.”

The other thing Robin has taken from those couple of years is an admiration for her peers in Civil Engineering. “We don’t spend a lot of time together, but I remember we had a staff meeting on the day before everything shut down, and then were online teaching the very next day. We had never used streaming technology before, but everyone helped each other make it happen. I felt so fortunate to work with this group of people who care so much about our students.”

And aside from COVID, I wondered what other memories from her years of teaching stick out for Robin. “I remember some of my early insecurities with teaching and when I asked a colleague at UVic about how to work with a challenging student, he said, you need to connect with them. So, I did, and I remember thinking, they’re not just trying to trip me up…they need connection. Those moments of realizing that there’s more going on are huge. But the lightbulb moments are also great, when a student takes something to the next level. Or when you see a former student around Victoria who’s working and they have a good life, they’re happy, they’re being challenged – those are the best moments, when someone has launched.”

I was also curious about how many women are in the Civil Engineering program, and about Camosun’s new Women in Technology program that is slated to launch soon. “Our graduating class was 30 to 40% female this year, but there are only 5 women in a class of 35 in our current first year group – it fluctuates every year. But the Women in Technology and Indigenous People in Technology programs will be starting soon, and we will be providing excellent wraparound services, and are looking for students who maybe haven’t had the best experience with education but who want to learn.”

Finally, I asked Robin what advice she might have for new instructors coming to teach in her program. “Embrace Camosun and what it means to be at Camosun. We are here for the learners – we want our doors open and for learners to come and see us. We want questions and we want engagement. That would be my advice: understand what you’re doing here and remember what an awesome job we have, to be able to walk with someone on their journey of learning. That’s why our jobs are fun!”

“Steve is a talented and absolute NERD in the HVAC world. He’s open to new ideas and methods while being able to lay the foundation of how things are. Honestly, I’ve never had a teacher who treated me with so much respect and kindness. I can be a frustrating student because I’m really keen and inquisitive and he NEVER made me feel like I was interrupting or irritating him. I was praised for my curiosity. I’ll never forget the way he showed up for me.”

Steve is an instructor in the Plumbing and Pipe Trades program at Camosun where he teaches refrigeration, and one of our 2024 Teacher Recognition award recipients. Steve began working in refrigeration when he was 18, completing his apprenticeship after five years then eventually he went to work at the University of Victoria (UVic) doing refrigeration and Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) maintenance. As someone with a new family, Steve enjoyed the stability of the UVic job, but after seven years decided he was ready for a new challenge. In 2022, “I was playing hockey with somebody who worked at Camosun, and he asked if I had ever thought about teaching because he thought I’d be good at it. They were looking for a refrigeration instructor, so I checked it out and as soon as I met the team, I was hooked.”

I was curious about what exactly the study of refrigeration entails, and Steve explained that “refrigeration is anything with a refrigeration cycle. Anything from an ice machine to slushy and soft-serve ice-cream machines, to walk-in coolers and freezers, to AC and HVAC systems and heat pumps, to ice plants like hockey rinks, curling rinks, and everything in between.” And in the program at Camosun, students learn it all.

I asked Steve what he enjoys most about teaching. “It’s diverse, it’s challenging, it’s fulfilling, and the whole team here is very supportive. I really enjoy watching students learning and then applying what they learned.” Steve told me he likes to figure out what will work for students and what won’t. “I bring a discussion mentality into the classroom which engages the students in sharing their questions and experiences; I enjoy an involved classroom where students get to participate. I also bring practical examples in – for almost every situation we discuss, I have a real-world example available, either something I’ve done, a video of an expert in the field, or something we do in our shop. Our students mostly learn by doing or seeing directly, not just by reading or being told and I try to emphasize that in my program.”

I was curious if the students in Steve’s program come in with experience in refrigeration. “In the foundations program we mostly see students who haven’t worked in the trade before. That’s a fun program because they’re all fresh and they don’t have any experience. But now I mostly teach the apprenticeship levels, levels three and four, and those students have all worked in the field for at least two to three years, so they bring their own experiences to the classroom.” That means in these classes, everyone, including Steve, learns from each other which is important in a trade that is evolving faster than anyone can keep up with. “I also have to keep current with what’s changing by going to conventions and training seminars because our program has to adjust accordingly.”

At the apprenticeship level, Steve enjoys the math component of the courses. “Students call me the HVAC nerd because I’m good at breaking down formulas, why we use them, how we use them, etc. We have access to digital tools and apps now, but students need to understand where the final numbers come from.” Steve also likes the foundation students. “They’re fun and you get to spend a lot of time with them because that program is 30 weeks long. What I like most is guiding them into discovering what they want to do in this diverse trade and where their strengths are and helping them to find where they fit.” Next year, Steve will see some of his first foundation students coming back for level four apprenticeship. “That’ll be my first full circle, which is very fulfilling.”

Jumping off this, I asked if there were moments in his teaching life that stood out to Steve. “I focus a lot on pressure enthalpy diagrams, which is the study of refrigeration cycle and psychrometrics, which is the study of air properties. For most students, these are hard concepts to grasp, so I find fun ways to make it more practical. One student came up to me and said, ‘I’ve heard about pressure enthalpy diagrams in two levels in a row, but I didn’t understand them until you explained it.’ And the next job they went to, they drew out a pressure enthalpy diagram and used it while they were on the job. Everything had just clicked, which was a really fulfilling moment. Also, when students pass the red seal exam and tell me how they feel confident to go and do any job, those are stand-out moments for me.”

As for advice Steve might have for new faculty coming on to teach for the first time, he emphasized how fantastic the teams in Trades are. “I was very nervous: I was one of the youngest trades instructors that we’d ever hired, and I had never taught before in front of a classroom. But the whole department gets behind you. If I had never used a tool or process before, three of them would meet me at 7:00 am to give me an hour lesson on it so then I could show the students. I’ve never had that amount of support in the workplace. It was a team effort, and that applies to the whole campus community. I’ve never had situation where I felt I was asking a silly question or not being supported. Even the students themselves are very supportive – they understand that instructors are people too. Learning is a collaborative effort for everybody, and I’ve never had a class where I didn’t learn something too. It’s that ongoing process of learning that is fulfilling and challenging that continues to hook me.”

“Chris has a unique and engaging approach to warm up every lecture. He uses interactive software to enhance student’s participation. His assignments are real life scenarios for students to practice what they learned. He is still my favorite; well, there are still more, but he is on the top.”

Chris is another new faculty member at Camosun, teaching in the Sport Management program. As a recipient of a Teacher Recognition award, I asked if he would chat with me about his experiences as an instructor.

While Chris is new to Camosun, he is not new to teaching, having taught at Niagara College for ten years before coming to Victoria. “I was hired as a field placement coordinator, but after two years had become a full-time faculty member teaching sport management courses. When I was at Niagara College, I created about 23 different courses and developed my teaching skills through a southern Ontario program called the College Educator Development Program. Fellow faculty members from six Ontario colleges would go to Fanshaw College for three or four days over the course of three years to learn teaching techniques, from creating rubrics to using technology in the classroom to developing teaching portfolios. After I finished the program, they asked me to come on as a facilitator which I did for the next four or five years, working with faculty from many different disciplines.”

After being at Niagara College for ten years, Chris wanted to expand his horizons. “I saw an opportunity at Camosun College to work with degree students in sport management. I was excited to work with a different type of student and expand my teaching skills.” In December 2022, Chris began teaching here – preparing four new courses for the Winter 2023 term. “It was reinvigorating, starting almost from scratch again, but now I’ve built up a tool kit and I love the students.” So far, he has taught Introduction to Sport Business, as well as courses in sport technology, kinesiology leadership, sport law, sport analytics, and computer applications in sport. “The only ones that I had experience with were the leadership and the intro to sport business course, so it was a learning experience for me.”

As you can imagine from reading these Camosun stories, I wanted to know what Chris enjoys most about teaching. “I really love the teaching process. I get enthused trying to help students and when I see students engaging, asking interesting and probing questions, and when they are engaging with the material. And what I love the most is when they have that Aha moment, when a concept you introduced at the beginning of the term suddenly, towards the end, clicks and they can see the pieces fit together. And most satisfying is watching students transition through the course of their academic careers: from their first-year course, progressing throughout the years, and seeing them grow into successful sport management professionals.”

Chris mentioned a few times how important applied learning is in his teaching, so I asked a bit about how that shows up in his courses. “In class students engage in practical hands-on activities useful in the industry. For example, in the sport technology class, I’ll introduce certain categories of technology like wearables or sensor technology. Because there are so many kinds of technology used in different sports, I’ll provide parameters and have the students choose technologies from sports they’re interested in, and then have them share it with the class. They need to explain what it is, how it’s being used, how it was developed, and how it could be improved.” And then in another class a basketball teaches the concepts of analytics. “We have a class basketball game and use the concepts of analytics to create two teams that will produce the most competitive outcome for our class game. We film the game, collect all the data from the game, then use techniques we learned in class to tell the story, make correlations and comparisons, and answer questions like: Why did someone have a good game? What could be improved on? What were someone’s strengths and weaknesses.”

Chris says that within the topic of sport management, finding a diversity of topics is not a problem. “One way I learn what students are interested in is through a warm-up exercise where I use a technology called Nearpod to ask students open-ended questions about what’s going on in the world of sports business. Students enter the topics they’re interested in, I’ll put it up on the screen and ask: How is this relevant for the sport manager? How does this connect to our course? How does this connect to other courses that you’ve had? I had a student in my class this year who was into cycling, which is not a topic I know too much about. So, every week I’d see a cycling topic and would ask her to flesh it out. The more questions I asked, the more I could draw out the cycling business topics that are common in other sport areas, showing them the connections.” In addition, Chris pulls out the topics students are already engaged with and uses them throughout the term. “Some international students in my classes engaged in sports that I had very little experience with including judo and cricket. I know a little about cricket and I’m trying to learn more so I can incorporate some cricket data sets into my analytics class, which makes for an interesting class.” Over the years, Chris says he’s become comfortable with setting some guard rails and letting students drive the bus. “This keeps students’ interest up, but it’s also more exciting for me, especially if it’s something I haven’t seen before. And when students see that I’m excited, they also become excited.”

Chris was teaching at Niagara College when COVID hit, but I was curious how he adapted to that experience of moving his teaching online. “It was a bit easier for me, because the classes I taught at Niagara College were already hybrid, so I had some experience delivering online education. However, I hadn’t taught online synchronous classes, and quickly learned you can’t teach an online synchronous class the same way you would teach in person. When we started, I sent out all my content, trying to make it as detailed as possible, then ran an abbreviated class with activities we would go over together. I also created hundreds if not thousands of videos, chunking each class into anywhere between four to ten micro lectures. You don’t have the same vibrant classroom connections you would in person, but it was a good experience to develop some new techniques.”

One important thing Chris has carried forward from that time is how he does assessments and evaluations. “Since being online, I don’t do in-person paper exams – almost all my exams are applied.” In one format he gives students the questions a week ahead of time, where each question relates to an entire unit. “Then students will, for example, find a dataset, produce an Excel spreadsheet, show me their statistics, create some graphs, create some charts, etc. Rather than asking them to memorize things, I’m testing them on what and how they’ve applied what they’ve learned, what they can produce, and the connections to the course content.” And now, Chris is trying to figure out how he can incorporate Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) into his tests. “I’m spending a lot of time this spring considering the best way to introduce GenAI to students, as well as how can I teach them to use it ethically. It’s been on my radar for a while and I’m slowly starting to implement it because chances are when my students are out in industry, they’re going to be using it.”

I asked Chris if he had memories of past courses that stood out for him. His first memory was from a Sport Management Research course he taught at Niagara College. “I was teaching students the basics of research methods by having them develop a research proposal in the field of sport management. We went through all the steps of developing research questions, learning basic research methods, completing a literature review, refining research questions, and then ultimately putting together a proposal. When we got to the end, I was blown away by the quality of some of the research proposals, and students were excited about research – something I never would have expected.” And he had a similar experience with his Camosun analytics class, where students started out knowing nothing about analytics (and maybe being afraid of them), “but when you see final products where students can explain outcomes based on the data they gathered – those are the most enjoyable moments.”

As we reached the end of our conversation, I asked Chris if he had any advice for new faculty members coming to teach at Camosun. “Be enthused about what you’re doing and know that it’s not going to be perfect the first time – in fact, it’s never going to be perfect. Students are not expecting perfection. What they’re expecting is that you work hard for them, so be as prepared as possible and be open and honest with your students. If students see that you are advocates for them, that you’re working to provide the best experience for them, they’re going to be more accepting of any mistakes you might make. So, be vulnerable – it’s okay.”

“Charles uses good methodology in the learning process. He teaches you step by step, prepares different exercises with real situations, and explains if you have any doubts or questions. We admire his attitude and respect for students, which makes us feel comfortable. He pushes me to do my best. He is prepared and knowledgeable with a practical approach, doing more than theory. He challenged us to improve our results with cordiality and charisma.”

Charles is a very new faculty member in the Accounting and Finance program at Camosun College who, last April, received a Teacher Recognition award. I wanted to talk to him about his experiences as a new instructor and find out more about what brought him here.

Charles, while born in Vancouver, considers Victoria home. He studied economics at the University of Alberta, then came back to Victoria to become an accountant and CPA. “I completed my pre-requisites for the CPA program at Camosun in the evenings after returning to Victoria in 2011, including my first accounting class. I had a great instructor and looked at him as a role model for who I’d like to be one day.” In fact, after that first accounting course, Charles began to think about becoming an instructor himself one day. “Almost 15 years later, I reached out to the Accounting department here to check for available teaching opportunities, and there just happened to be one last summer, so I jumped at the chance.” Up to now, Charles has taught Financial Management and Financial Accounting 1, all in person courses. But at the time of this interview, he was preparing for a condensed seven-week fully online version of Financial Accounting 2 for the summer.

Charles told me how well he has been supported since starting to teach here. “The accounting faculty has been incredibly helpful, going above and beyond to answer my questions. With that said, term faculty members need to be adaptable and flexible. The biggest challenge for me so far has been that for each of the two terms I’ve taught, I’ve only had a week’s notice to get myself up to speed with the content, create a D2L site, and plan the entire semester. Each week, I go into the lecture with a plan, but sometimes topics or examples I thought students would understand are more challenging than I thought they would be.” This means Charles has learned to be open to student feedback and to adapting and learning as he goes. In addition, as a new instructor, Charles says “I’d be the first to say I’m still learning too. I’m learning as much from students as they are from me, and I try to be mindful about that.”

I asked Charles what he enjoys most about being an instructor. “It’s a cliche, but I enjoy seeing those aha moments when something clicks in a student’s mind. I’m not all that far removed from being in their shoes so I remember clearly what a big difference an instructor who cares and puts in the effort can make. So, if I can inspire any of the students I’m in front of, that makes a huge difference to me.”

I asked Charles if he has pulled stories from his past experiences as a student in his classes. “In addition to bringing in real-world examples for students from my work experience, I draw on my own experiences as a student – what did or didn’t work for me and what engaged me the most or least. One thing that sticks with me is that in classroom settings not everyone is going to raise their hand to speak up or ask questions, but that doesn’t mean students aren’t engaging or paying attention. We need to accept those students who are more passive learners, preferring to be quiet and just take it all in.”

The moments that stay with Charles are when students share feedback with him about their time in his classes. “I already knew that I loved teaching, but feedback from the students makes me feel that what I am doing is worthwhile. And knowing I’m now giving back as an instructor feels really good.”

I wondered how Charles was feeling about the upcoming challenge of teaching his first online class. “Since it will be a first for me and probably for several of the students, I need to make sure to remain flexible. I’m not going into it with preset expectations. Instead, I’ll use what I think will work and be received well, but I will adapt throughout the semester based on the feedback from the students.” The biggest challenge though, is the condensed nature of the course. “Courses like the one I will be teaching this summer establish building blocks during the first few weeks. If students don’t stay on top of the content, they can easily fall behind making it difficult to catch up, and this is magnified in a seven-week course. I will need to underscore that in different ways at the outset and throughout the first few weeks, to stress the importance of keeping on top of things, especially in a practical course like accounting.”

Charles already knows he will be teaching Financial Accounting 2 again in the fall, saying, “I’ll be able to roll into the fall semester with my new learnings from the summer semester.” But as to what the future holds, Charles comments, “I’m so new to teaching it’s difficult for me to say because everything can change very quickly. So, I’m only looking one semester ahead at a time right now.”

I did wonder if Charles had any advice for a new instructor at Camosun, since he himself is still so new. “At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I would double down on being flexible and adaptable, and not clinging to any preconceived or fixed ideas you have going in. I prepared for my first semester as much as I could, and I thought I was ready. But feedback from students, how they’re progressing and what their specific needs are, can change your plans even early in the semester. In addition, make yourself available to your students as much as you can because that’s going to matter as much as or more than your lectures in the classroom.”

Brianna is a faculty member in the Sport Management Program at Camosun College, which began in 2020, teaching one class online, then becoming full-time in 2021. Teaching was a long-term goal for Brianna who has extensive experience working in sport all over the world. From working internationally with projects such as FIFA World Cup Soccer, the Olympics, Grassroot Soccer in Africa and more, while also completing her master’s degree  One day, after re-evaluating her life goals, she decided “to use my experience, while still working in sport, to mentor the next generation of people who want to be in this industry I love so much.”

I asked Brianna what she enjoyed about teaching, and she said, “I loved helping people younger than myself realize their potential within their own career. My ultimate goal is to be the best teacher I can be, and at an applied school like Camosun, that means not just teaching, but also participating and leading by example.” It also includes bringing her own projects back to the classroom as well. “I worked on a triathlon a couple of years ago and had students come and work with me. And last year, I went down to California and worked on an event called the Homeless World Cup, a Soccer World Cup for individuals who are unhoused, and we are having a school screening of the movie that was made about it.”

I asked Brianna about how she works with students. “My philosophy is ‘your success is my success. Part of that is connecting individually with the students.  “I take time to get to know each of my students with a goal of creating community feel in the classroom. I try to create a safe space where all voices are heard and create as many applied experiences in assignments and lectures as I can. Ideally, students will walk out with something in hand that they could go and use in an interview, for example.”

I was curious about the applied experiences Brianna was referring to, so she took some time to tell me about one.  “In the project management and sports marketing class I partner every year with a different sports team in the city. The team [this past term, Brianna was excited to welcome Invictus Games as the partner] comes to class and provides the class a fake RFP along with a budget and an outline of what they want the students to achieve. Students then work through the whole term creating an entire marketing pitch on the given concept and how they’d market it. Then at the end of the term, the team comes back and votes on the winner.” And throughout the term, Brianna models how to build a relationship with a stakeholder group. She was especially excited this last term as “one of the individuals coming from Invictus Games to vote on the winning project was a previous student of mine who won two years ago for this same project. Because he now works for Invictus Games in a senior role students get to see someone who once was in their shoes only two years ago” which goes a long way to convince students how important a project like this can be for their lives after college. Brianna sees this applied learning piece as an important component that separates Camosun College from other schools.  “There is no textbook that could teach this – we are bringing in guest speakers, having them engage in real-life situations…that’s how they’re learning.”

Another element of the classroom that excites Brianna is the presence of international students. “Many of our diploma students are international. Right now, we have students from India, Japan, Austria, which is great because sport systems around the world are so different.” It’s important to include those voices, work with people from different cultures with all those diverse experiences.

I asked Brianna about her experiences teaching online when she started, and moving back to in person considering how important the classroom community is to her. While she did not enjoy teaching online, she said “I understand the importance of it and would love to explore a blended model. Many students have full-time jobs which makes building community challenging because it’s hard to get a full class showing up.” But in the end, Brianna wants the classroom “to be a place where students can have fun – I want them to feel like they want to be there.”

I wondered what moments Brianna holds in mind from her teaching. “I love graduation and seeing my students walk across the stage with smiles on their faces.  And I also love writing reference letters for them and then hearing from them when they have gotten great jobs because my goal is to help them succeed.” And finally, I asked her, as a newer faculty member, what advice she might have for other new instructors coming to teach at Camosun.  “Be open to learning, to continue growing, to making mistakes and getting feedback. And connect with your students – if you create a relationship with them, you’ll have a better experience.”

“Julia volunteered her time to teach us, as we had a shortage of instructors for the Practical Nursing program and took on the task of teaching pathophysiology and professional practice. She shows how much she cares for the future of nursing and wants us to succeed. I appreciate her dedication to our group.”

Julia L, one of this year’s Teacher Recognition award recipients, has been a faculty member at Camosun for 12 years but has been teaching for 25. Before becoming an instructor, Julia was educated in Victoria and attended Camosun and UVIC as part of her nursing education. She then moved to Mississauga, Ontario where she worked in a teaching hospital. “I was an orthopedic nurse but when I had children, the shift work became impossible, so I went back to school to study gerontology, which has always been a love of mine.” She then worked in a day center for people with Alzheimer’s disease and dementias. “I worked there for several years before I began to feel the need for another change,” at which point she met some people who convinced her to go and teach at Humber College. “They were starting a bridging program to upgrade Personal Support Workers’ education. So I started teaching evening classes for Humber, and later for Sheridan College. From there, I worked my way up to full time at Humber, coordinating the Personal Support Worker program.”

In 2009 Julia returned to Victoria and started a job at the University of Victoria, coordinating Health Sciences programs in Continuing Studies.  “I wasn’t teaching, but I was using all the key components of what makes good education. However, I missed being in the classroom.” Eventually, Julia decided to check out Camosun College’s Health Care Assistant (HCA) program, which was similar to the one she coordinated in Ontario. “They were looking for people to teach evening classes, so I interviewed and started teaching at Camosun. Over time I was given more courses, in evenings and during the summer, and eventually left UVIC completely for Camosun.” In addition to teaching in the HCA program, Julia also has taught in the Practical Nursing program.

“Throughout my years at Camosun I’ve taught many, many courses, labs, field practicums, I’ve done curriculum development, and worked with accreditation, and during COVID I taught online and worked with one of the first groups of students allowed back on campus in the lab under heavy COVID restrictions. It was a challenge but what an opportunity to exercise our creatitvity!”

I asked Julia what she enjoys most about teaching. “It’s the people. I have been so fortunate to have worked with some of the very best people on the planet and that has made work a joy! When you present heavier topics, it takes work to make it interesting for students, especially when working with challenging topics such as death and dying. Teaching can be exhausting for me, however when you try something new and creative and it works, the students get it, they’re having fun, they’re all engaged…that’s magic to me. That’s Disneyland. It is worth every milligram of effort you put into your classes. I always also hope that I’m making a positive difference for all. I love hearing back from students who have graduated and knowing that I’ve somehow helped them along the way to achieve a job that they are enjoying. There’s no better reward.”

I asked Julia if the past few years, after the COVID move to online teaching, had an impact on her teaching.  “At that time, I found it so challenging to keep them engaged. But I learned that we have to keep working at it.  At the time, I was teaching HCA’s and Practical Nursing courses and engagement was challenging, especially in Collaborate with their cameras off. I couldn’t see their facial expressions, I couldn’t read the class which was frustrating. So, I started putting up the white board at the start of the class, and wrote student names on it asking them to write down five points from last class, one at a time.  And they loved that.” Julia brought that whiteboard activity into the in-person classroom. “The classes move very quickly and there is a huge amount of material students need to understand. So, I divided them into pairs, and each pair was responsible to give a summary on the board in the classroom [although they could opt out if they wanted to very few chose to do so]. At the start of the class, they had 15 minutes to summarize what they thought were the main points from the last class, (I could fill in the gaps afterwards, if necessary). Students are brilliant when you give them the opportunity to take charge of their learning! They would come in early and fill the boards with review material. They asked each other questions and then at the end of the course they voted on whose presentation they thought was most useful – not the best presentation, but the most useful. Other students would also correct presenters if they saw something inaccurate – it was a peer review rather than a teacher review. We had a lot of fun with that exercise.”

But one thing Julia has noticed since coming back in person is the rise in anxiety levels of students.  “We do a lot of testing, and many students are struggling. COVID changed how we teach, but I think our teaching perhaps needs to change even more. We need to look at how do we deal with the anxieties and ask questions like, is testing still the best way to assess students?”

One of the cohorts Julia co-facilitates is the ESL HCA cohort which runs for an entire year rather than six months. “Students take HCA courses in the morning, Monday through Friday, and they have ELD (English Language Development) courses Monday to Thursday afternoons with Friday afternoons off. The ELD instructors work closely with the HCA instructors, sometimes coming to the labs, listening to the types of things students need to say and the kind of work they are doing.  Then the ELD instructors will go over terminology and the language skills students need in their classes. Classes are small, and we work at a slower pace.” Julia has co-facilitated this course with another HCA instructor, Heather, for years.  “We have a rhythm, and work with language skills alongside the practicum skills. They are dedicated students, who have been very successful.” What Julia and other instructors have discovered is that the methods they use with the HCA ESL classes can also be used to support other regular HCA courses where there are often large numbers of international students or students who have English as a second language.

One of Julia’s favourite memories to share from her years of teaching was “Moving from the Lansdowne campus to the new CHW building at Interurban and into new lab space. The building is a beautiful space to teach and learn in. We have been able to provide so many engaging experiences for students. We are so privileged to be able to engage in such a phenomenal place.” Another more recent highlight which provided much pride and joy was participating with the Practical Nursing students in this year’s IDE Festival. The students ‘rocked it! I was so proud of each and every one of them.”

I asked Julia, who is retiring this July, what advice she might have for new faculty coming to teach at Camosun. “Let the students guide their learning. Yes, we hold knowledge, but we need to be able to share that stage and share the load, and work in partnership with students. We can then become facilitators, not just instructors. Every time you run a course change it up a little. Put a little of yourself in your course, share some of your own stories and connect the content to something real.” As for final words for all of us, Julia says what she ultimately wishes for our students is that they will find a strong passion during their journey here, just as she has found throughout her journey of teaching.

Julia G is an instructor in the School of Business where she currently teaches web design, social media marketing, and other applied business technology courses.  Julia was first hired at the college (after starting her own web design business in 2012) to work on updating the college website, but it was not long before she moved into teaching after being hired by the computer science department in 2014.  She moved into the School of Business in 2016 and has been there ever since.

Julia is one of those people who is not afraid to try new things.  She has taught in pretty much every possible mode (in person, online asynchronous, online synchronous, Hyflex), she has written an open textbook for her course on maintaining an online presence (which is updated with the help of students), she works with Generative AI, integrates all kinds of interesting technologies to support student learning, and the list goes on.  Of course, I was immediately distracted by how students update her open textbook and started our conversation by asking about that.  “I use Hypothes.is [an online social annotation tool] and its commenting feature to allow students interested in making the textbook more robust to share their knowledge and expertise.  Some of those students have since been added right to the textbook’s Pressbook site so they can edit the book itself, and during my next SD period I will down and go through the textbook in more detail with them.” And as a bonus students receive editing attribution for their work.

Returning to my list of questions, I asked Julia what she likes best about teaching.  “I feel privileged to see people grow and learn, to see students take the information I’m trying to facilitate and the knowledge I’m trying to share and run with it. In addition, in many of my courses, students work with real clients from the community to build new websites for them – seeing students take what they have learned and apply it in real life contexts is what I love most about teaching.”

I asked Julia if she could talk a bit more about how students work with clients in her courses.  “I provide an expectations document for my students to ensure that the client’s expectations meet the students’ understanding that they, the students, own what they create during the class and if they choose to continue working with the client after the class, it would be (hopefully) on a paid basis – that this class experience is like a trial period working with the client.”  In the past, Julia herself sourced clients for her students.  “I worked with community childcare referrals, where the small business owners don’t often have the time or the know-how to put together a website for their daycare. But now I find students want to source their own clients and almost half my students this last term found their own clients to work with.” Julia believes when students find their own clients to work with, it motivates them to take their work more seriously.  In fact, “one of my students from last year was rehired by the client business to do some updates, and now she wants to build her own web design company – the course really spurred her passion for web design.”

Knowing Julia is always up for changing the way she teaches her courses I wondered if the last three years had had much of an impact on how she approaches her teaching. “I’ve changed a lot around how I present and create content since the pandemic, and online teaching has become my preference. I have three children and having the flexibility to teach asynchronously by preparing my content in advance and connecting with my students on Discord has decreased my stress level because I no longer have to run to multiple campuses to be in person for a set amount of time.”  In addition, Julia has begun teaching Hyflex.  “In all my courses, I use a Hyflex methodology where students can come to campus or choose not to. All of my material is in D2L published the Friday before the week starts, to encourage students to take responsibility for their learning and to allow me to focus on what we do in class, using in-person time to get my students to contribute their knowledge of, for example, web design. And because I have such diverse classrooms, we can share that diversity of knowledge with each other creating a more holistic learning experience.”

I have long been interested in Julia’s Hyflex model and asked if students appreciate the flexibility it gives them.  “I’d say a number of them are. Options for students are very important right now as they navigate work and life balance. I try to keep my online courses consistent week by week in terms of the amount of content, so I don’t overwhelm my online students. And because I want my students to come at the content from their own interests, a lot of my content is very reflective. For example, students will submit assignments and reflect on the context around the work that they’re submitting to give me a sense of how this course is meeting their needs. I find those reflections give me a sense of whether I’m overwhelming them, whether the content is appropriate for their goals, how the content leaves them feeling, in what spaces they’re working on the content, etc.  All this information helps me chunk my content to make it easily digestible, exciting, and student focused.”

Julia’s Hyflex methodology is not a true Hyflex, where some students are in the classroom and others online at the same time.  Her model blends an in-person group with an online, asynchronous group – but everyone is within one D2L site, and students know in advance that they have the option to come in person, or attend online, as it works for them. “There is definitely something lost if you’re not coming in person and I try to encourage my online students if they are struggling in the course, to come to the in-person sessions if they can. That doesn’t happen often, but the other way around does, where my in-person students decide that they can accomplish the course online because they feel confident because the content and the instructions are clear.  Then they can save the commute to campus and spend their time working through the course at their own pace. If my classroom is half full, that tells me my students are self directed and wanting to do their work in a quiet space.”

I asked Julia if she had some memories from her years of teaching to share.  “There have been quite a few students who have helped me take stock of my practice and rethink the things I do and how I do them. Just before the pandemic I had a student in the web design course who had some visual impairments, could not type very quickly, and struggled to keep up with the pace of my lectures and demos. I reworked the course to meet their needs – it was a humbling experience and something that I took very seriously.  I spent a lot of time with this student to make my courses accessible for them, and so they would be accessible for others in the future. That student pushed me to think outside of my box and to put accessibility first in my courses which is something that has been really important for me.”

And to help build some of that accessibility and make sure her content is working for all her students, Julie is exploring ungrading.  “I know that some students sit there quietly, not telling me that they’re struggling – I want their voices to be heard too. I’m piloting a little ungrading in some of my assessments this semester, and part of that is a five-minute check-in with each of my students. They have to fill out a survey in advance so that they have a sense of where they’re at, and then we can have a brief discussion about the results and where I think that they are at in terms of their learning, as in ‘Well, you started from knowing nothing about this subject and now, here you are.’ I can’t know if my course is working unless I connect with all my students and make sure it’s working for them in any given semester.  Being able to pivot and create new content and new experiences for my students is really what it’s all about.”

As we headed towards the end of our time together, I asked Julia what advice she might have for new faculty coming to teach at Camosun.  “Connect with as many like-minded faculty as you can. Share what you create and ask people to share with you.  Some of the best experiences I’ve had at the college have been those collaborative moments where I sat down with my colleagues and we built something incredible together, sharing in the learning of creating something new. I would tell them that CETL is a great place to connect with people who are interested in learning new tools, new tricks, new ways to do things. Then when the time is right for you, build your passions into your courses, but go slow – don’t throw everything into a new course at once!”

Julia ended our conversation with these words: “This semester, the Hyflex and the ungrading, they’ve really stretched me, which is fine. I like to be stretched; I like to do new things. I think if I ever teach the same thing over and over again, year after year, it might be time to retire. For now, I believe that letting go and changing things (not everything) is a healthy way to approach teaching.”