Tag: teaching and learning

Andrea has been a faculty member in the Pipe Trades and Women in Trades since 2018, and was one of the recipients of a Camosun College Teacher Recognition Award this past spring.

I was so interested in Andrea’s journey.  She originally completed training in the Culinary arts at Malaspina (now Vancouver Island University), but as time went by, she found she wanted something else.  I asked Andrea why plumbing? “I was looking for a change to a career with better hours and better pay. Honestly, culinary was great and I love cooking – it’s still something that I do all the time, but I needed a change.  I looked through the Camosun calendar at what was available in the trades because I like to work with my hands and thought, hey, plumbing sounds interesting. I’m going to give that a go. I put my name on the waiting list and got a last-minute seat, so I quit my job and moved to Victoria.”

Andrea apprenticed in Nanaimo and moved back to Victoria in 2013. “Then in 2018, there was a posting for a position that straddled being the women in trades homeroom instructor and a pipe trades instructor here at the college. I applied and got the position – obviously, I fit the bill to be a Women in Trades instructor.  It was a great opportunity and learning experience.”

When I asked Andrea what courses she teaches, she called herself the Swiss army knife of her department.  “I teach the plumbing week for Women in Trades, and I’ve taught the plumbing week for our youth sampler that ran for a while. I’ve also taught the plumbing week for Indigenous people in trades. Sometimes I’m the homeroom instructor for Women in Trades, although I haven’t done that in awhile.  And in the Pipe Trades department, I’ve taught everything from our Foundation training levels one through four, Plumbing and levels one and two, Gas Fitting, as well as Cross Connection Control.”

Andrea did talk a bit about her experience supporting Women in Trades. “I didn’t realize just how important and meaningful it was for female students coming into the program to have a female instructor until I was teaching in my first foundations class, where I had a group of 12: six females and six males. One of the students told me how nervous she was coming into the program as a woman, and what a relief it was to show up on the first day and have a female instructor – seeing herself reflected in somebody who’s been a plumber for a long time and now in a teaching role helped her believe that she could do it too.”

Andrea told me that what she enjoys most about teaching is getting to know her students.  “Getting to know their backgrounds, what they’re doing out in the field – I feel like I learn as much from them as they do from me because our industry is always changing.”  Andrea also loves watching their journeys.  “A student from the Women in Trades sampler went into Pipe Trade foundations, was then hired as a plumber in the field, and this past fall, obtained her red seal as a plumber. Seeing those students who come in green, find their passion, become more self confident, and then take on leadership roles is very rewarding to me.”  And coming full circle, “that same woman who got her red seal moved to Australia to do plumbing with her husband and donated two bags of tools to the Women in the Pipe Trade Foundation program as starter kits.”

And Andrea’s students span the gamut. “I’ve taught high-school students in the South Island Partnership Program, and I’ve had students that are 50 years old seeking a new career. While typically women who enter the program are choosing trades a second career, we’re seeing more and more young women enter the program which is really amazing. Then in the gas fitting programs that I’ve taught, students come from all over the province because we are the only institution offering level two gas training. So, I see a very diverse pool of students in my courses.”

I was curious about the dynamics of Andrea’s classroom with such diversity.  “I like to build a sense of community in my classes. We start off on day one talking about how we’re going to respectfully communicate and engage with each other, and then have conversations that draw upon experiences of students, because I think discussing things they’ve done and how those things relate to the topics we are working with enhances their learning. Sometimes the dynamics can be challenging with a broad spectrum of ages, but I find that the older students typically take on a mentorship role with the younger students – a kind of peer-teaching component which is important in my opinion.”

Like all faculty who have been teaching at Camosun since before 2020, Andrea saw her share of challenges when courses moved online teaching during the pandemic.  “I had a week of instruction time in the classroom right before the college shut down. There was a lot of uncertainty, stress, and anxiety, especially for the level four plumber students who were supposed to write their Red Seal certification exam. We didn’t know if the certification exam was going to happen, or even if the class would continue.” What became important to Andrea was having open conversations with students about how things were going for them. “Every morning when we went online for class, we’d spend about 30 minutes sharing stories of weird things we saw at the grocery store, or talking about what challenges they were facing, trying to take the anxiety out of the room a little bit. Like me, a lot of students had kids at home, so we were facing the same struggles which humanized the situation for us all.”

But also, like other faculty, Andrea found some good things that came out of that experience.  “I found that recording lessons was very beneficial to students because they could watch them over and over again.  I also kept online study space open for students after class to work together and bounce ideas off each other.” Something else Andrea found effective was bringing in guest speakers.  “With the Women and Trades program, we often bring in people from industry to speak about their experience. During the pandemic, we were able to bring in people from across Canada, including a crane operator and the first female site superintendent and Kamloops, to talk about their experiences. And we are continuing to bring in experts from outside using Zoom. The ability to connect students to people they would normally not have had the opportunity to connect with was a positive outcome.”

Some other cool COVID creations Andrea is still using include “instructional videos for the Women in Trades program about how to fix a toilet or how to clear hair out of the drain of your sink, and a project I developed for our students where they had to interview a trades person virtually. We pair students with people in the community who volunteer to be interviewed. Students record the interviews and share them so we can post them in the course and discuss them. This project creates connections between our students and people in the community who could become mentors or potential employers.”

Andrea’s students are inspirational.  “We had a female student from my very first foundations class, obtain her red seal this year and receive a Camosun award as well. She’d had so many barriers in front of her during her apprenticeship, as a single mom working hard to make a better life for her and her son, so to see her succeed was very cool for me. We also often take our students to Hero Work, a charity that renovates other charities in Greater Victoria, where they donate their labor and their skills to complete renovations. We also took the Women in Trades class to the Salvation Army soup kitchen for their renovation last fall. Seeing the students engaged in giving back to the community and using the skills they’ve learned in the program is amazing, and it also gives them the opportunity to walk by and say, hey, look – I built that!”

But Andrea herself is inspirational as well.  “I hear from students how important it is to see me here as a faculty member, whether it’s female students or queer students – I think it makes them feel more at ease. I try to provide that a little bit of connection by making sure everyone feels included and giving them a safe space within our department to connect with somebody. I believe if you feel included in the community and your learning environment, you’re going to be much more successful overall. And knowing that you have a touch point is important – it certainly was for me when I went through school. And I want to pay it forward and do the same thing for our students now.”

My final question to Andrea was what advice she might have for a new instructor starting in her area. “I feel fortunate to have an extraordinarily supportive department and I asked a lot of questions when I started. So don’t be afraid to ask questions, and don’t be afraid to lean on other faculty for help if you’re unsure about things. The biggest superpower of our department is that we are very collaborative – we all lean on one another, get along well, and work well as a team. When you have the opportunity to work within a team where everyone supports one another, it makes for a much better environment, for both faculty and students. Make sure to take advantage of the opportunities we have for learning at the college – you never know what little tidbits you’re going to learn that will support your teaching practice. And finally, poll your students to see how things are going.  Then embrace that feedback, not as criticism, but as a way that you can improve your own practice.”

Dianne is a faculty member in the Healthcare Assistant (HCA) program, and she was a recipient of a Camosun College Teacher Recognition Award this past spring.

Dianne has been at Camosun since 2003; in fact, she retired for a spell (and was retired during the COVID pivot) and came back because she loves teaching.  “My teaching actually goes back to a one-room public school in rural Manitoba where I invigilated exams and helped teach the little ones.  My mom and grandmother were both teachers, as is my daughter.” While Dianne doesn’t have formal teacher training (she has a Bachelor of Nursing and a Bachelor of Management in Human Resources) as she told me, “a nurse is always a teacher because you have to teach patients, students, residents, and other health care staff.”  Dianne has been a registered nurse in Australia, Manitoba, Alberta, and in British Columbia since 1989 where she was employed initially in occupational health and safety with Juan de Fuca hospitals and BC Ferries.  “I’ve had a varied career for sure, working particularly with seniors and persons with dementia since 2000.” Since 2003, when she came to Camosun, Dianne has been teaching in the Healthcare Assistant program, which has grown from two intakes a year to many more when the Health Care Access Program (HCAP) began.

Dianne reflected on the changes in the student demographics over the years.  “Today we have many more international and ESL students who come in with a lot of knowledge and varied backgrounds. I have a student right now who has a Master’s in Social Work from South Asia and I have three RN students from other countries. The diversity is phenomenal.”  Dianne also notes that many of today’s students struggle with mental health issues and learning challenges.  “More of our students are being supported by the Centre for Accessible Learning (CAL) than in previous years, but the HCA program is a great place to start, as it really is the basic beginning in healthcare education.”

I asked Dianne what keeps her coming back to teaching. “What I like most is helping students learn how to learn and gain confidence in themselves. Those students who already know how to learn don’t really need me, but so many students have been beaten down by the system, so, to me it’s about building their self-esteem.  I am inspired when students who have struggled with education in the past get an A and take a picture to send to their mom, even though they are 45 years old!” Some students have not been in school for 20 to 30 years and these are the students Dianne especially enjoys mentoring. It seems to take longer to get some students to focus in class and I watch for students having difficulty with attendance.”

But what Dianne emphasized to me was her thinking around assignments and exams. “My personal philosophy is that an assignment is a measure of how effective your teaching was as you go through the material, in other words, assignments are tools for teaching not tools of evaluation, whereas exams are evaluative. Students hear only about 20%of the content presented by the instructor in class. I am not surprised that many students are unsure of what the assignment is asking when they first start the program. We fail as teachers if students don’t learn how to learn, so I spend a lot of time going over what’s expected of an assignment, making sure students understand what’s needed, referring them to the writing center, even looking at drafts before they submit them especially for students who have been away from studies as long time or for ESL students who want clarification on English wording. I don’t punish students for late assignments but try to get to know my students as well as I can so I can address their specific learning needs. The curriculum can be very difficult for some students.”

Dianne also finds that her own experiences coming back to teach post-COVID have been challenging, due to the increased use of technology to support teaching and learning.  “It’s been very difficult, and it used to bother me terribly because I felt incompetent, but I’ve tried to put that away because I’m a nurse, not a computer technician.” But when the technology challenges affect the students, Dianne becomes very frustrated.  “Students find writing exams stressful at the best of times and we shouldn’t be adding to this stress because our technology is not working.”

One of the Dianne’s thoughts resonated with me because other faculty member have mentioned it as well: that students should have a course built into all curriculum to help them learn the technologies and other skills they need to succeed at the college.  “I think we need to step back from the academics during a student’s first week because they’re too anxious and overwhelmed to really learn much of the content. We need to give them practical hands-on skills. We need to build in more resources to help students be successful. Teaching is not just about covering content. It’s helping students learn how to learn, learn how to find things, and learn who’s there to help them. I would like to see a more supportive approach at Camosun with more integration of support services throughout the term and the program, not just on the first day. In the first three weeks of my classes, I build in how to study, how to read a textbook, how to highlight, how to make notes. And then I offer extra after-class time with students who need it.”

I asked Dianne about some of the memories that stood out for her over her many years of teaching, and one story she had for me was amazing.  “I had a young woman who had to travel a long distance to get to her clinical sessions. Clinical started at seven and one day she got there right at seven with her coat on and was having trouble concentrating that morning. I went to talk to her later about being almost late and she said that on her way to clinical, she had come across an accident, so she stopped and found the driver was not breathing. She was by herself, so did CPR, and when somebody else came along he called 911 (she didn’t have a cellphone). She saved the driver’s life.”  A good reminder to remember to have empathy for our students before jumping to conclusions about their behaviour.

My final question for Dianne was around what advice she would give new faculty coming in to teach in her program.  And not surprisingly, she recommends new faculty get more help with technology, but also to “use the resources other people have already built for their courses and customize them, because this can be a good way to learn the material yourself.”  Dianne also thinks new faculty should critically review the way existing assignments and exams are worded and “have the confidence to point out when they don’t make sense to them. Because of time constraints, we often repeat and reuse our content and assessments without fine-tuning, but new faculty see them with fresh eyes.”

In addition, Dianne wants new faculty to be better supported.  “New faculty often come on term contracts.  They get lost in the system and try to cope without a lot of support. I think sometimes we as an organization are so busy with bureaucracy and budgets, we lose sight of the people who are supporting our students, the people who are in the front of the classroom keeping the students in our programs.”  Without faculty and students (and people to support them), our institution is just a building – it’s time for us to refocus on what really matters.