Teaching and Learning News

More than 30 people (see the photo) – program participants, instructors, mentors, administrators, and proud family members – attended a celebration to mark the conclusion of the fall 2012 Certificate Program in University Teaching and Learning (CPUTL) on December 4. The highly popular program, facilitated by educational consultants Erin Aspenlieder and Kathryn Ricketts of the Teaching and Learning Centre along with Russell Day, a senior lecturer in Psychology, is designed to prepare graduate students for post-secondary teaching careers, and the tributes offered by the participants suggest that the program organizers successfully practice what they preach.

Several students spoke of their experiences within the program. Scott Kristjanson, a graduate student in Computing Science, identified the importance of defining learning outcomes and aligning assessments with those outcomes as a key concept. He also singled out the program’s emphasis on participatory learning as an important influence on his thinking. John Birmingham, a PhD student in Communications, expressed appreciation for the program’s emphasis on developing a teaching philosophy. Pat Feindel, a PhD candidate in Anthropology, noted that the course had restored her enthusiasm for teaching “and in fact [had] instilled an excitement that wasn’t there before.” She quoted other colleagues to demonstrate the benefits of the course:

“It’s hugely practical.”

“It helps with first-time teaching nerves.”

“It challenges your basic assumptions about teaching and learning.”

“Exhausting, but well worth the exhaustion.”

“Moved me from a focus on content to student-centred learning.”

“Before this I was just googling ‘how to teach.’ ”

“I’ve come out of the dungeon into the light.”

Jon Driver, Vice-President, Academic, attended the ceremony to congratulate the graduates. He expressed pride in the program, which he had a role in establishing, and was pleased to note the interdisciplinary composition of the group. The program will run again in January.

Related links:

CPUTL web page

The number of faculty members receiving funding from SFU’s Teaching and Learning Development Grants program has grown significantly this past year. In fact, more than 50 grants have now been handed out. One common thread linking the diverse projects is a sense of innovation and imagination. Here’s a sample of current projects:

• Billie Ng, Director of SFU’s Language Training Institute, is working on a plan to link Chinese-language learners looking for speaking and listening practice with students in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language (TCSL) programs looking for practicum opportunities. The heart of the project will be an “online classroom” that facilitates live one-on-one conversation and tutoring.
• Sherryl Bisgrove, an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, takes her third-year biology class on a field trip to the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre on Vancouver Island. Her investigation will consider what learning objectives can and should be achieved, and what objectives are achieved in practice, from such field trips, with a view to improving the trip design. Besides assessing her students’ knowledge gain, Bisgrove hopes to measure “changes in student interest and enthusiasm for the course material or benefits associated with their professional development.”
• Associate professor John Maxwell and senior lecturer Mary Schendlinger of SFU’s Master of Publishing (MPub) program plan to make roughly 200 final project reports submitted by students during the 14-year history of the program, along with numerous shorter web-based student essays, more accessible by categorizing content, creating an interface for effective searching and use, and working with faculty members to facilitate integration of the content into MPub courses. Maxwell and Schendlinger hope to generate “a discourse that spans years and cohorts.”

For more project descriptions, visit the Institute for the Study of Teaching and Learning in the Disciplines (ISTLD) website.

A streamlined application procedure

For 2012 and 2013, the distinction between larger and smaller Teaching and Learning Development Grants has been eliminated, and eligibility has been broadened. Full details are available on the Grants web page; here’s a basic description of the program:

• Anyone holding a full-time continuing or limited-term faculty appointment at SFU may hold a Teaching and Learning Development Grant. Adjunct professors, sessional instructor appointments, and SFU staff members may be co-investigators.
• Applicants attend a proposal development workshop (two 2-hour sessions).
• Grants are funded on a continual basis, with no specific application deadlines and limited only by the allocated funds for each year.
• The maximum grant is $5,000. However, proposals for two consecutive phases of a project of up to $5,000 each may be developed at one time, with the release of funding for the second phase contingent upon receipt of the final report for the first phase.
• The intent of these grants is to allow faculty members to identify questions about teaching and learning of particular interest to them, to apply the findings of the investigation directly to their teaching, and to share their findings with SFU colleagues.

What question are you interested in researching? Funding is available now.

Related links:

Teaching and Learning Development Grants website

Institute for the Study of Teaching and Learning in the Disciplines (program co-sponsor)

Teaching and Learning Centre (program co-sponsor)

By Erin Aspenlieder, TLC educational consultant

A new set of self-directed online modules allows SFU students to improve their grammar skills outside the classroom.

Frustrated that her students didn’t seem to be learning grammar before enrolling in her 100-level, writing-intensive class, World Literature professor Melek Ortabasi (right) sought a teaching tool to help them brush up on their language skills.

Ortabasi wanted a fast and efficient way to assess students’ understanding of English grammar and to remind them of the importance of using grammar properly. Although she claims to have learned English grammar “by osmosis and excessive reading,” she maintains that there is a crucial need to teach language skills to SFU students so that they can communicate effectively enough to grapple with the complex and pressing issues encountered in their curriculum and in their communities.

When she couldn’t find an appropriate resource, she decided to create her own. The result is a series of online modules developed with English graduate student Cam Fediuk and Christina Drabik of the Teaching and Learning Centre. Each module presents a grammar or usage rule and then quizzes students on that rule. By correcting sample sentences written especially for the project, students not only learn the rules, but also get a taste of the types of sentences that are appropriate to university-level essays. The modules were developed over the past year, and next spring will be Ortabasi’s first occasion to test them with her students.

While similar tools already exist, Ortabasi’s is unique in that it uses examples relevant to SFU students. The examples were created by Cam Fediuk, who drew on the kinds of mistakes students might make in disciplines ranging from literature to anthropology to linguistics. The relevance of these examples and their currency as “real” mistakes make them a particularly valuable resource for SFU students. For instructors, a key benefit of the self-directed tool is that it will permit them to focus on teaching the more complex elements of rich, effective writing during class time.

Ortabasi envisions the quizzes being used in disciplines across the university. Her plan is to assign 5% of the course grade for the quizzes, but she notes that they can be incorporated in any number of ways. The modules are freely available to any SFU instructor; the Teaching and Learning Centre (TLC) will assist interested instructors in importing the modules into the learning management system, and TLC educational consultants will be available to discuss how the quizzes can be integrated into a given curriculum. The TLC has also committed to providing annual updates of content.

If you are interested in incorporating these modules into your own class, or if you have any questions, please contact Erin Aspenlieder, TLC educational consultant, at easpenli@sfu.ca. For help in adding the grammar modules to your WebCT course, please contact Christina Drabik, TLC instructional support technician, at cdrabik@sfu.ca.

Related links:

Description of grammar modules >>

Melek Ortabasi’s profile page >>

Erin Aspenlieder’s profile page >>

TLC website >>

Charlie Goldsmith is a pioneer in the development of problem-based learning. He combines that approach with others as a professor in Health Sciences.

Charlie Goldsmith joined the Faculty of Health Sciences in 2010 as the inaugural appointee to the Maureen and Milan Ilich/Merck Chair in Statistics for Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases.

He is an emeritus professor of biostatistics at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario) with more than 270 published papers in the fields of clinical epidemiology and biostatistics as well as an international reputation for assisting in the development of evidence-based decision-making in medical practice.

What’s less known is his engagement with questions of teaching and learning.

“We spent quite a bit of time talking about teaching the next generation,” says Goldsmith, recalling his time in the School of Medicine at McMaster in the 1970s.

“We said, ‘Lectures don’t work, so let’s throw them out,’” he says bluntly. Instead, he and other faculty members pioneered a problem-based learning approach that has been widely adopted in health-care education around the world.

Students were given problems or scenarios “simulating the reality of being a health professional in a changing world.”

“We injected into the problems all kinds of ideas that had statistics injected into them or epidemiology or whatever,” he says. The students then worked in groups to find solutions.

The instructors, meanwhile, were freed up to focus on student learning.

“We paid attention to how they handled arguments, how they defined terms,” says Goldsmith. “What I concentrated on was monitoring how they talked to each other.”

He applied his statistics training to record interactions between “explainers” and “receivers” in the form of interrelational digraphs.

“Then I had data,” he says.

Next he and his colleagues introduced students to quality improvement concepts like planning, evaluation, and feedback. Students learned to judge the materials they dealt with, to self-evaluate, and to critique one another in constructive ways.

“The students taught each other,” explains Goldsmith. If they noticed that a particular student wasn’t participating in a group session, they were responsible for facilitating his or her involvement the next time.

The result was a learning experience that was both more comprehensive and more practical than traditional lecture-based approaches. Goldsmith and his colleagues published a number of papers documenting the effectiveness of their approach.

Goldsmith will teach HSCI 804 (Biostatistics) in spring 2012 and is designing a new course in health quality improvement. He plans to use problem-based learning in combination with other approaches for both.

In a sense, Goldsmith is repeating his personal history at SFU by working within a young faculty – Health Sciences is just seven years old – as it evolves. This time, however, he does so with more than forty years of experience to share.

If you are interested in discussing problem-based learning, contact Charlie Goldsmith at charles_goldsmith@sfu.ca or 778-782-9060.

We will continue our conversation with Goldsmith in a future post dealing with his career mentoring activities for faculty members at SFU.

When Gurpreet Sian and Raakhi Sinha launched their “Popular dance – Introduction to modern and traditional Bhangra” course in September 2010, one challenge was to teach Punjabi dance moves to students with no previous experience. A bigger challenge was to find ways to afford students opportunities to understand Bhangra’s origins and meaning in traditional Punjabi culture, to grasp how Bhangra has morphed from a traditional art form into a worldwide popular dance craze, and to immerse themselves in Vancouver’s vibrant Bhangra scene.

Sinha summarizes the teaching challenge this way: “How do you teach authenticity? How is it that a student can be genuine in doing an art form [when] they don’t understand the culture, they haven’t been brought up in this environment, they don’t eat the food … ?”

Their instructional framework integrated four elements:

• Studio practice
• A course Facebook group with videos to demonstrate choreography
• Community immersion through attendance at Bhangra community events
• A final performance as part of a Bhangra flash mob in downtown Vancouver

In the following interview, Sian and Sinha talk about how they integrated these elements to create a transformational learning experience for their students:

What’s especially interesting is how these instructors moved beyond choreography to offer students an opportunity to explore questions of history, culture, and context while having fun.

What instructional frameworks do you use to assist students to learn about popular culture? How might you use these instructional elements in your own setting?

"To a job well done": Melek Ortabasi (left) and her students toast the end of the ACLA conference at SFU.

Innovation is often a matter of combining familiar elements in new ways. This past spring Melek Ortabasi employed that method to create a course offering students a more direct exposure to the activities of a research community than undergraduates typically receive.

Ortabasi, an assistant professor in the World Literature program at SFU Surrey, had been looking for ways to broaden the academic experience of her undergraduates. When she heard that her program would be hosting the annual meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association in late March and early April 2011, she decided to incorporate the conference directly into a course on “youth as depicted in world literature.”

The course description (WL330) warned students that the class would have a “split identity,” combining literary exploration with “an opportunity to participate in the wider profession of literary scholarship” through the ACLA event. Fortunately, careful planning ensured that the two halves formed a unified whole, even if the course schedule was a bit more packed than usual.

Students began by reading the published work of the conference keynote speakers in order to develop a methodology for approaching the diverse world literature in the syllabus. Then they used their new comparative skills to examine provocatively paired texts: The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara and Nihilist Girl by a nineteenth-century Russian writer, for example. The result was an applied lesson in academic discourse.

More than that, though, they took part in the conference in ways that allowed them to see how that discourse extends beyond the classroom. In particular, they helped Ortabasi organize an undergraduate seminar, reviewing abstracts and selecting papers – including two by members of the class – for presentation. Later they attended the seminar and critiqued both papers and speakers. As volunteers at the registration tables, they also acted as ambassadors for SFU’s World Literature program.

A highlight for students was the plenary discussion between David Damrosch, chair of Comparative Literature at Harvard University, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, a heavyweight literary critic and professor at Columbia University. Expectations were high – perhaps because Ortabasi had jokingly promoted the event as a “smackdown” – and the students, packed into the first two rows of the crowded hall, eagerly followed the clash of ideas.

The conference involvement offered students an opportunity to develop specific skills – for example, the ability to write a good abstract. They also gained a deeper appreciation of what their professors do outside the classroom. Most importantly, they grew in their understanding of how scholarly ideas evolve through dialogue – and how undergraduates can and do participate in that dialogue.

Ortabasi hopes to preserve some of the experiential elements the next time she teaches the course. Of course, because the ACLA conference was a one-time event, certain aspects of the course design will need to be rethought. She’s already envisioning the possibility of having students hold their own conference. That, she notes, would give every student the opportunity to present his or her work in a public forum.

In the meantime, the student course evaluations have been highly positive. Ortabasi has an explanation.

“These are young adults,” she says. “They get excited when they’re included in something real.”

Have you designed a course that involved activities outside the lecture hall or lab? How did it go? Share your experiences and comments.

Congratulations to the Teaching and Learning Centre on winning a Leo Award for best one-hour documentary program for “From C to C: Chinese Canadian Stories of Migration!” The Leo Awards are British Columbia’s most prestigious film and television awards.

The film, produced and directed by the TLC’s Jordan Paterson, profiles Chinese-Canadians to present a detailed picture of the discrimination suffered by Chinese migrants to Canada during the first half of the 20th century.

Take a look at the video below and head to the project’s website for additional information, photographs, and interviews.

The full documentary will air on CBC on Saturday, July 16 at 5:00 pm. Don’t miss it!

From C to C: Chinese Canadian Stories of Migration

Filmed on location in BC and throughout China’s Guandong province, “From C to C” outlines the injustices faced by Chinese migrants during the last century and the effects of migration on the families and communities of migrants. The film contrasts these histories with the views and experiences of contemporary Chinese Canadian youth, allowing for reflection on the meaning of exclusion for those who experienced it, as well as for those who did not. By calling attention to the diverse and transnational nature of contemporary Chinese Canadian identities, the film promotes an inclusive vision of Canada that values members of all communities as global, rather than solely national, citizens.

Made in partnership with S.U.C.C.E.S.S., “From C to C” is a community-based documentary that is part of a larger educational project that aims to raise awareness about contemporary social justice issues by reflecting on, and comparing, the experiences of migrants between Canada and China since the early 20th century.

For more information about the project, please visit: http://www.sfu.ca/fromctoc/ or find us on Facebook.

SFU News release on Leo Award: http://www.sfu.ca/sfunews/stories/tlc-documentary-wins-leo.html.

Share your thoughts and feedback with us in the comments section, or submit your own stories about Chinese migration to Canada at the “From C to C: Chinese Canadian Stories of Migration” website.

Catherine Black, an associate professor in the Department of French, is known for her energetic, lively approach to teaching. Even during 8:30 am classes, Black maintains a cheerful, and – as she says – “perky” presence in class.

Engaging students during early morning classes can be a challenge!

One of these early morning classes, a heavy duty French grammar class, forced her to devise new ways of engaging her students.

“They would come to school in their pyjamas, a bit lethargic to say the least,” says Black. “I even tried aerobics to get them going.”

Despite the tepid response this got from many of her sleep-deprived students, she continued to come up with creative, fun, and meaningful strategies for teaching. Black would enter the class full of energy, interacting with the students and using positive body language to convey her commitment to their learning, including playing with the scarves that she usually wears.

One particular morning, she walked into the room to find all twenty of her students already present and all wearing scarves tied around their necks. It was a funny stunt, but it also demonstrated that Black’s approach to teaching such a challenging class was working.

“It was a confirmation of trust,” she says, “and that my efforts were worth it.”

The episode came as a surprise, but afterwards the attitude and work level in the class improved considerably.

Black emphasizes, “When they did that, I knew I had won them over.”

Have you had similar experiences with early morning classes? How do you engage your students?

Let us know what you think in the comments below or send us an email.



With names like “Marshmallow Death Blaster”, it’s no wonder that these grade nine and ten girls are having fun participating in the “Girls Exploring Physics” workshops. Started by Physics faculty members Sarah Johnson, Pat Mooney, Barbara Frisken, Jenifer Thewalt and Nancy Forde, these free workshops aim to encourage more girls to continue taking physics beyond high school and into university. As Johnson says, “the main goal is to keep girls excited about physics.”

Using hands-on experiential education techniques, the girls get the chance to work on two projects: “Exploring Physics Through Candy” and “LED’s: Lighting for Efficiency and Drama”. They learn what kind of options are available to physics grads and have the opportunity to talk to women physics professors and students.

The video team at the Teaching and Learning Centre paid a visit to the most recent workshop to check out their work. Watch the video below to learn more.

Contact

For more information about the “Girls Exploring Physics” workshops, please email Sarah Johnson, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Physics at SFU, or visit the website at http://www.physics.sfu.ca/about/outreach/gep.

The Certificate Program in University Teaching and Learning teaches participants the skills they need to enhance their teaching.

Note: Application Deadline is June 6, 2011 for the Certificate Program in University Teaching & Learning for Graduate Students

For grad students who intend to teach, the prospect of standing in front of a large group of 18-year-olds explaining, say, the political machinations of Oliver Cromwell or the genetic structure of drosophila melanogaster, is a daunting task.

Although grad students are often experts in their fields, they usually have limited teaching experience. Offered by the Teaching and Learning Centre, the Certificate Program in University Teaching and Learning (CUTL) provides participants with the skills they will need to enhance their teaching practice. The only long-term program hosted by the Teaching and Learning Centre, the 13-session agenda is tailored to academics early in their career who hope to teach.

The Certificate Program’s aims are straightforward and include:

• Providing participants with the knowledge, skills, positive attitude, and confidence to promote learning in their students;
• Integrating learning and instructional theory with an individual’s knowledge of their subject, emphasizing a scholarly approach to teaching, and
• Preparing participants to provide educational leadership in their academic endeavours.

Facilitated by faculty members and Teaching and Learning Centre staff, the program guides its students through topics like syllabus development, teaching dossiers, student learning, effective feedback, and presentation skills. Hundreds of students have received the Certificate as part of their academic education. Vivian Neal, the program lead, calls it, “an important component of early instructor development because it is an opportunity to learn teaching methods based on evidence.”

Prospective participants must apply and the Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW), a three-day course, is a prerequisite for consideration. For more information on the next ISW in August, please visit the ISW website.

The application deadline is Monday, June 6, so get your applications in now!

Visit the Certificate Program in University Teaching and Learning website for more information.

Contact:

Program Coordinator: Andrea Hankinson

778.782.6570

Program Director & Instructor: Vivian Neal

778.782.7466