Interview summary by Katherine Carpenter, Teaching and Learning Faculty Developer, CTLI
NIC’s Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Innovation staff conduct interviews with instructors to explore the perspectives and insights they have about quality teaching and learning. NIC embraces the diversity of approaches each instructor takes as they cultivate a supportive environment tailored to their program and student needs. These interviews share how North Island College is making quality student learning a priority.
Richelle is the Program Coordinator and an instructor in the Office Administration program, as well as an instructor for Women’s Studies and previously, of Canadian women’s history/Canadian History.
Question 1: What does quality student learning mean to you?
I think first and foremost, you must have prepared and engaged students to have quality student learning. This is the first gap. Students simply aren’t prepared as they once were. Before returning to the classroom, I was in the online environment for three years, I found students who chose the online modality to be quite self-directed and self-motivated to what I am seeing in the classroom. So, to me, quality student learning is having prepared and engaged students.
The second part of quality student learning is when you observe some kind of progress in students from the beginning to the end of a course. It could be directly related to the content of the course, or the student could have improved their writing, or the student simply could have become more confident.
If I challenge the already engaged student by giving them a little bit more freedom in what they’re going to do for their assignments, the result is quality student learning.
To understand quality learning, a teacher needs to get to know a student through the time in their course. You can’t really ascertain quality student learning unless you get to know your students. There’s this sort of dichotomy of meeting them where they are and making sure they’re ready for where they need to be.
Question 2: Share a time when you made a significant change in your teaching practice and why.
I’ve had many, but I will focus on one. I had a student over a decade ago now who was very bright and wanted to change her life. At the start of the term, she asked for a set of study notes for the class lectures. I was from the old-school way of thinking and believed that a student had to do the reading, come to lectures, and make their own notes. My initial response was, “that’s your job”, and she said “no, no, you don’t understand. I am I’m trying to balance my kids, my husband, some work, and I am taking a full load of classes and I just need some help, because I want to learn as much as I can, and I don’t want to miss anything.”
I decided to give it a try because I felt she had articulated her own situation well. I started making study notes from my lectures. I made it so that the test questions mostly came from the study notes, and not from my entire lecture, which makes a student do targeted learning and studying. I had thought this approach would result in everybody getting an A on the exams. What I’ve discovered is it makes absolutely no difference; the grades remained much the same. The study notes are simply another tool in the toolbox, and it just saves students time to focus their learning. I would have never thought that I would make or believe in providing study notes, but it has been good for students and their learning.
Question 3: How do you adapt your teaching practice to drive quality learning for diverse students?
Diversity could mean many things: diverse abilities, learning styles, or it could simply be about where students come from. I teach quite a few students with learning accommodations. I try and figure out what I can offer that is best for that student. I try to individualize as much as I can within a course. Another important practice is trying to connect with your students. For example, I had a student who was studying out of the country via online and told me how hard it was. Because it was important for this student to do well, the student asked if we could meet virtually to go over assignments. We met each week. The student also met with the library and learning commons faculty. The student achieved an ‘A’ grade and improved her writing skills. To me this was quality learning.
Question 4: How do you incorporate different worldviews into your teaching?
This is a biggie for me. As far as the world views go, I think it is important to not get caught up in your own belief structure in the way you structure things in your classroom. When you present a subject, you need to present all the diverse parties and world views in a balanced way (even ones you don’t agree with), particularly in social sciences and humanities. I believe it’s more important than we may think, so that everyone feels included in your classroom. It’s important that all political or ideological viewpoints are considered, and I believe this is key to quality learning. They’re all connected to the human story. The classroom must be a place where critical learning happens, so you need to separate yourself from simply offering of your own views. My goal is, as an educator, is to provide, to the best as my ability, as biased free learning environment as is possible. I want my students to come out of that classroom and really think about what beliefs and understandings of the world they came in with and what beliefs and understandings of the world they leave with.
Question 5: Can an instructor be certain that quality learning has taken place in the classroom? If we walked into your classroom and students were engaged and actively learning, what would that look like?
You could know this if you see an improvement in in a particular student’s grades, but that’s not necessarily the only indicator. You could possibly fail everyone and there still could be considerable student learning happening. Having a variety of assessments is important. It’s a really good way of seeing how students are progressing through a semester.
I love when the classroom is active, and I am not able to lecture because of the lively discussions. The discussions might get so engaged that I may move my lecture in a different direction. That’s the best class and an indication of quality learning. If you walked into my classroom and you saw lots of hands going up and chatter and discussion, then you’d know they were engaged in actively learning.
Question 6: What strategies do you employ on day 1 of your class to build a cohesive class environment?
The first thing I do is give out the course outlines. I sit on the desk. It may sound funny, but body language is important in making a student feel comfortable. I try to put a casual approach on it the first day because I want them to feel they can come to me if they need help. I take attendance for about five classes, so I can learn student names. I do little tricks like that to make the students feel more welcome and try to make it an open environment and generally, it works.
Question 7: In what ways do you integrate technology?
I love every tool that’s out there that you can use. So, even when I’m in the face-to-face classroom, I’m still making a Brightspace course. To be able to work for diverse learners, you must use every type of delivery – writing, reading, videos, audio. I use a lot of short YouTube videos. My favorite learning technology is Kaltura to make videos. Kaltura Virtual Classroom is like an actual class, which is great.
Question 8: How would your peers describe you as an instructor?
I think most of my peers would say that I am a very dedicated instructor to my students. I am also perceived as being very prepared for my classes, maybe even overprepared. I don’t like being underprepared. I get a lot of recommendations to take my classes, which is a little harder to facilitate now because I’m not teaching as many courses in university studies as I once did.
Question 9: Who has influenced my teaching?
Besides the continued support of my husband over my teaching career, I think probably the past faculty member who referred me to get the job was an important influence! If not for this referral, I wouldn’t be here!
I would also say my mom. My mom was a teacher and my mom encouraged me to do it. It wasn’t until she read my master’s thesis and edited it for me that she said, “honestly, I didn’t know you were so smart!”
I also had a good master’s advisor as well. He was very supportive. I expect it’s a combination of people who influenced my teaching, but those are the four people that stand out to me and, even today, keep me growing as a teacher.
Question 10: What is one question you would like to answer that wasn’t asked?
Maybe the question: How do we increase quality student learning against all the obstacles and within the constraints faced?
I don’t know what the answer is, but I think it’s a question worth asking. I think we have multiple constraints including budget constraints and sometimes a mindset that won’t allow for change in the way we’re doing things. I think we must change this mindset if we’re going to be set up for the future. I think instructors are really going to have to think about how they meet the students where they’re at, and how to get them on track to being (or becoming) good learners? Again, I do think it is a good question to ask because there are recognizable constraints and the needs of learners have changed. We no longer have 90% domestic students who are coming to post-secondary straight out of high school, as we did a few years back. We need to better position ourselves to create those high-quality learning experiences for all students at all stages of the student experience.