Shane Jones, a DC faculty teaching in the School of Hospitality & Horticultural Science, embeds innovative teaching approaches into his programs to support his students and their career goals. Jones utilizes advanced technology, unique learning spaces, and helps to facilitate opportunities for his colleagues and students.

“We have a couple of new resources that have come online in the last little while including the interior hydroponic grow space, which is going to allow us to grow and show students how to manage an interior environment rather than just a greenhouse,” Jones says. According to Jones, many people are growing indoors without light and reusing existing spaces so this approach will prepare the students for the future. In addition to the hydroponic grow space, the addition of a new aquaponics will enable the program to produce consumable fish in conjunction with the produce.

The ability to deliver the program is enhanced through the connections with the Centre for Food and the other programs connected to it. “Our biggest plus is the way that we're able to deliver curriculum,” says Jones. “Our integration with the entire Centre for Food and the other programs that operate out of Hospitality and Horticultural Science, like culinary and hospitality. So, our students get a more of a holistic, complete circle view of the industry that they're going to be stepping into.”

By providing a more innovative and interactive experience for faculty and students, Durham College’s horticulture programs are able to stand out against other college programs in the system. This way, faculty and their students have the opportunity to participate in hands-on learning opportunities to grow together academically and professionally.

“We're doing something different than the other colleges. This helps in the promotion of our programs,” says Jones. “We're filling a niche that is drawing students here and supporting an industry that sees a need for it, but it's not a model that’s being produced in this way by any other college.”

Through the innovative methods of Durham College’s horticulture program, both faculty and students have been able to find success. In 2016, two of Jones’ students received bronze medals in the Skills Canada National Competition (SCNC). This was after securing gold in the Horticulture and Landscape category at the Ontario Technological Skills Competition.

Jones says his students have secured gold twice in the skills competitions and moved onto nationals in previous years. However, Jones’ pride in the program goes beyond success in competitions.

“What we're building here and the amount of products that we've been able to create in such a short time, rebuilding soil, has been amazing,” He says. “That's a big drive for me in creating this one-of-a-kind program. The integration that we have going with the other programs really makes us feel part of something bigger and something very important.”

By finding innovative ways to get his students involved, whether by utilizing unique spaces, technology, or hands-on learning, Jones, his faculty colleagues and his students can achieve personal success by participating in a new wave of education.

Written by Brian Legree - School of Media, Art & Design

Maybe you have wandered through The Pit and seen our shingle: ‘The Chronicle Newsroom’ and wondered, what – exactly - happens in there?

The Chronicle Newsroom is a working lab for the Journalism – Mass Media program.

What does that mean?

Since 2018, we have used the Chronicle Newsroom as a base to revamp our program delivery. In some cases, faculty members team-teach courses. We added a third year to our program and grew curriculum, including a course around reporting on Indigenous issues.

Our space functions as a classroom during mornings and then turns into a ‘newsroom’ the remainder of the time for students to chase and produce stories. Faculty are on hand full-time to coordinate coverage and edit student work face-to-face. The students know the deadline for their work is ‘now’, like it is in the actual news business.

It sounds relatively simple, but there are more layers to the story.

The Journalism – Mass Media program is taught by three full-time faculty: Danielle Harder, Teresa Goff and Brian Legree.

Experiential learning has been part of our model for more than 40 years, most notably through the Chronicle newspaper, but we have responded, as required, to the digital era and social media demands in step with the transformation of the news business.

Effectively, we have used a say ‘yes’ to opportunities, followed by a ‘trial and tweak’ approach, to grow the program and student experience both locally and globally.

How does it help students?

They learn all aspects of the business, from driving traffic to our website, to creating a broadcast show through Riot Radio, to multi-platform storytelling through Esri story maps.

Senior journalism students produce stories for all these platforms and have had success at it, most notably by getting jobs, but also by winning numerous Ontario Community Newspaper Association awards.

Student experiences are supported through the use of real-world software applications so they can produce on content management systems for a variety of platforms.

However, benefits in addition to journalism are accrued through student development of ‘soft’ skills through their work in several collaborative efforts.

These include:

• involvement in the City Idea Lab/Teaching City, allowing students access to city officials to tell stories about ongoing urban challenges;
• effective use of Durham’s Global Class featuring experts and student input from around the world;
• Faculty-Led Classroom(s) Abroad in Guatemala (one in the fall and another Feb. 17-27);
• shutting down classes for a week and engaging students in all three years of our program with story materials gathered in Guatemala (and prior to that, materials thered in other journalism trips to Kenya, Peru and the Caribbean);
• a collaboration with the Ogemawahj Tribal Council featuring workshops in which journalism students teach media skills to Indigenous students at both Rama and Scugog Island;
• teaming journalism students with their counterparts in the Occupational Therapy Assistant (OTA) and Physiotherapy Assistant (PTA) programs to collaborate on an OTA/PTA newsletter

The result?

Students get exposure to real-world journalism and mass media experiences and their entire body of published work translates proudly to their portfolios.

And we are pleased to continue to grow the program, introducing a four-year joint diploma-degree program with Trent University in Durham starting in September.

Along with experienced and valued contract faculty members Kenyon Wallace (Toronto Star), Manjula Selvarajah (CBC), Joanne MacDonald (CTV, retired), Daniel Williams, Brandon Carson, Anne-Marie Jackson, Julie Pigeon and John Cooper, the Working Newsroom continues to grow as the program team applies its ‘trial and tweak’ approach to add to both the teaching and learning experience.

How does it happen?

It may sound like an echo of the DC’s motto, but it really is faculty members working together to ensure the student experience comes first.

We acknowledge the program is not perfect, but with grads working for notable organizations like the New York Times, Toronto Star, CBC, CTV and Global, along with serving communities in newsrooms across Canada, we take pride in its effectiveness.

Want to know more? Drop by the newsroom (classroom B138) and say hello.

Written by Clayton Rhodes - School of Interdisciplinary Studies

In their book, Weaving Creativity Into Every Strand of Your Curriculum, Burnett and Figliotti (2015) maintain that curiosity is a key factor in stimulating creativity in the classroom: “Curiosity cultivates intrinsic motivation – the internal motivation that simply comes with the joy and interest of the task rather than the external rewards (16).”

The authors provide a number of suggestions for encouraging curiosity in the classroom:

1. Spend time asking open-ended questions, questions that do not have single answers
2. Frequently ask your students what they are wondering about
3. When students ask questions, don’t rush to give them “the answer.” First ask, “What do you think?”
4. Encourage your students to ask questions beyond their first “Why?”
5. Actively wonder about how your students perceive the world. When you can tap into your students’ perspectives, you can understand them in a deeper way
6. Be aware of the interests of your students and ask questions related to those interests
7. Acknowledge the curiosity and questioning of your students. When a student asks an interesting question, say, “That’s a great question!”
8. Avoid overstimulation. Sometimes when we focus on simplicity, curiosity knocks (17-18)

Citation:

Burnett, C. & Figliotti, J. (2015). Weaving Creativity into Every Strand of Your Curriculum. Buffalo, NY: Knowinnovation.