Alumni and Faculty Spotlight: “Infusing the Personable into Teaching”

“Don’t be afraid to be human! Everyone is trying to adapt and deal with the difficult times right now. Be honest and upfront with students. Get to know them individually – and have fun!”

These sage words are the apt advice from Jennifer (Jen) Braithwaite, Field Placement Facilitator in the Centre for Professional and Part-time Learning at Durham College, as we all rethink teaching and learning in a time of COVID 19.

Jen is an invaluable faculty member of Durham College, but her connection with the college runs deeper. She attended Durham College as a student in the early 2000’s and then completed a degree from Trent. When she saw the opportunity to be a part-time facilitator in the same program from which she graduated, she applied. She was thrilled to come back to the campus where she had spent many years as a student.

Jen’s own teaching practice emphasizes humanizing education; while remaining professional, she strives to incorporate humour and fun into her teaching. This approach, while also engaging students on an academic level, aids her in creating a safe, non-judgmental space for students so they feel comfortable coming to her with questions and concerns. A safe and caring environment is further developed through Jen’s methods of engaging students. She focuses on relationship building and establishing her online presence. She logs in daily to her course and responds to each post; she makes sure to acknowledge what students have shared and then provides further comments and questions to encourage further engagement. She provides positive feedback on assignments and tries to relate their thoughts and ideas back to real life experiences since her students are missing their in-person placement currently. Ultimately, Jen has embraced the joys and challenges of teaching and supporting her students’ journey of learning.

Remote delivery has added an additional layer of consideration to teaching and learning for all in the education sphere, but Jen has taken on this challenge with great poise. Through this experience, she has learned that although it is difficult for students to get the in-person experience they need due to the lack of on- site field placements, students are extremely positive and resilient and are willing to work hard to complete all course requirements, no matter the situation. Because her students cannot complete their on-site field placement, Jen has attempted to ensure that they have a forum to engage in discussion and collaboration so that they are learning from each other and connecting. And, Jen has gone one step further; the field placement course had to be adapted to run completely online. To achieve this, she created virtual placements using a variety of early childhood videos. She received a lot of positive feedback from students about the videos, and they expressed how grateful they were to still be given the opportunity to complete their placement.

Through her intentional and personable approach to teaching and learning, Jen Braithwaite has ensured that the DC experience for her students has been rewarding and valuable.

Dimitri Stathopoulos, a program coordinator in the School of Science Engineering and Technology (SET), encourages faculty to “leverage the collective wisdom of your colleagues. Everyone here is so positive and willing to contribute. Don’t try to do it all when you have a team beside you ready to help”.  He attributes his success in his teaching to the community of colleagues, as well as ongoing professional development.

Regardless of delivery mode, Stathopoulos believes the foundation of teaching includes making connections with his students. This can be developed through a shared passion like music, as well as expressing passion for what he teaches.  Dimitri uses connection activities at the beginning of a new topic that students can relate to. The use of connection activities captures the students’ attention and gets them thinking about the upcoming topic. This allows new knowledge that the students gain to be better understood, retained and retrieved as it is cemented with existing knowledge – this is referred to as elaboration in the learning sciences (The Learning Scientists). For example, Dimitri might ask students to reflect on the process of doing their favourite activity – like laundry. While nobody really loves doing laundry, we are all familiar with the concept and can relate to getting your whites their whitest with the solubility of various compounds. Or when starting on the topic of gasses in the course, he might ask students to reflect on their experience scuba diving, breathing or drinking from a straw and relate this to pressure – or by sharing videos such as this Atmospheric pressure crushes 220 litre drum (Experiment) to get students interested.

Dimitri likes to keep the atmosphere of the virtual classroom fun. In a remote environment, he creates this environment by engaging with students in the ten minutes before the start of the class. This includes discussing common interests or simply asking students what they are interested in at the moment. To create a sense of community in his courses, he will start by learning about his students and their interests through discussion boards, which is a great way for kicking off a new semester. Stathopoulos uses breakout rooms without an agenda or topic at the beginning of synchronous sessions to allow students to connect with one another in a safe space. He’s found that this unstructured conversation space has made students more open to participate in class as they already have their microphone on and/or are already engaged with the class.

Dimitri notes that the revisions that he’s integrated into his teaching during remote delivery – including new ways of presenting information – will remain. He encourages use of open educational resources (OER) with his students, such as textbooks like those available from Openstax. Check out the Library’s OER toolkit for repositories and more information! Stathopoulos plans to continue using online communication and collaboration platforms. OneNote is an example of a technology that Dimitri notes as having a positive impact on his teaching and his students’ learning. Dimitri reflects, “I have learned that this program [OneNote] allows me to share handwritten and typed information with students in real time”.

Want to know more about OneNote? Microsoft is hosting an asynchronous course on using OneNote for education! Check it out here. All DC faculty, staff and students have access to OneNote as part of Office365.

Sheldon Koufman is a marketing faculty member in the School of Business, IT and Management. Sheldon speaks about vulnerability: being vulnerable with your program team, colleagues, and with your students.

The reason? Koufman believes that being comfortable with your own vulnerability creates a safe space for students to learn and share their ideas with the class, deepening their learning. This safe space is one way that he gets students engaged in the learning process, as well as building connections with each other and with him. He facilitates this by being his authentic self, maintaining a sense of self-deprecating humour, telling stories about his own life, and learning more about what his students like to do outside of school. This approach allows him to bring their interests into learning about marketing concepts and principles with examples from real life. For example, if a student expresses interest in gaming, he’ll share case studies on marketing to gamers.

Joining Sheldon’s class, even remotely, you’ll hear music of the day chosen by students at the beginning of the class and during breaks. Some days you might hear Korean pop, other days it might be classical or jazz, and maybe a bit of rap. Students comment that they love it, and they feel appreciated for their individuality.

Sheldon organizes students into small groups early in the semester by creating private channels in his Microsoft (MS) Team group: a space for just those students, in addition to facilitating breakout rooms in MS Teams during class time to mix the group members up. When checking in on group work, he has noticed that students seem more comfortable turning on their cameras when there is just five of them on the call with him than in the larger class. Sheldon feels this connection is important, especially while remote, to support student’s mental health and create access to the faculty member. He also often checks in with the class and talks openly about the mental health services available to students. An approach in which an atmosphere of openness creates a safe space.

Sheldon describes his teaching style as Socratic, and active questioning. He asks questions to his students and provides opportunities for them to develop critical thinking skills.

“I think if I’ve talked a lot during a class, I’ve made a mistake. A student observed that “You didn’t teach; you just asked us questions”.”

This is an important element to have students reflect and think deeply about the ideas that are being taught.

Teaching remotely, Sheldon continues to embed his teaching style in his synchronous sessions, grounded in ensuring his course is a safe space for students to be vulnerable. He encourages students to participate independently and will facilitate “cold calling” where he’ll ask a specific question to a student. Students have the option to “pass”, knowing it’s okay to pass on responding.

Being remote, Sheldon understands that it is okay for there to be silence to allow students to think. Like many other faculty, Koufman’s chat is filled with discussion from more introverted students, who may not have spoken up in a face-to-face-class. The virtual learning space may draw those students out, as they express their opinions and ideas online.

Sheldon highlights how much his own skills in DC Connect have improved, including integrating DC Connect quizzes, which are more organized and consistent, and using the DC Connect template. The recording of synchronous sessions is helpful for students who couldn’t attend or wanted to refresh their memory, “You can’t rewind a live class; that’s huge for some students!”. He’s also using technology to work as a class community to solve case studies – he’ll present the case study and ask questions for their ideas and then students can upvote their suggested approach.

Sheldon has also been working to build community within the MKTG1200 team of ten part-time and full-time faculty, a common first-semester course. The MKTG1200 team has regular meetings to discuss best practices and lessons learned so the team can learn from each other. He notes that many students are dealing with personal challenges including caring for parents and/or children, and/or job loss; these personal challenges highlight the importance of sharing student-centred resources with each other to support our students.

“None of us are going to be the best remote teacher the first time. Things are going to go sideways and if they go sideways, learn from it”.

Keri Semenko teaches in the Animal Care program in the School of Health and Community Services, bringing her passion for animal behaviour and welfare as well as her expertise in wildlife studies to her courses. Before arriving at Durham College (DC), she spent a number of years in the animal shelter system in Ontario. Keri’s experiences in the sector – and her personality – shines through in her teaching. She is genuine and passionate, and her sense of humor is embedded in her lessons.

Keri engages her students in their learning by “ask[ing] them to think about how the material connects to things they have experienced and the jobs they hope to have. Making the knowledge relevant is key”. She also exposes her students to many different experiences that they may not otherwise have had. She finds it particularly rewarding when a student finds their own passion from what they’ve learned in the program.

“I love to see a new career path appear in front of them”.

Like many of her colleagues, Keri notes that converting course material for remote delivery can be challenging, but also exciting, particularly learning how to do things differently. She’s noticed that, in some ways, there seems to be more connections with her students in the Virtual Classroom than in-person; for instance, students have been using the chat features to “talk” to one another even while she is teaching.

“When you’re teaching in-person the students don’t talk all the time, but they interact more virtually than they would in in-person classes”.

These interactions usually lead to interesting student-initiated discussions. In one class, a student asked a question about an ostrich, which wasn’t part of the lesson. Keri responded to the question and encouraged him to focus on ostriches in his assignments if that was his interest. This is a great example of applying Universal Design for Learning principles!

When asked how she maintains a sense of community in her remote classroom, Keri refers to her easygoing personality, indicating that it’s a fine balance between having control over the environment and giving students the space to engage in the ways that they’re comfortable. Keri frequently uses the discussion boards so that all of her students have an opportunity to provide input, and in synchronous sessions, she uses breakout rooms and the polling tool. Keri notes that everything she’s learnt while delivering her courses remotely “will change my on-campus delivery in that my in-person classes will be more interactive”.

Keri uses the virtual classroom to bring new experiences to students, creating new opportunities that students previously would not have had. For instance, this week, she is hosting a virtual field trip to the Ontario Turtle Conversation Centre, an opportunity that was previously not available to her students, given the transportation costs. Keri has also planned to have a Toronto Zoo staff member as a guest speaker in her course, providing additional learning resources for her students. Keri passionately alludes to “bring[ing] real life experience[s] to the virtual world”. Keri recommends that faculty reach out to their networks and see what new opportunities are available now for virtual field trips or guest lectures.

When asked what advice she has for other professors, she replied:

“Let your students see the passion that you have for what you teach and be yourself. Having a sense of humour is important. And remember back to those teachers who changed your life – you might be that person for a student”.

Keri’s passion for animal care extends outside the DC walls: This year, she was selected as the Program Chair for the Humane Canada’s National Animal Welfare Conference, which is the largest animal welfare conference in Canada – and the first time someone outside the organization has been selected. Keri notes that this “keeps me in touch with the front line of animal welfare and the most up-to-date knowledge in the field”.