AU Teaching Showcase Session DescriptionsN

Dr. Andrew Nurse, Mount Allison University

Maintaining Hope: Responding to Teaching Fails

Teaching fails happen for a variety of reasons. How can post-secondary instructors respond constructively to situations where pedagogies fail to meet expectations, learning stalls, or classroom
dynamics become stilted, among other things? This session looks to promote conversation on a subject that is often discussed between colleagues but far less frequently addressed on a broader scale amidst current discourses of student success, best practices, and award celebrations. This session aims to contribute to a more open discussion of responding to pedagogically difficult situations by highlighting an example of an exercise that provides both instructors and students with a constructive and collaborative but realistic basis for educational optimism in the midst of what can be trying and challenging situations. Our aim will be to share stories of successes and failures, to consider what gives us hope in difficult times, and to work through an illustrative example of an exercise that has worked in other instances of teaching fails, a modified version of the “flipped classroom.” From this exercise, this
session will consider lessons that can be learnt by students (and ourselves as instructors) with regard to empathy, skills or competencies, interpersonal dynamics, habits of mind, empirical knowledge, and evaluative processes.

Dr. Stacey L. MacKinnon, UPEI & Dr. Beth Archer-Kuhn, University of Calgary

Developing and Maintaining Trust to Support Intellectual Risk-Taking in Higher Education

Trust is a necessary component in developing respectful, mutually reinforcing “communion” (Marcel, 1962) in engaged pedagogy, however, research on how to develop it in higher education settings where professors are asking their students to step outside their comfort zone is sparse. The unique constellation of circumstances present in higher education (e.g., short semesters, large and culturally diverse classrooms, high stakes, high stress) make the quick and meaningful development of trust a necessary but challenging condition for university students to take intellectual risks in the classroom. In this session, the audience will be asked to consider and engage with the questions 1) How do you create a trusting learning environment between students and professors in high risk learning situations?,  2) How does the learning environment need to be modified for students at varying levels of perceived power to develop trust? and 3) how do the “stakes” involved influence students’ and professors’ levels of trust. During this discussion, we will share the findings of our own grounded theory study including issues of power, ownership of learning, the “Vegas Rule”, modeling being curious/becoming curious and “being human” as key components to the development of trust in situations of intellectual risk taking as articulated by three focus groups with students and professors who were engaged in the intellectually risky process of curiosity and inquiry-focused learning in higher education locally, nationally, and internationally.

Dr. Anne Marie Ryan, Dalhousie University

Co-Author: Dr. Allison Schmidt, Dalhousie University

Communicating Our (Science) Disciplines to Non-Experts: Importance of Audience and Approach as well as Authenticity and Accuracy

In developing and teaching our Leadership in Science course, we deliberately sought ways to include that which is beyond simply the skills and knowledge of our scientific disciplines. We hoped to create a science-learning environment that could realistically equip students to work towards building a better, more equitable future. Consequential to our hope that science could be “done” better, we believed it important to share with students the significance of a number of considerations that lie outside the immediate realm of science senso stricto, but that can profoundly impact, and be impacted by, the science. As we taught this class over the past 5 years, our students have taught us a great number of things: we were often caught like the emperor with his invisible cloak, as they exposed the voids and misconceptions we had intuitively sensed were present in their education as future contributing scientists in society. In this session, I focus on just one aspect of “beyond skills and knowledge” that we introduced to students: the challenge and role of effective communication as a function of audience, and not just as a function of the science itself, particularly in relation to the fragile interplay between science and society in an ever-changing world. These insights have led to embedding a number of strategies in my “regular” science courses, in which I actively engage students in considering the importance of audience, together with authentic and accurate representation of their discipline, in their approach to effective communication of science. 

Dr. Elizabeth Wells, Mount Allison University; Mr. Toni Roberts, Mount Allison University; Dr. Jessica Riddell, Bishops University

The Maple League Teaching and Learning Project

The Maple League of Canadian universities represents four primarily undergraduate institutions (Mount Allison, Acadia, St.F.X. and Bishops) that specialize in liberal arts and science education in a small, residential setting.  This consortium came together to promote and disseminate information about this distinctive way of learning and living.  This year, the League formed a Teaching and Learning Committee that is pursuing projects around teaching that address this unique way of learning, including a virtual teaching centre we hope to build.  A large thrust of the Maple League is to create new models around education that challenge the large research institution and focus especially on experiential learning, small intimate classroom settings, strong community and life changing experiences in the arts and humanities.  This hope is exemplified in generating the critical thinkers, fully engaged citizens and committed community members that most frequently come from these universities. This session will present the vision of the Maple League and how this consortium is bringing hope to universities that more recently have been seen as peripheral to the mainstream learning experience at large research based universities.   

The presenters include the Executive Director of the Maple League and members of the Maple League Teaching and Learning committee and are interested in talking about this new hope and vision for humanities and arts education while at the same time soliciting ideas as to how the Maple League universities may interact with other smaller institutions in the Maritimes for cooperation and collaboration.

Ann Braithwaite, UPEI

Who’s on Your Syllabus?

In this presentation, I want to challenge the audience to think more about who and what is on their syllabus—and why that question matters. In 2013, Sara Ahmed famously asked, “who appears? And: who does not appear?”, noting that this question of citation has implications for what kinds of knowledge are taken for granted in any discipline, and who those knowledges reflect. As she put it, “the reproduction of a discipline can be the reproduction of these techniques of selection, ways of making certain bodies and thematics core to the discipline, and others not even part.” The consequences of this naturalized selection, of course, are that some voices and perspectives are not heard, that many of our students are not reflected in those knowledges, and that “knowledge” is presented as universal and neutral (rather than contingent and invested). Making our syllabi—no matter the field—more inclusive of the diversity of people in the classroom, as well as in the larger society around us, can make many forms—from changing content, to incorporating different voices and perspectives, to foregrounding how some knowledges become present and others are made absent. In this short presentation, I want to go through a number of ways in which the issue of “citational politics” matters, and to whom, and offer some suggestions about how we can all take more responsibility for diversifying our syllabi and creating more inclusive knowledges and spaces for all our students.

Dr. Greg Doran, UPEI

Promoting Inclusion and Equity in the Classroom

If one of the purposes of higher education is, as Jacobs suggests in “What’s Hope Got to Do With It?: Theorizing Hope in Education,” to create pedagogies that “are infused with hope for a better, more democratic future” (798), then the promotion of inclusion and equity is a worthy goal for any classroom.

This 20-minute mentoring session will introduce three easy ways to pro-actively promote a classroom culture of inclusion and equity, even in an inherently gendered discipline such as Theatre. By promoting and instilling inclusion and equity in the classroom, teachers have the opportunity to instill these qualities in the students. If we view the importance of inclusion and equity as a threshold concept, we can, therefore, hope that today’s students will carry these positive attitudes with them, making the future a more inclusive and equitable place.

The session will present an inclusive introduction-exercise, an approach to creating a statement of principles on a course outline, and a strategy for un-gendering traditionally gendered assignments. Through these examples, the session will provide participants with concrete suggestions for ways to promote inclusion and equity in the classroom. The session will leave time at the end for discussion and questions.

Michelle Malloy

Hope & Transition: How to Thrive in a World of Constant Change

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus has been quoted as saying “change is the only constant in life.” The place in our life when this change is most apparent is during university/college years. Young people are in the midst of coming of age. They are leaving the safety of school and/or home and walking into a world of academia that teaches content, but also challenges meaning schemes and bias. Something students may not have expected.

The facilitator is the author of an upcoming book Thriving in Chaos: How to Find Hope and Purpose in a World of Constant Change and a therapist in private practice. After having spent 20 years in post-secondary education, many of her clients are university-aged students dealing with anxiety and depression as they struggle to find hope, meaning and purpose in what they are doing day-to-day. Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose (or what’s the point)? These are the existential questions many of us have struggled with in our university years.

Youth today are growing up in a world that changes faster than it ever has before. Their personal and professional growth does not wait until graduation. How do we, as educators and administrators, structure the learning environment so this growth is possible? In order to serve them, we must reflect on our own bias about hope, healing, and personal growth. It is part of the on-going work of those of us called to work in academia.

Dr. Robert Lapp, Mount Allison University

Practising the Future: Teaching Critical Hope in the Anthropocene Classroom

Drawing on readings in adrienne marie brown, Jan Zwicky, Charles Eisenstein, and Joanna Macy, this mentoring session shares strategies for developing, sustaining, and teaching “critical hope” in the university classrooms of the Anthropocene.  The “Anthropocene” is shorthand for the set of converging crises threatening the near-term collapse of “business-as-usual,” both in society at large and in our approach to how and what we teach in postsecondary education.  In this context, all the authors named above suggest a version of what brown calls “practicing the future,” which is to apply our wisdom skills—drawn from all disciplines—to articulate the world we would like to see emerge from the ruins of neoliberal petroculture, and to begin now to live those values actively as an antidote to despair.  I will share some of the principles and components I am drawing from these authors to re-conceive my teaching practice as a way of “practicing the future,” part of which is to model the process of cultivating, interrogating, and articulating “critical hope.”

Dr. Dany MacDonald, UPEI; Jennifer Newman, UPEI; Dr. Travis Saunders, UPEI

How Can We Ensure that Student-athletes are Having Positive Experiences During their University Careers?

A number of studies have investigated the relationship between faculty members and student-athletes (Lawrence, 2008; Williams, Colles, & Allen, 2010). However, these studies have mostly focused on faculty perceptions of student-athletes with the opinion of students being largely overlooked. As such, this study aimed to overcome this gap and investigated student-athlete views of their interactions with faculty members. Interviews with student-athletes were conducted to better understand the totality of their experiences in university. Results from this study demonstrated that experiences of student-athletes may be different than of other students, but small and meaningful changes on the part of the different layers of the institution could result in better experiences for these students. A discussion of changes and recommendations will be provided with hopes of gathering thoughts about how to best move forward in interacting with student-athletes within our campuses.

Dr. David Creelman, UNBSJ

Encouraging Hope and Courage in Individuals within Group Settings

To hope is to “entertain the expectation of something desired” (OED). If I understand the people in my classrooms – if I remember my own time as BA student at Acadia – undergraduates both long to understand the broad field of knowledge they are encountering, and they also feel the need to test their perceptions and sense whether their opinions are valued. As teachers we are obligated to open up these opportunities to as many of our students as possible. Of course, the extroverts and socially confident students are always willing to offer their opinions and contribute to classroom discussions. However, not all people feel welcomed into the conversation. Some students feel less empowered. Introverts, students on the spectrum, racialized individuals, the unattractive — many hesitate to connect. The herd still separates out the different. There are a number of active learning strategies that can be used to create safe places in which students can feel empowered to speak: 1) We can teach Socratically from the front and the back of the room; 2) We can assign group activities with a variety of defined tasks that allow each member to shine through their own activity; 3) We can include a “Take a Stand” activity after a class debate to open up opportunities for less empowered students to voice an opinion. All these are active learning strategies that are widely practiced, but they can be tweaked to provide un-(dis)-empowered students with opportunities to realize the hopes that are natural to the learning process.

Dr. Fred Mason, UNB

Students Writing Exams: Questions of Style and Handwriting Speed

This session raises questions around students physically writing exams in class, and presents a table of several years’ worth of handwriting samples to see if students print, write cursively, or do something in between. Good arguments can be made for handwriting as means of expressing complex thought (Karavanidou, 2017), and research suggests that handwriting in-class notes leads to better learning outcomes through better cognitive processing (Mueller & Oppenheimer, 2014). However, the simple skill (or lack thereof) of handwriting may be a limiting factor for students in exam writing (Connelly et al., 2005). Handwriting speed is important, because the more automatic writing is, the more working memory that can be devoted to complex thought (Peverley, 2006). Further, those who write faster tend to include more content, which has performance outcomes (Summers & Caterro, 2003). Research has determined that cursive writing is faster than printing, and a self-determined mix between cursive and manuscript, where some joins are made in the writing but other letters printed, is faster still (Graham, Weintraub & Berninger, 1998).  The total sample analyzed will be over 500 student writing samples collected over years; initial assessments of a portion suggests about 53% of my past students do something in-between (the fastest method), but that 38% do manuscript printing (the slowest).  Results from this assessment will be used to raise questions on the nature and style of exam questions, and how we can modify written exams to engage students with material while providing a fair chance of assessment.

Dr. Leigh-Ann MacFarlane, MSVU

Cultivating Empathy through a Universal Design for Learning Perspective

This session will examine how the use of a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) approach has created the conditions for increased empathy in the classroom. The UDL framework, which emphasizes multiple modes of representation, action and expression, and engagement, is designed to give students multiple pathways to achieve learning outcomes.  Several studies have shown that UDL practices increase student perceptions of instructor’s approachability and empathy (Orr and Hamming 2009). UDL research, reviewed by Orr and Hammig (2009), suggest that faculty members need to plan proactively to incorporate empathy in their teaching. From this, we see the cultivation of empathy as a practice that we embody as instructors, and that we then foster in students. However, social and emotional learning isn’t just about instructor approachability. We also need to encourage our students to become more empathetic. Katz (2012) and Partridge (2018) both identify UDL as a practice that can help encourage empathy through intentionally teaching for social and emotional learning. By recognizing that students benefit from choice and opportunities to be engaged in their own learning journey, we demonstrate empathy and create flexible learning environments that promote the development of empathy in our students.

Dr. Elizabeth Wells, Mount Allison University

Yes, There is Hope!  Strategies Around Marking

Marking or grading has traditionally been seen as one of the most difficult, challenging, and for some the most unpleasant part of their academic jobs.  This session suggests a variety of different approaches to marking that will help to make it less onerous, less time-consuming, and perhaps even fun.  The presenter will talk about a unique system of colour-coded grading that she has developed which makes the comments on student work more transparent but also more meaningful. In addition, she will present a system she developed called “54321” which paces grading according to the professor’s own time constraints and attention span.  The session will also discuss flexible deadlines for providing feedback to students, a number of helpful rubrics for marking as well as to manage student expectations and work, and will reflect philosophically on why grading is a particularly difficult task.  Delving into the professor’s time management style, the session will also make suggestions as to when to grade and even where.  This fast-paced, informative session is meant to help those who are starting out in their marking careers, and those who have been in the trenches for a number of years.

Dr. John McLoughlin, UNB

People as Moving Stories

Essentially we are moving stories. Gently unpacking the contexts of who we are offers insight into how hope may appear. The biographies we bring and the masks we choose to wear shape the teaching and learning experience. Context plays a critical role in the manner that virtues shift in perspective and priority.

Hope looks and feels different to each student. A challenge to us as educators is to find a mutual sense of hope with each student, namely, a meaningful connection for motivating learning. Opening windows for viewing, whether through biography or other means, enables the development of such mutual  understandings.

Opening myself to opportunities for professional growth is part of my moving story. This year alone has seen two major developments: the online teaching of a graduate course around authentic teaching and collaborating as a mathematician in an artistic performance, The Kindness of Strangers. These projects have respectively focused attention primarily on courage and curiousity along with empathy and compassion, while collectively shining a brighter light on hope in education and humanity.

Where is hope placed in your teaching? How do you discover the hopes of students in your own contexts?  Please join us to engage with these ideas as we move forward with our own stories.

Sandra-Jack Malik, CBU

Curriculum Practices Currere: Inquiry, Reflexivity and Risk Taking

This presentation explores our efforts to understand our reactions to tension filled tenure track experiences related to the mandatory first year review and second year renewal of two tenure track hires at a Canadian university. Using the analytical and synthetical phases of currere as reflective practice, including a consideration for art-as-event and our familial curriculum making we attended to the tensions and shifted our stories such that we moved from reactions to responses and from despair to hope. We know this as a reconceptualization of ourselves and our tenure track stories. We envision a future where tenure track hires are engaged and supported in communities that value their curriculum making past, present and future, similar to the community we are in the midst of creating. As well, we imagine a future where the tenure track processes includes consideration for the provision of detailed guideposts for successful navigation of the process. We also want to call upon tenured professors to “imaginatively stretch past taken-for-granted assumptions, to see the richness of” (Lessard, et al., 2015, p. 212) the diverse experiences and ways of knowing and world views that tenure track hires bring to the academy, often willing and ready to make contributions.

Ms. Patt Olivieri, MSVU

 What Can I Do: Critically Cultivating Virtues through Curiosity and Wonder

 With emerging new literacies comes the constant challenge of navigating and redefining the role of teacher and learner. It is easy, at times, somewhat seductive, to spiral into despair when faced with the simple, seemingly unattainable, yet powerful question: What can I do? Being critically hopeful is being critically literate – wondering, actively listening, and exercising respectful autonomy in the everydayness. From routines to responsibilities, from conversations to silence, from the social to the solace, from various texts to mass media, we need to consider: What resonates? What causes me angst? Why does this matter? How will I harness my angst to provoke change for the better? In other words, what can I do? Toni Morrison once described virtues as not being the “accidents of birth, but rather the things you work for: to be forthright, to be educated, to be in control… You can get them. They are available to you.” This session will explore how explicit and implicit instruction of social competencies (i.e, communication, creativity, critical thinking) are the means by which we interrogate the everydayness to further awaken a critical consciousness of hope. Participants will engage in a variety of learning experiences grounded in voice, identity, perspective and point of view that enable agency in the context of respectful, equitable learning spaces.

Dr. Susan Joudrey, Dalhousie University

Creating Good Citizens?

During a period of social change, it can be desirous to inspire hope by providing students with meaningful learning experiences such as service-learning projects or activist advocacy assignments. It has been observed that, “Activist approaches to community service-learning transcend the progressivist notions of civic engagement and responsibility and move towards tackling systemic social problems by encouraging students to explore the problems’ root causes as well as how their own actions can contribute to overcoming those social problems.” (Wuetherick, 2018, pp.113-14) This is not a new phenomenon. From the 1930s to the 1950s Biology 3  “Personal Hygiene and Public Health” was taught at Mount Allison University to any student pursuing an Arts, Science, Secretarial, Home Economic, Pre-Medicine or Pre-Nursing degree. It included a community public health survey assignment in the hopes that students would attain a “working knowledge” of personal and community hygiene and “…to stimulate [students] toward the practical and effective application of that knowledge to [their] own physical improvement and the betterment of [their] community’s health.” (Academic Calendar, Mount Allison University, 1951-52, p.71) Admirable goals for a society that was experiencing monumental change. However, when we design these types of assessments, attempting to make positive differences, how do we ensure we are creating ethical opportunities for students to achieve academically? By examining a historical case study of course assignments from the Mount Allison University archives, participants will consider shifting definitions of community betterment, and reflect on methods for interrogating personal biases and creating ethical learning experiences.

 Dr. Carla VanBeselaere, Mount Allison University

 Understanding How Attendance and Other Factors Affect Student Success

 Although attendance may not be a virtue, it is certainly a behaviour we would like to cultivate. Class attendance has been shown to improve grades and reduce mass practice or cramming (Rodgers, 2001; Shimoff and Catania, 2001; Cohen and Johnson, 2006, Lin and Chen, 2006; Massingham and Herrington, 2006; Credé, Roch, and Kiesczczynda, 2010; Fadelelmoula, 2018). However to establish whether attendance has a causal effect on performance, it is important to control for covariates such as motivation, conscientiousness, cognitive ability, study habits and autonomy. The data for this paper is from in Economics 1701: Observational Data Analysis, an introductory course on statistics and probability for use with observational data. Attendance and final grades were recorded for all registered students during the semester. This data was then supplemented by responses from a survey about student behaviours and characteristics. This work extends existing research by collecting a more detailed set of student characteristics including demographics, autonomous learner scores and study habits. Using this data it is possible to untangle the effect class attendance has on performance given that it is possible to control for other factors which might affect performance. While it is clear that attendance is correlated with performance (correlation coefficient is 0.5137), the reason for this is complex and difficult to untangle.

Dr. Zhanna Barchuk & Dr. MaryJane Harkins, MSVU

Using Collaborative Conversations to Explore Educational Dichotomies Imbedded in our Everyday Research and Practice

The presenters will discuss the differing views of what knowledge is, the role of higher education in the construction of knowledge, and the even larger role of higher education in society as a public good. The treatment of education as a consumer good has already led to a significant decrease of public funding which augmented dependence on private sources, such as student tuition fees and corporate sponsored research. In addition, the influence of economic globalization on education has resulted in a considerable shift in the conception and value of academic labour (Olssen & Peters, 2005). This shift, evident in a decrease of tenure and tenure-track professorial positions being created, and being replaced by cheaper part-time and adjunct instructors (Berger & Ricci, 2011; Bousquet, 2003; Nelson, 2010), has implications for how faculty can develop innovative learning environments, and which faculty are able to do so. Educators also note a general increase in demands on faculty to produce economically viable research and partnerships (Arshad-Ayaz, 2007; Giroux, 2002, 2007; Hill & Kumar, 2009; Marginson, 2007; Ross & Gibson, 2007). Collaborative conversations with the participants will be used to co-create a deeper understanding of our everyday experiences as well as to explore possibilities of promoting new educational pathways to knowledge building and sharing among educational communities.

Dr. Leslie Shumka, Dr. Fiona Black, Dr. Andrew Wilson, & Dr. Michael Fox, Mount Allison University

Hope Critical; Compassion Central: Exploring Compassionate Communities through Humanities & Social Science Curricula

David Orr, professor of community engagement at Oberlin College wrote, “Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up.” It reminds us of Joan Baez’ comment, “Action is the antidote to despair. We don’t have the luxury or the time for despair and hopelessness.” Our current generation of students expresses anxiety about their future: they see that environmental crises, global poverty and social and political injustice require special skills and values to effect the change they would like to see. One response is to provide students with opportunities to explore and grow specific values, such as compassion, through engagement with the communities in which they live and learn. This session aims to discuss the applicability of community engaged learning as a key component in creating the compassionate community, as it has been laid out in the Charter for Compassion movement (www.charterforcomapssion.org). Specifically, it aims to introduce the audience to the compassionate community model and to document the challenges and opportunities that we see in a number of new initiatives being developed in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The session will ask participants to look at their own institutions and communities through the compassionate community lens, as we outline our findings after year one of the Research Partnership for Education and Community Engagement (R-PEACE) initiative and propose the compassionate community model. We don’t have all of the answers, to be sure, but agree with Joan Baez that we don’t have the luxury or the time for despair and hopelessness!

Dr. Elizabeth (Beth) Jewett, Mount Allison University

Hopeful Engagement: Active Learning through an Experience the Arts Course

The goal of this session is to reflect upon and foster interdisciplinary conversations about the beneficial student and faculty outcomes of an Experience the Arts undergraduate course designed to generate student familiarity with experiential learning theory and practice and to facilitate student-led pedagogy through experience of and participation in a variety of co-curricular artistic and humanistic events and activities. Session examples and discussion queries are based upon the positive and hope-filled experiences of instructing this class at Mount Allison University.

Dr. Susan C. Graham and Professor Amy J. MacFarlane, UPEI

Gender Non-Conformity and Hetero-normativity in Business Education: What We Learned Through Self-Reflection

When researching ‘gender in business education’ we discovered that almost all existing literature focuses on cismale/cisfemale genders and hetero-normative behaviours and relationships. After an exhaustive search, only 17 peer-reviewed academic articles considered non-conforming genders in relation to business education.  This literature focused on the inclusion of non-gender conforming perspectives and/or issues in business curriculum (primarily in HR courses), the inclusion of non-gender conforming individuals in course materials, and in a few cases examined the lived experiences of non-gender conforming faculty members. Topics that were absent in the literature were the perspectives and lived experiences of non-gender conforming business students, the broader inclusion of issues and perspectives of non-gender conforming individuals in non-HR curriculum and course materials, and guidance on how to move this important issue forward.

This led us to reflect on our own teaching practices and to consider if and how we were perpetuating these narrowly defined and exclusionary perspectives. Both of us realized that our somewhat privileged status as cisgender females in heterosexual relationships had indeed influenced our teaching practice through our choice of language, our assumptions, the examples we used to illustrate concepts, etc. To supplement our personal reflections and gather empirical evidence, we reviewed the online video lectures for an introductory marketing class taught by Dr. Graham. Indeed, examples of cisgender and hetero-normative language were plentiful. The purpose of this workshop is to share our experiences, provide a space for our colleagues to reflect on their own teaching practice, and to begin to map a plan forward.

Dr. Shannan Grant, MSVU, Chelsey Purdy, & Ann Sylliboy

With Two Eyes and One Heart Open: Using Person-focused Science Education to Inspire Creativity, Co-learning and Reconciliation

On Turtle Island (North America), there is a gap in academic attainment between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. This gap is widest at the university level; concerning because jobs in science, technology, engineering, math (STEM) and health science fields (e.g. Nutrition and Dietetics) often require a university education or higher. Recent data suggests that Indigenous people are under-represented in these fields and there have been numerous calls to action to rectify this (e.g. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada), using community-led approaches. Framework: Etuaptmumk (Two-eyed Seeing) is a guiding principal for co-learning, offered by elders and academics from Unama’ki (Cape Breton, Nova Scotia), that guides our programming, to ensure both Indigenous Ways of Knowing (IK) and STEM Education Principals are represented and respected in STEM promotion, education, training and mentorship. For instance, the seven sacred teachings/ virtues (e.g. wisdom, humility) of Mi’kmaw IK, stimulate exchange, reflection, and creative ways to link western science knowledge and skills to community, family, and self. To do: Through story-telling, sharing circles, and play, the workshop facilitators will help participants harness the strengths of both ways of knowing so that they can bring their lessons learned back to their respective communities to engage learners with two-eyes and one heart open.

Dr. Wendy Shilton, UPEI

Navigating the Abyss in the First-Year Writing Classroom: Integrating Narrative and Reflective Practice into Academic Writing to Foster Wellbeing Across the Curriculum

“When I hoped – I feared – / Since I hoped – I dared – ”: Emily Dickinson presents an antithesis in poem 594 I felt starkly today by alarming numbers of university students facing mental health challenges. Adversity, to them, seems everywhere. And struggling campuses, turning to external resources in the wider community for help, show positive results shadowed by intensifying economic burdens for students and the health care system. We face a seeming paradox: though hope can trigger terror, hope is essential for resilience. How can we help students to sustain hope while navigating the abyss between fear and courage?

One answer looks to the invisible potential in our current academic programs – particularly those traditionally deemed inappropriate for offering therapeutic value. First-year writing (FYW) is a strong example. FYW has long strived to develop valuable proficiencies in expository writing and argument. But since the narrative turn of the 1990s and the emergence of digital rhetorics and social media, narrative competence has become increasingly important for academic and professional communication. Because narrative is rooted, moreover, in rhetorically informed reflective practices, it can strengthen critical literacies through emphasizing discovery, mindfulness, reciprocal agency, and the capacity to re-imagine, narrate, and enact more deeply engaged identities. 

Using two active learning strategies, I will focus on the use of reflection to deepen learning about rhetorical fallacies and cognitive schemas in the FYW context. I want to show how narrative competencies can help to restore affect to reason, bodies to whole persons, and intersubjectivity to academic inquiry, transforming the experience of student wellbeing across the curriculum for healthier and more promising futures.

Nicole Wadden Garland & Jason Hogan, UPEI

Accommodate or Redesign

According to Rose and Meyer (2002), “barriers to learning are not, in fact,inherent in the capacities of learners, but instead arise in learners’ interactions with inflexible educational materials and methods” (p. vi as cited in Varnois, 2015, p.143). Universal Design for Learning (UDL) “empowers all learners by creating flexible options and equitable opportunities for representing, expressing and engaging with information (Meyer et al., 2014, p. 4 as cited in Varnois, 2015, p. 148). It can be used by staff, faculty, and students in post-secondary institutions to break down barriers, meet the needs of a diverse student population, and make information accessible and transformable (CAST, 2008). Fundamentally, UDL is a good pedagogical practice. It involves anticipating inclusive course design, evokes empathy for every learner, and demands responsiveness.

Fitting into the AUT Showcase theme of Critical Hope and Other Academic Virtues, this session will guide participants in the use of student personas to adopt a student’s frame of reference, identify potential learning barriers, and discuss ways to address these barriers through the fundamentals of UDL. These student personas encourage empathy for student experiences and emphasize the barriers experienced by students with a variety of needs. This session will contrast when barriers may be approached through academic accommodations or course redesigns. With each scenario, the questions for participants are asked: “Could the required materials present barriers to your Persona? Could those barriers be addressed through a “redesign”? What barriers remain and could they be addressed through accommodations?”

Dr. Peter Foley, UPEI

The Best Things in Life are Free: a Feral Cat Neuter Program on Prince Edward Island and Service Teaching Outside the Curriculum

The Saturday Feral Cat Neuter Program has been running continuously at the Atlantic Veterinary College, University of Prince Edward Island for nineteen years. While students in each of the four years of the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) program have different experience levels and different learning requirements, they work together to pursue the same goal:  to neuter a feral or stray cat. The junior students practice basic clinical skills, while the senior students practice more advanced clinical skills while also learning leadership and communications skill in directing their team.   The fact that the program is volunteer-based and outside the curriculum actually strengthens its value as a learning tool.   As the students are not being evaluated, they feel less pressure and scrutiny in performing their duties.  They likewise value the experience more, and are more grateful of the voluntary participation of the faculty, as everyone is there for the common goal of helping the cats and the community.  Students often have difficulty making the transition from learner to leader in the clinical setting of veterinary medical practice.  They have a lot of fear that their skills will be inadequate, that they will fail their patients, and that they will not know how to direct their team under pressure.  This feral cat neuter project gives them the opportunity to practice their leadership and clinical skills in a low stress, volunteer setting.  It gives them hope for their future success as veterinary leaders.

Dr. Scott Comber, Dalhousie University

The “Design Thinking” Classroom: Using Empathic Approaches to Address Complex Issues

Higher education in Canada faces multiple, complex issues. For example, retention of new students, the rising cost of education, teaching methods and curricula, disenfranchised students and faculty.  Many of the issues that need to be address stem from classroom settings; passive audiences, disengaged students, inappropriate teaching methodologies to name a few.

Design thinking is not new, however, its application to higher education and, more specifically, to classroom settings is novel. Design thinking is creative process that can be used to solve complex issues such as, “how do we create engaged, learning environments in our classrooms?” One core premise of design thinking is empathy.  Therefore, a core area of focus for this session will be to demonstrate how students and faculty develop an empathic understanding of a problem they would like to solve. Empathy, used in this way, focuses on the human centeredness of the issue or problem being addressed.

Empathy is only one element of design thinking. Defining the problem, Ideation, Prototyping, and Testing are the other core elements.

One goal of this workshop is to present design thinking, classroom examples of how I have used the design thinking process to enhance learning, engagement and inclusion. Another primary goal will be for each participant to develop a plan for how they may incorporate design thinking principles into their classrooms. This session will be workshop based, action oriented and fun.

Dr. Alex Fancy, Mount Allison University

Compassion is Not Enough: Teaching Three Phases of Empathy

Stephen Pinker says that the current interest in empathy is a “craze.” Is this because there is a crisis? Mary Gordon believes that “empathy is the number-one skill in the 21st century.”  Kathleen Bortolin makes the case for empathy in the academy (University Affairs, August 2019).

Scholars have identified  three types of empathy: affective (compassion), cognitive (taking the perspective of others) and pro-social (the citizen as actant).

Although very important, compassion is not enough. This interactive session will explore how the empathetic teacher can help students practise “perspective-taking,” or cognitive empathy, as they experience the viewpoint of the other.  As scholarly teachers we are uniquely prepared to promote, in an intentional way, this phase of empathy which can help our students to become empathetic citizens who make a positive difference long after they have left our classes.

“We do not feel sorry for (our neighbors who are less fortunate than us) . We understand how they feel” (Dan Rather).

 Dr. Moira A. Law, UNBSJ

 The Virtue Driven Life in Large Undergraduate Classes

Large introductory classes can present unique challenges in student engagement and success that can directly affect students’ subsequent attitudes towards learning and achievement in their undergraduate career. As post-secondary educators we have the opportunity to infuse our course elements, e.g., lectures, assignments, assessments, etc. with opportunities for students to grow in foundational virtues necessary for a successful post secondary experience. This high-engagement session will explore what virtues are necessary for a successful undergraduate experience and the course elements that educators can manipulate to provide opportunities for students to grow in these qualities. The session will wrap up with a review of one educator’s attempt to offer such opportunities for growth to students in a large introductory undergraduate course and the feedback students provided on these elements of the course.

Dr. Carolyn Peach Brown & Dr. Nino Antadze, UPEI

 Balancing Hope and Despair in Environmental Studies

The Home page of the University of Prince Edward Island opens with a bold question. “Think you can change the world? We do too.” over top of scenes of various aspects of campus life. When the Bachelor of Environmental Studies degree was created just over 5 years ago, it set as its’ goal to help students “learn to make environmental connections across academic fields and to analyze environmental challenges we face today. In the classroom, field, and community, you will lead the way in finding innovative solutions—making a positive impact toward sustainability in your personal life, locally and globally.”

These hopeful, bold statements about our capacity to change the world are balanced with the reality of addressing the complexity of environmental challenges. With the global inaction to tackle climate change, many are in despair about the future of our planet. With a growing global population, we ask ourselves how we can feed everyone sustainably and still leave room for other species. The realization of the tons of plastic waste and its effects on our oceans cause us to wonder if our individual choice to not use plastic straws can really make a difference. How can we as professors teach about the reality of environmental challenges without leaving students in despair? How do we cultivate hope?

In this session, we propose to tackle this topic through presentations by some professors and a panel discussion with UPEI Environmental Studies students. Each professor will present on their topic for 15 – 20 minutes. The panel discussion with students will follow the presentations for approximate 20 – 30 minutes.