Abstracts
Abstracts
A1. Library Research Sessions: Are they necessary? An Invited Panel & Discussion Forum
Daniel Brendle-Moczuk, TRU Library
Some classroom faculty book library research sessions; others do not. Why or why not? Do students learn literature research skills by osmosis or do they need to be taught? Does it matter who teaches these skills? For a research essay, what proportion of the sources should be academic?
The research literature is divided on whether students learn library research skills in library sessions. It does confirm that they learn about the library and its resources, but also reinforces that there’s little opportunity in library sessions for reflection and reinforcement of learning.
Is one library session per course ideal? What about situations where some students have had as many as three library sessions, while other students have had none? Should library sessions be hands-on, as students prefer, or more theoretical?
Participants will learn from each other as we discuss the above issues and questions.
A2. Using Illustrated Journals to Make it Real
Lyn Baldwin, Department of Biological Science
In this session I will discuss using illustrated journals as a way of discovering and understanding the natural world. These are journals completed by students that include drawings, diagrams, and written notes detailing the plants we examine in botany labs. I believe the strength of this exercise (which often feels rather old-fashioned in the light of the proliferation of diagrams and images on the web) is threefold: (1) it teaches students to make observations that are undiluted by preconceived notions of the material, (2) in order to translate a 3-dimensional item into a 2-dimensional image on the page, students are forced to look closely at an object, and (3) it illustrates to students that they can assemble their own reference book for themselves on the diversity of the botanical world. Student surveys have indicated this learning experience is valued even though it requires a large investment of time. I will show examples of students’ work and encourage discussion of how illustrated journals could be used in other disciplines. Participants in this session will be invited to explore a common, living object through the development of a journal page.
A3. Way of Council as part of the Experiential Learning Cycle
Dian Henderson, ESL Department
The Way of Council is about creating a sense of teamwork, trust, rapport, fellowship, and community. It invites active participation in the learning process. Parker Palmer says in his book The Courage to Teach, that “good teachers join self and subject and students in the fabric of life”. He says the heart of a teacher must become engaged in much more than just considering tips, tricks and techniques. With these notions in mind, Dian Henderson has shaped the practice of the Way of Council as an integral part of her advanced writing classes here at TRU. Beginning with the question of how to engage the heart into the experience of academic learning, Dian has incorporated reflection as a daily classroom practice in order to uncover the stories, the language, and the beliefs that underlie one’s opinion and interpretations of the world. Bernice McCarthy says that reflection is an essential part of the natural cycle of learning and so it is that Dian has now incorporated The Way of Council as a means of reflection in order to nurture the heart of teaching and learning and connection. In this workshop, participants will be invited to explore, to write and to share their ideas and opinions about inviting the heart into academic classes.
A4. Co-operative Education as a Transitional Model
Nancy Bepple and Larry Iles, Co-operative Education Coordinators
Co-op education is often considered the link between students' classroom education and career. Through different student examples, the facilitators will show how Co-op has either confirmed the academic or career direction of a student, given them the necessary tools for achieving their goals, or changed their career goals completely. Examples of how Co-op has benefited new high school grads, U-Prep, disabled, First Nation, International/ESL and career changer students will be given.
To demonstrate how faculty can incorporate Co-op into their teaching, the facilitators will also present a toolbox of ideas and methods that can be added into curriculum without additional lecture time or instructor resources. By using these methods instructors can increase student motivation and engagement by utilizing the students’ co-op experience, while at the same allowing all students (Co-op and non-Co-op) to reflect on their career goals. Student motivation and engagement suggestions will be based on work by Clark (1994), Salmon (2006) Garrison and Anderson (2004) and Gange (1984).
B1. Surviving Classroom Challenges
Nancy Twynam and Kathy Mitchell, Student Development
This workshop is geared for both new and returning Faculty/Admin/Staff members who have a teaching load and/or who wish to become more familiar with policies that directly impact students. During the workshop we will present a number of actual case studies and have participants work through resolutions to various issues. Relevant student policies will be presented by Student Affairs along with a discussion of students' rights and responsibilities.
Case studies may include issues such as: When can you ask a student to leave your classroom? What should you do if a student is threatening? What do you do about the student who appears to have mental health issue? What should you do about the student who you think has plagiarised his term paper? When can you apply the attendance policy? What happens if you need to change your course outline part way through the semester? And many more!
B2. Associations of Humour
John Turner, ESL
Humour can be a valuable tool in any classroom situation, and humorous anecdotes from an instructor’s past can improve classroom atmosphere and help build a positive teacher-student relationship. While it is natural to talk about personal experiences in an oral class, it may sometimes be difficult to find the time or the right moment to do so in classes that focus on writing, grammar or reading. As such, I often look at the textbook and/or the supplementary material I plan to use and find some aspect or detail to which I can relate to a personal and hopefully humorous story. Choosing the relatable subject matter and preparing the anecdote beforehand often makes for a more entertaining (and perhaps slightly embellished) tale.
I plan to briefly introduce and outline the technique and then provide some recent examples of anecdotes I related to subject matter from an intermediate level writing class. Next, I plan to break the listeners into small groups and then hand out different samples of possible “subject matter.” The objective would be for each group to relate to one another interesting personal stories/experiences/anecdotes that are connected in some way to the material at hand and then present one or two of the more humorous stories back to the group at large.
B3. Effective Assessment of Student Performance
Dr. Jack Miller, School of Education
The presentation will deal with the principles of effective assessment of student work, including, but not limited to, essays, projects, presentations, and examinations. The focus will be on how to develop effective methods of assessing student performance using the above assessment methods. The information provided for participants will be based on current research and practice and I will take a practical approach—what to do and what not to do when assessing students. Participants will receive a handout that provides some basic guidelines for effective assessment.
B4. SL Leaders Share: Activities and Techniques to Promote Collaborative Learning
Elizabeth Templeman and SL Student Leaders
Supplemental Learning (SL) is an academic support program in its third year at TRU, offering regularly scheduled group-study sessions for challenging first year courses. Sessions are led by students who have successfully completed the course.
In their sessions, leaders provide students with opportunities to explore strategies for effective learning, and to apply the concepts or skills taught in the course. Sessions differ, discipline-to-discipline, but all strive to create interactive learning environments that promote social and academic integration.
The presenters, SL Leaders, will each share a strategy they have used in sessions. They will do a short demonstration of the strategy with participants; and then will discuss implications, adaptations, or other aspects of the particular technique or task. Participants should find some strategies applicable in the lecture hall or classroom. They may also find it interesting to contrast the range of activities which foster active learning in very different disciplines (from accounting to history).
B5. The Kamloops-South Thompson Sustainable Community Atlas—A Resource for Research, Instruction, and Community Service
Dave Whiting, Sessional Instructor, Natural Resource Science and Tourism programs Research Associate, Small Cities CURA
The Kamloops-South Thompson Sustainable Community Atlas is an internet atlas developed through a TRU-Community partnership. The atlas project is online. New information layers are added through ongoing community partnership initiatives that may involve various TRU students and faculty including those from Natural Resource Science, Social Work, Tourism, Geography, English and Modern Languages, Biology and many others.
The participants will have “hands on” experience using the latest version of the atlas to acquire a broad range of community information and will explore opportunities for potential new map layers as outcomes of TRU research by faculty and students, as well as service learning opportunities. The ability of the atlas to allow the updating of data through a web browser will be demonstrated along with examples of how student projects can be shared with the wider community.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C1. Academic Integrity—What Does it Mean and is it Important?
Nancy Flood, Biology
Joanne Jones, Nursing
Grant Larson, Social Work
Research in the area of academic honesty has shown that an educator’s approach to academic integrity goes a long way toward shaping the behaviour in the classroom. The presenters will engage the participants in an interactive activity to look at the concepts of truth in education and integrity in learning. This session will also address the challenges educators face in upholding these ideals in a world where the internet provides access to a wealth of ideas and well-crafted sentences that can be inserted with a click of the mouse. The participants will come away with some simple strategies on how to build a focus on educational integrity into the classroom and how to demonstrate to students that this is an important issue.
C2. From Fungi to Mouthwatering Foods: An Exercise Making Tempeh, an Indonesian Soybean Fermented Product.
Dr. Naowarat Cheeptham, Biological Sciences
Tempeh (fermented soybean) production is used as an exercise in a second-year level introductory-microbiology laboratory at TRU to introduce concepts essential to food microbiology. Students are divided into groups and work on soybean preparation, inoculation of starter culture (Rhizopus oligosporus), incubation, and observation of starter for both microscopic and macroscopic morphologies. Students then undertake a comparative study of Tempeh purchased from a local natural food store and the student-produced product. This exercise helps students to understand the role of microorganisms in production and fermentation of traditional food and to use microscopic techniques to investigate a fungal starter.
This presentation will highlight the interactive activity done in BIOL 220 Introductory Microbiology Laboratory at TRU. Participants will learn to appreciate the impact of microorganisms and their products on daily life through a set of questions, group discussion, and commercial Tempeh products. A power-point presentation on what was done in the actual lab with students will be done to give participants the ideas of how to make learning fun and real.
C3. ESL Academic Writing Problems and Teacher Response
Jim Hu, ESL Department
One major problem baffling both ESL and academic instructors responding to ESL academic writing is errors concerning language and style. Ferris (2002) distinguishes “treatable errors” related to structures governed by stringent grammatical rules, and “untreatable errors,” not governed by such rules. To prepare for treating errors, teachers should “practice in identifying and responding to errors in students’ texts” (Ferris, 2004, p. 59). This session demonstrates such recommended practice, with an emphasis on treating untreatable errors.
I share with the audience 20 text segments that contain typical problems concerning unity of ideas, clarity of meaning, coherence of text, conciseness of language, appropriateness of style, variety of sentence structures and vocabulary, observation of end-weight, as well as correctness of grammar and mechanics. The audience practices in pairs in identifying problems and revising the texts. I then interact with the audience to discuss the problems, text revisions, and direct or indirect treatment of particular problems. Through this session, the audience will understand some of the common types of ESL academic writing problems and some of common approaches for the instructor to respond to the problems.
C4. The Bermuda Triangle of Experiential Learning
Jason Brown, Karen Densky, Catherine Waddell
The goal of this workshop is to explore the triangulation of relationships in a practicum situation: student, advisor, and sponsor. Situations such as teaching practicum, apprenticeships, co-op programs, or research assistants often involve these three players. The presenters were one of these teams (Catherine – student, Jason – sponsor teacher, Karen – practicum supervisor) and will share some of their experiences navigating through miscommunication, differences in expectations, and issues around confidentiality.
The majority of the workshop will involve the participants forming three groups (student/sponsor/advisor) working through a needs assessment for building and maintaining positive and supportive working relationships within the triangle.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
D1. Students on Academic Probation: The Who and the Why
Cindy James, Assessment Centre Coordinator
Sarah Graham, DSD Administrative Assistant
Each year, approximately 500 students attending TRU—at least half of which are first year students—end up on academic probation. In the winter of 2006, as a part of the First Year Experience (FYE) initiative, a study was conducted to gather baseline data about these students. In this workshop, the preliminary findings from this study will be presented with a focus on the following topics:
A explanation of the academic probation policy at TRU
A description of the “typical” student on academic probation and how they compare to the general population
The reasons they provided for being on academic probation
Suggestions as to how faculty can help these students.
An open discussion about Academic Probation will be encouraged by the speakers.
D2. Classroom Experimental Games to Illustrate Theoretical Concepts: Evidence from Introductory Microeconomics Course
P. Tsigaris, Department of Economics & Business
Economists use abstract theoretical models to explain real world situations and over time the field has become more technical. In order to reduce the mathematical content, economists have relied on a graphical exposition as the most common pedagogical tool to illustrate the concepts. However, this approach is changing and, even though there is inertia when it comes to changing teaching methods, Classroom experimental games involving student participation are becoming a popular way to teach economics and possibly other related courses.
In this presentation, I plan to present my own experiences from running games in a microeconomics principles course. Some examples are a pit market game to illustrate the concept of market equilibrium, an ultimatum game to illustrate bargaining and fairness issues, a paper boat game to illustrate externalities and property rights, an M&M game to illustrate common resource problems, the fund raising game to illustrate under provision of public goods and free riders. I will also outline feedback obtained from students, the students’ performance in the course, the students experience arising from their participation in the games in terms of the learning outcomes, and how this technique can apply to other disciplines.
D3. Spirituality and Pedagogy: Are they an Appropriate Mix?
David Lidster, Andrea Tamburro, Iris Rich-McQuay, Doug Knowles and Cathy Tetarenko.
Although spirituality is not an easy concept to define or explain, it has recently become a powerful topic in psychology and an essential topic in social work. Numerous writers believe that spirituality has unique connections to aspects of mental health and are recommending the intentional positioning of spirituality in the world of the classroom.
This inter-active workshop will discuss the integration of spirituality into the curriculum with a focus on the following questions:
Should higher education, which is often viewed as the bastion of secularism, consider spirituality as appropriate and relevant within the curriculum?
Will incorporating spirituality into the curriculum assist in answering the question, “What do we want a TRU grad to look like?”
How might spirituality assist a Faculty member in their personal and professional life?
D4. Rewarding Teaching Scholarship: In Search of a Framework for Promotion and Tenure at TRU
Gary A. Hunt, Department of Natural Resource Sciences
For faculty who choose traditional research as the dominant focus of their scholarly activity, the required accomplishments for promotion and tenure are well established and understood in most disciplines. The majority of TRU Faculty spend more time teaching and preparing to teach than they do conducting research, yet we have no established pathway leading to promotion and tenure for faculty choosing to emphasize scholarly work in teaching, integrating, and applying existing knowledge.
Without clearly defined criteria and benchmarks for rewarding scholarly teaching, teaching will remain undervalued and faculty will understandably be pushed towards research to achieve promotion and tenure. It is essential that we develop standards of rigor and quality with clear goals that will guide faculty in improving their teaching.
In this workshop, participants will explore possible benchmarks which demonstrate progression in teaching scholarship and are consistent with the broad definition of scholarship now in our collective agreement. We will end with a discussion of pertinent ideas in the current literature.