Category: Teaching & Learning
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Going Text-less
By Sandra Johnstone, Teaching Faculty Member, Earth Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, VIU A round of applause This semester – Spring 2014 – I experienced a first in my teaching career. While we were reviewing the course outline for my first year earth science class the students broke out into applause. Now, I flatter…
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The Journey of Becoming a Teacher
by Greg Klimes, Teaching Faculty Member, Faculty of Science and Technology, VIU I never considered myself a “teacher” nor was it ever a career aspiration of mine to become a teacher. That word implied someone who taught in the K to 12 environments, many whom I have the utmost of respect and admiration for. I…
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A lesson I bring to my VIU students
By Susan Lymbery, Teaching Faculty Member, Faculty of Academic and Career Preparation and Faculty of Arts and Humanities, VIU I’d been twenty-five years out of high school when my son encouraged me to enrol at Malaspina University-College. Eight years later, I found myself teaching at Cowichan Tribes Yu’thuy’thut Adult Training Centre. One day, as…
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Some thoughts on Textbooks, Open Textbooks and Reviewing for BCCampus
by Jessie Key, Teaching Faculty Member, Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Technology, VIU Textbooks are one of the primary resources of instruction for most courses at the university level. They can act as a framework or backbone to the topics addressed in the course by providing explanations, examples, and practice problems to students. An ideal…
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We Should Let Our Students Cheat
By Laurie Meijer Drees, Teaching Faculty Member, First Nations Studies, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, VIU As teachers, we should let our students cheat. We should encourage them to cheat. We should teach and model cheating. Good cheating. Why? Because cheating is a way of finding answers using clever short-cuts, sharing information, learning about individual…
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Collaboration and Creativity in Action
By Sherryl Maglione, Teaching Faculty Member, Faculty of Academic and Career Preparation, VIU Today revealed one of those ‘aha’ moments that teachers are occasionally humbled to experience. At the beginning of the term, my main focus as facilitator is to create a community of learners who feel safe, are comfortable with each other, become alert,…
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What Helps Me Learn: Reflections from International Students Video Project
During International Week at VIU we attended a panel discussion of international students reflecting on the process of their learning organized by The Faculty of International Education and the Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning (CIEL). The students provided such valuable insights in their reflections that we decided to try and get them back to…
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ePortfolio Overview
What is an ePortfolio? One of the most comprehensive definitions of ePortfolios comes from Gabriele Bauer from Center for Teaching and Learning, University of Delaware: The academic ePortfolio is a selective set of online, reflective, integrative, and personal documents that present how you have developed as a scholar-teacher in your discipline. It offers evidence of…
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Calibrated Peer Review Part 1
By Barbara Metcalf, Teaching Faculty Member, Bachelor of Nursing Program, Faculty of Health and Human Sciences, VIU For the all postings on this subject see Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V In the fall term of 2013, 1st and 2nd year Bachelor of Science in Nursing faculty along with the Centre for Innovation…
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Motivating Students: Resources for Faculty to Engage Learners
One of the most frequent questions I get in my role working with faculty is on the topic of motivation. How to motivate the ‘unmotivated’ student? How to engage students when all existing strategies have failed to engage? How to get students to be involved in their own learning? Here are a collection of articles,…
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5X5X25 Challenge: Open Blogging with VIU Employees
The 5 X 5 X 25 Challenge! Wanting to do something a bit different this term to engage more than just teaching faculty in our offerings, I found an idea on Faculty Focus about a college in the US who issued a 9 X 9 X 25 challenge to their faculty – blogging 9…