Dear Faculty of Arts,

As we approach the fall 2021 semester, the specter of COVID still looms large, and we appreciate that the uncertainty of the coming weeks and months is on everyone’s mind.  With most universities across B.C. and Canada returning to predominantly on-campus teaching, we can be grateful for KPU’s progressive approach during this transitional fall term with our flexible mixture of in-person, blended, and online delivery. That said, many of us remain anxious about the fall, so please know we will be sending out some suggestions next week –  strategies that faculty are adopting for their courses and course presentations – regarding Covid-related information you may want to communicate to your students.

For now, we would like to share some pedagogical reflections from faculty below about innovations in their online courses. Adapting to the constraints imposed by the pandemic has been challenging, but there has also been a well-spring of experimentation. Over the past week, we invited faculty across Arts to share stories of innovation, and we’ve provided below a sampling of the many submissions we’ve received so far. Please send us your own reflections on online pedagogy in the coming week, and we will compile them to share in an upcoming update!

TIME-SENSITIVE ITEMS

SUMMER SEMESTER GRADING DEADLINE: Please remember that all final grades and any “Incomplete Grade Contracts” must be submitted by or before August 25.  If you’re concerned that delays in student submissions may hamper your ability to meet the deadline, please work on Incomplete Grade Contracts for those students and input an “I” grade by or before August 25. Be sure to contact arts@kpu.ca ASAP if you need any information or guidance about the process for submitting Incomplete Grade Contracts. Because meeting the Registrar’s grade submission deadline is critical, you may be hearing from members of the Dean’s office early next week as we monitor the status of any outstanding course grades as we approach the August 25th deadline.

UPCOMING EVENTS

BLENDED LEARNING WORKSHOPS: Apropos of our theme of innovative pedagogies, two workshops will be held on Aug 23rd and 30th on Designing for Blended Learning (1.5 hours each session). The workshop draws upon the great work of University College London and Arena, Blended, Connected (ABC) curriculum design workshop. The Teaching and Learning Commons’ adaptation provides a framework and process of timed activities to help faculty re-imagine the design of a course with a primary focus on shifting from a campus-based format to a blended delivery model.  These sessions will consist of participants working through some essential interactive asynchronous content which will then be applied and discussed during two synchronous sessions. This workshop design allows participants to explore and do some groundwork independently; and then collaborate and refine their plan with input from others. Participants will leave with an Action Plan to guide their next steps. You can register for the workshops here.

NEW EMPLOYEE ORIENTATION: This virtual session will be held on September 23rd at 9:00 a.m. and will give new employees an introduction to KPU, allow them to hear from KPU’s President and executive team, introduce them to two colleagues, learn about some of the services and resources available to support them in their role; and discover some ways to get involved in the KPU community. There will be a break for a one-hour lunch at 12:30 p.m.  After lunch, new unionized support staff (BCGEU members) and faculty (Kwantlen Faculty Association members) will transfer to a separate virtual meeting space to meet and hear from their union representatives from 1:30pm – 2:00pm. Registration is open to all KPU employees who wish to attend.

KUDOS & CONGRATS!

JUST PUBLISHED IN HISTORY! The History program’s student journal, The Emergent Historian, has just published its 2021 edition! Please see the attached PDF for this glimpse into the exceptional work being done by our young historians. It’s wonderful to see this journal’s dedication to undergraduate research.

PUSHING THE PEDAGOGICAL ENVELOPE: SEVEN REFLECTIONS

(more to come next week!)

Randomizing with Chad Skelton (JRNL): “When no one’s raising their hand in class, or it’s the same students every time, I often want to get someone else to contribute. But calling on a student who rarely says much always seems a bit mean, and their answer is rarely that good. Instead, at the start of class, I randomize a list of all students (using https://www.random.org/lists/). Then, when I want to call on someone, I just go down that day’s list. Sometimes I’ll even call on two or three people from the random list before I call on any volunteers. Students know they’re not being picked on because the list is completely random. And because they know they could be called on at any moment, they’re more likely to be prepared with a decent answer.”

Ungrading with Candy Ho (EDUC): “For EDUC 4100 (Post-University Transition), I’ll be experimenting with ungrading. Last year I created detailed rubrics for each of the major assignments to communicate three tiers of submission quality: professional, proficient, and developing. This coming year, I’m also asking students to evaluate themselves using those rubrics, and submit their self-evaluations with their assignments, which would also ensure they review the marking criteria prior to submission. When marking I will compare their self-evaluation against mine, and where there are discrepancies, it would provide opportunities for teachable moments to help the student improve on their submissions.

Cooking with Kristie Dukewich (PSYCH): “For my online courses I missed my students. I decided to start the synchronous sessions 30 minutes into the course period, and I spent the first 30 minutes just chatting with whoever showed up, about whatever came up. There were a lot of shared jokes, memes, and stories. I often prepped dinner while chatting (presenting from a laptop), and students started calling it Cooking with Kristie. It was totally optional, and I had about half the class showing up. I think everyone who came loved it, especially me.”

Supporting Student Mental Health with Dr. Jocelyn Lymburner (PSYCH): This PSYCH 3350 project is supported by the Post Pandemic Strategic Fund Initiative: “As a response to the enormous mental health toll COVID has taken, the current proposal aims to reduce loneliness and improve social connections in the KPU student body. Students in this Advanced Topics in Psychopathology class will explore the link between loneliness and mental illness and undertake a two-pronged approach to fostering social connections: 1) A psychoeducational poster and social media campaign focused on reducing the stigma associated with loneliness and offering specific tools for tackling loneliness; 2) the creation of social infrastructure (e.g., interactive physical spaces, comfortable furniture, games, events, and activities) based on feedback gathered from students through focus groups and a survey.”

Storymapping with Tracey Kinney (HIST): “My online section of intro world history (1130) will be using ESRI StoryMaps again to create their own histories of the first half of the twentieth century. Essentially, we cover the standard narratives in class, but they choose something that is meaningful to them for their short paper. I excerpt their papers, and an image that the student chooses, into StoryMaps so we end up with a history told from the students’ perspectives. They’ve been quite interesting so far. Here’s the two from last year: https://arcg.is/0unCrqhttps://arcg.is/0LXfC9“

Socratic Dialoguing with Mike Larsen and Michael Ma (CRIM): “For CRIM 1100, we use the dictate feature in a MSTeams document and record conversations about Fear of Harm, Causation, Counting, Consent, Social Reaction, Inequality and Poverty, and Racism. Then we go back and edit and add content. Each chapter is between 5,000 to 10,000 words. The goal is to produce a “conversationally” accessible text. It is then presented to the students as the main teaching text.”

Evolutionary Online Dating Profiles with Sabine Stratton (ANTH):“This past summer I tried a new assignment where I had students prepare one-page Tinder profiles of a human evolution ancestor looking for a mate. They were given guidelines of what to include such as favorite food, best physical features, perfect first date, where you would find them on the weekend, message me if…, etc. Students were given an opportunity to express their creativity, humour, and, in a self-reflection section, what they learned. What surprised me the most was the number of students who had difficulty with the assignment because they had no experience with dating profiles. In the assignment instructions, I did include a link to a Huffington Post article on how to create a good dating profile.I got lines like:‘Hi! My name is Australopithecus afarensis, but my friends call me “Lucy”. I am 4.2 – 3.0 million years old. I live in Eastern Africa, specifically in the regions of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. I’m a cute and compact 3’5’’ girllooking for lasting love.If you like my profile, use those opposable thumbs and swipe right! You won’t be disappointed :)’”

We hope this weekend envelops you in some much-deserved rest and relaxation!

Diane, Wade, Greg, and Shelley