September 2011 – Centre for Teaching Excellence Blog

Opening Classrooms Across Disciplines – Trevor Holmes

One of my favourite jobs as a teaching developer is to visit other people’s classrooms. I get to learn new things while providing a helpful service (observation and report for feedback to individual instructors). There’s another benefit that accrues too, though. I get to bring ideas from a panoply of disciplinary approaches back to my own classroom, reinvigorating my own teaching and ratcheting up my students’ learning.

CC Licensed image "We're Open" sign by dlofink — Open Sign

Rarely is this more apparent than during our Open Classroom series. Open Classroom is Waterloo’s unique way of celebrating our Distinguished Teaching Award winners by asking them to do some work! Each term, if possible, we ask the DTA winner to open his or her doors to other professors, new or more seasoned, it doesn’t matter. The attendees (a few to half a dozen, depending on the room capacity) sit in on the live classroom as observers, and then have an opportunity to ask questions for an hour after the class. This gives a chance not only for the visitors to experience what it’s like to be a learner in the Award-winner’s class, but for the professor to explain his or her thinking behind instructional approaches taken that day.

What is really important here is that one need not be from the professor’s home discipline to benefit from this observation and discussion. I have certainly learned some things from Waterloo professors I’ve observed, and while some of it has gone way over my head, the techniques themselves have found their way directly or indirectly into my own cultural studies lectures (even math and physics approaches!). I would heartily encourage attendance at this term’s Open Classroom (Ted McGee’s English course, the Rebel) and future Open Classrooms, regardless of your own discipline. You will find some relevance in watching and asking about a different approach, I am sure.

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The Centre for Teaching Excellence welcomes contributions to its blog. If you are a faculty member, staff member, or student at the University of Waterloo (or beyond!) and would like contribute a posting about some aspect of teaching or learning, please contact Mark Morton or Trevor Holmes.

It’s all about balance – Jennifer Doyle

Lately I’ve been thinking about balance. This isn’t unusual. I often think about balance. I think about balance in relationships, studies, teaching, and environment. I think about it in relation to art, to musical composition, to food (both aesthetically and nutritionally). I would say I consider balance on a regular basis.

As the attentive reader has no doubt noticed, I’ve been thinking, I often think, I think about, and I consider. I have yet to use a word denoting the kind of action required to achieve a state of being in balance and for good reason – balance is something I strive for in theory. In practice it is less clear what I accomplish.

I’m writing about this because I suspect I’m not alone. I have a plethora of versions of myself that come into play depending on the crowd, activities I love to participate in when I give myself time, research I’m excited about, places I want to go, people I want to see and care I want to give. I’m engaged in using the word “busy” as a catch-all for everything I negate under the pretences of other things being more important. Ultimately what I’m saying is that every time I eschew balance other things are more important than well-being (for self, family, friends, co-workers, planet, etc). Something to ponder for a moment…

Now, that that is confessed, I’d like to move on, in fact, I’d like to act on this commitment to balance. Bear with me on this brief tangent (I love tangents). I was listening to a CBC interview the other day. Those who know me know that I’m a devoted listener to CBC radio 1. Its a rare day that I miss Q, or Matt Galloway’s morning show, and it would be unusual to go through the week without catching Quirks and Quarks, Spark, In the Age of Persuasion, Ed Lawrence’s Gardening show, Conrad Edgebeck’s wine advice and The House. I can say with certainty that the CBC offers me great opportunities to learn about new and interesting things. Now, the idea I’m interested in discussing here was about actions, ideas and emotions (tangent closed).

While listening to the CBC I heard an interview about how our emotions follow our actions. I’ve been working under an ill-conceived concept for a long time. I thought that when I felt a certain way then I could accomplish particular tasks. Little did I know that in fact, my emotions follow my actions. This may sound simple enough, but dear readers, believe me when I say, I sighed a deep sigh of relief and joy. I felt in that moment the answer to a nagging question that has been a perennial problem for me. How do I begin to get ahead on things, so I can stop feeling so behind and start living a balanced, present-tense existence (or something proximate)? Well, I can attest to one thing: I have been getting up in the morning, imagining the things I want to accomplish in a day and the spaces I’d like to eke out for whatever I want to put in. I have been feeling better. I have been catching up, finding a little free time and I can see some semblance of balance on the horizon.

On this beautiful fall morning, I’d like to say: Thank you CBC for giving me this free education. I am painting again, I’m researching better, I’ve got better ideas, my work is still dominating my life but I’m striking something towards balance. To balance…

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Ideas on a napkin – Veronica Brown

I teach a course on teamwork. It’s an elective in the WatPD program, which is a suite of courses completed by UW’s undergraduate co-op students. When I tell people I teach a course on teamwork, their reaction usually involves something cringe-like followed by a story about a horrid group work experience they had when they were in school. To say people loathe group work might be an understatement. We usually commiserate briefly on the experience and then I start telling them a bit more about my course. Unlike other courses, which include group or team work as part of their assessment, my entire course is about teamwork, with the focus on teamwork in the workplace.

Students in the course develop their knowledge and skills related to teamwork in three ways: completing independent assignments related to the course content; participating in a team task; and reflecting on their own experiences with teamwork during their work terms, the course, and at school. I should mention, too, that this is an online course and so they must work as a virtual team to complete the task.

Something, however, has been nagging me about my course. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with the course and the opportunities it gives students to study teamwork and develop the relevant knowledge and skills. But I wonder if the course goes deep enough. My course focuses on what is needed for team success, such as building on individuals’ strengths, team processes, collaboration, etc. The course, currently, focuses on knowledge and skills. The missing piece is valuing teamwork. Does the course effectively convey the true value of working in a team? Will they recognize the subtleties surrounding personalities and politics that will impact team success just as much as lack of resources or time pressures? Will they understand that just as each individual brings their own strengths to the team, they might also bring their own agenda? How will they lead a team when given the chance? Will they be motivated to work collaboratively the next time the opportunity presents itself or will they, like others before them, cringe at the thought of teamwork?

So I sat down at lunch recently with a friend of mine who works in the private sector and asked him why, in his experience, teams failed. He had a long list, many of which focused on the people on the team, their personalities, leadership, differences in vision, politics, etc. He also spoke about challenges between teams, where one team will develop a new process without even realising how it will infringe on the processes of others. It’s not just the communication within the team, but among teams, that can be problematic.

Eventually, our conversation returned to my course and what might be missing. We talked about adding a simulation where teams would be formed and each student would be given a role to play, such as the leader, the loafer, the team player, etc. Each team would be given a scenario (we talked about using UW clubs as a potential option). Then, we talked about how to throw them a curve ball part way through the process, such as suddenly slashing their budget, having a team member simply disappear, having a couple of them try to take over control of the team, etc. I actually love the idea but, realistically, I’m unsure this would fly in the mediated environment of an online course. I’m also unsure I’m ready to throw that curve ball.

For now, our conversation, recorded on the napkins shown in the above photo, has given me direction for change in my course. Teamwork is not just about knowledge and skills. For success, there must be an underlying trust, among team members, between the team and the workplace that surrounds it, and, most importantly, that teamwork really can lead to success. It has led me in many directions – problem-based learning, experiential learning, exploring the affective domain. I have enjoyed this journey, motivation to dig deeper into these areas. Now, it is time to put this theory into practice. As I move forward with this change, my next step is to figure out how to take all this theory and make it useful and practical as a teacher. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

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