THE GWENNA MOSS CENTRE
FOR TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS
September 2013, Volume 12, No. 1
Bridges
Reflecting the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning at the University of Saskatchewan
Curriculum Change in a
Time of Transformation
By Jim Greer, Director, ULC & GMCTE
As the University of Saskatchewan
wrestles with program prioritization and
all academic programs are thoroughly
scrutinized, analysed, and criticized,
there is a temptation to hunker down,
do nothing, and wait for better times.
Academic units have just completed
a major self-assessment of their core
programs and naturally have put forward
a strong case for continued support (and
perhaps worked hard to justify the status
quo). It is risky to openly contemplate
curricular change in an environment where
admitting the need for change may risk
resource loss or even program elimination.
Yet if the self-examination of academic
programs has revealed some warts,
redundancies, gaps, or misalignment, a
tremendous opportunity is within reach.
In 2012 a major investment was made
by the University of Saskatchewan in
curricular innovation and experiential
learning. The University Learning Centre
and Gwenna Moss Centre became the
trustee of substantial central funds to
support curricular renewal. A $1.5 million
fund for curriculum innovation and a
slightly smaller fund for experiential
learning projects was established –
with the firm commitment to move every
dollar into the academic units to support
improvements to academic programs,
enhancement of the student experience, and
alignment with university areas of priority.
These funds span IP3, i.e. the years 20122016.
Many academic programs have received
financial support through these funds;
many more have utilized the curriculum
design and instructional design help freely
available from the Gwenna Moss Centre.
Many units have now established their
desired program specific graduate attributes
/ program-level learning outcomes. Some
have not. Many units have explored using
the “Curriculum Alignment Tool” available
through the Gwenna Moss Centre, to
examine how individual courses contribute
to their overall programs. Some units have
begun to explore, through surveys of their
faculty, students, recent graduates, alumni,
employers, and community stakeholders,
what changes to their programs might be
plausible and attractive. If you haven’t,
there’s no time better than now!
I want to add that consultations with
our curriculum design specialists and
instructional designers can be candid and
confidential. Units may feel vulnerable when
taking an honest look at their programs
during times of program prioritization, but an
honest assessment with a neutral third-party
can open exciting new possibilities. The
Gwenna Moss Centre is available to coach,
facilitate, and even help to finance innovation
ideas that will make academic programs and
learning experiences richer for your students.
Find out more at http://www.usask.ca/
gmcte/awards/curriculumfund or at http://
www. usask.ca/gmcte/awards/experiential
Table of Contents
Curriculum Change in a Time of Transformation ............. 1
Reflections on Three Years and Seven Months.................. 3
Curriculum Renewal and Course Design - So where
does course design and re-design fit in
your curriculum renewal process…? ................................... 5
Syllabus Template and Guide
Created for the U of S................................................................. 6
Putting our Course Design Institute
through Course Design.............................................................. 8
Building your Skill Set:
Be a Mindful Graduate Student.............................................. 9
Open Textbook Initiative in British Columbia .................. 12
The pitfalls of trying new teaching methods and
climbing back out ...................................................................... 18
Reflective Journal and Draft Course Outline .................... 19
usask.ca/gmcte
september 2013
Vol. 12 No. 1
About the GMCTE...
The Gwenna Moss Centre for
Teaching Effectiveness
University of Saskatchewan
Room 50 Murray Building
3 Campus Drive
Saskatoon, SK S7N 5A4
Phone 306 • 966 • 2231
Fax 306 • 966 • 2242
Web site: www.usask.ca/gmcte
Bridges is distributed to every teacher
at the University of Saskatchewan and
to all teaching centres in Canada, and
some beyond. It is also available on
our web site.
Please consider submitting an article or
opinion piece to Bridges. Your contribution
will reach a wide local, national, and
international audience. Contact any
one of the following people; we’d be
delighted to hear from you:
Jim Greer
Director, ULC and GMCTE
Phone 306 • 966 • 2234
jim.greer@usask.ca
The staff at the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching
Effectiveness welcomes everyone at the University
of Saskatchewan to visit the Centre and take advantage
of our large selection of professional development
events, courses, resources, and services.
Christine Anderson Obach
Managing Editor (Bridges)
Phone 306 • 966 • 1950
christine.anderson@usask.ca
Please visit our website to find out more about
our services and resources for new faculty,
experienced faculty, sessional lecturers, and
graduate students who teach.
Sharilyn Lee
Assistant GMCTE
Phone 306 • 966 •2231
sharilyn.lee@usask.ca
Views expressed in Bridges are those
of the individual authors and are
not necessarily those of the staff
at the GMCTE.
ISSN 1703-1222
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerives
3.0 Unported Licence.
usask.ca/gmcte
B
etter than a thousand days of diligent
study is one day with a great teacher.
Japanese Proverb
2
Bridges, Vol. 12, No. 1
Reflections
on 3 Years & 7 Months
By Brad Wuetherick,
Past Program Director, GMCTE
On a cold and snowy day (at least that is
how I remember it) three years and seven
months ago, I began what became the
best position I have had the privilege
of holding in many years of working in
higher education. I started officially at
the UofS on January 2nd, 2010, in what
was a Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching
Effectiveness (GMCTE) in transition. As
far as Centres for Teaching and Learning
go across the country, the GMCTE was
known for strong programming for
graduate student teachers (GSR 984, GSR
989 and the new that year GSR 982) and
new faculty (Transforming Teaching)
and for one of the most highly regarded
newsletters published by any Centre in
the country (Bridges). It was a privilege
to join what was, at the time, a relatively
small team of dedicated people.
What has transpired over the past three
years and seven months was something
I had never imagined when I first came
to the UofS. When I interviewed for the
position, Jim Greer (Director of the ULC)
and Rick Schwier (the soon-to-be Acting
Director of the ULC while Jim went on a
well-deserved sabbatical) indicated that
there was a lot of potential for interesting
and exciting growth possibilities for
the Centre. And almost immediately I
was asked to support the work (and the
funding proposals) to take the Centre in
some exciting new directions.
hope that people find them effective
(particularly to understand in full the
services and programs offered by the
GMCTE).
The first major change in the GMCTE,
and one of the first major initiatives
that I spent significant time on, was the
PCIP-funded Indigenous Voices program.
Indigenous Voices, funded in 2011-12
and piloted with the faculty and staff in
the College of Education and the staff in
University Learning Centre and Gwenna
Moss Centre in 2012-13, is aimed at
supporting the ongoing development of
members of the UofS community
around Aboriginal education.
The program, which has been described
in other issues of Bridges, was developed
in consultation with key faculty members,
Aboriginal elders, and community
consultants. it is made up of a series of 13
half or full day workshops, covering topics
like basic myths and misconceptions
about Aboriginal peoples in Canada,
an understanding of antiracism and
Indigenizing education, an introduction
to Aboriginal cultural practices and to
treaties and other land agreements
in Canada, and culturally relevant
community-based, classroom-based and
land-based pedagogies.
This program, which was informed
by other initiatives across Canada in
both higher and K-12 education, is a
As I leave the UofS, for a new position at
unique faculty and staff development
Dalhousie University, I wanted to take
opportunity at the UofS. One that
a few minutes to reflect on a few of the
changes that I have seen in my time at the connects deeply with the UofS’ priority
of Aboriginal engagement, and
GMCTE – changes that I am particularly
provides opportunities for both faculty
proud of and that position the UofS to
and staff new to the area of aboriginal
lead the U15 research universities in key,
strategic areas. While these reflections are education and faculty and staff with a
deep history of engagement with
quite different from the more scholarly
Aboriginal students and communities.
articles I normally write for Bridges, I
www.usask.ca/gmcte
3
The second area of significant new
activity and growth in the GMCTE has
been in curriculum innovation and
renewal. In the 2011-12 academic year,
PCIP agreed to fund a very forwardlooking and ambitious plan to encourage
strategic curriculum innovation in
academic programs as one of the focal
points for the third integrated plan
adopted by the campus community. This
is an area of increasing importance across
the country (and, indeed, around the
world) for a number of reasons, including
changes in accreditation requirements
in many disciplines and increased
government oversight and demands for
quality assurance. Many of these reasons
have forced universities across the
country to engage in activities across all
disciplines, whether ready or not.
There are three main reasons (or
drivers) for engaging in curriculum
renewal, none of which are mutually
exclusive. They are: quality assurance
(often externally imposed processes
to ensure a minimum standard across
and between institutions); quality
enhancement (usually intrinsically
motivated to improve the experience
and development of students across a
program); and evidence-based teaching
and learning practices (usually in the form
of SoTL research informing an improved
understanding of evidence-based
teaching and learning practices).
Other than those programs for whom
there are ongoing accreditation processes
required by their professions, the UofS
does not have an externally imposed
quality assurance framework that we
must meet. Even though innovation
in academic programs is included in
the integrated plan as an institutional
priority, a genuine interest in quality
enhancement and evidence-based
teaching and learning practices can be
the primary purposes driving curriculum
innovation on our campus.
When coupled with the various supports
that have been put in place to aid
programs in their activities (including
curriculum and course development
specialists in the GMCTE who are freely
available to consult with academic
units, funding support from the
curriculum innovation fund and other
funds that have been recently created
on campus, database tools developed
support curriculum mapping, and
other initiatives on campus to support
curriculum innovation – including
a learning analytics project to try to
understand more about our students, and
participation in the Bayview Alliance),
our institutional and provincial context
has positioned the U of S to become a
national leader in curriculum innovation
and renewal.
And finally, the GMCTE continued to
expand the suite of activities for which
we have always been known. From
introducing new GSR courses for
graduate students on teaching and
learning and graduate professional skills,
and introducing new short courses on
the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
and Teaching Online, to increasing the
diversity of workshops offered each term
and revamping the online just-in-time
resources available to support faculty
(including investing in significant video
resources), the GMCTE continues to meet
the diverse needs of our faculty, graduate
students and other instructors. All of
which has been made possible by the
great team of people who make up the
Gwenna Moss Centre.
As I interact with colleagues at
universities across the country (which
I have had the pleasure of doing many
times in the past three and a half years),
I have witnessed dramatic increases in
the respect shown to this institution
and to the work being undertaken
at the Gwenna Moss Centre and in
academic units across the campus. In
reflecting back, I am very proud of what
we, collectively (as a Centre and as an
institution), have accomplished in the
past three years and seven months, and
am very proud of the team at the GMCTE
whom I had the pleasure of working with
while on campus.
The theme of this issue of Bridges is
course design, and many of the articles
contributed are aimed at helping
encourage a more thoughtful, reflective,
and evidence-based approach to
the course design process. I actively
encourage you to engage the many
services of the GMCTE in your course
design or re-design processes. Whether
accessing information on the revised
resources pages, coming to the course
design institute, coming to Indigenous
Voices or other workshops or courses,
meeting one-on-one with the exceptional
team in the GMCTE, or engaging in
your own reflective process of design/
re-design, this issue inspires all of us to
be thoughtful about our how we design
learning experiences for our diverse
student body now and in the future.
Professor Emeritus Ron Marken awarded the 2013 Kris Knapper
Outstanding Volunteer STLHE Award
Centre for Teaching Effectiveness, during
which time he played a key role in the
re-launch of GSR 989: Introduction to
University Teaching (now called GSR 989:
Philosophy and Practice of University
Teaching). Marken currently serves on
3M Council and Executive, and as 3M
Program Coordinator. Some of Marken’s
contributions include: coordinating
the Alan Blizzard award, authoring and
editing several STLHE publications
In recognition of many years of dedicated including Making a Difference: A
service to the Society for Teaching and
Celebration of the 3M Teaching
Learning in Higher Education (STLHE), U
Fellowship (2005), Silences (2008), and
of S Professor Emeritus Ron Marken has
Students Speak: Lives Transformed by
been awarded the 2013 Kris Knapper
Teachers (2010), and assisting with the
Outstanding Volunteer Award. A
development of the 3M National Student
Master Teacher and 3M Teaching Fellow,
Fellowship. Marken, who was not aware
Marken has been an active proponent
that he had been nominated, offered
of teaching and learning on campus
the following statement of gratitude
and beyond for many years. He was
to his nominator and those involved in
the first director of The Gwenna Moss
preparing his dossier:
Photo from the STLHE 2013 SAPES awards ceremony in Cape Breton. From left, Arshad Ahmad, Chris
Knapper and Ron Marken who received the 2013 Knapper Outstanding Volunteer Award.
“How does one throw a blanket of
gratitude over a group as various and
wonderful as yours? Thank you! Whenever anyone congratulated my
mother on one of her dresses (which she
had sewn herself), she would always
say, “Oh, this old thing? I got it for $10 at
the Army and Navy.” Her modesty was
genuine. Mine isn’t. Most of us love to be
praised, but you should know that every
single thing mentioned in my dear friends’
astonishing letters of support survived
and flourished because of each of you
and many like you. For example, I had a
controlling hand in the creation of GSR
989, and it went like this: “Kim, Tereigh,
would you design a Cadillac teaching
course for graduate students?’ Then I
ducked, and got out of the way. It’s a
“society” and a “fellowship.” I’m proud to
be part of it. !”
Ron Marken
4
Bridges, Vol. 12, No. 1
Curriculum Renewal and course design
So where does course design and re-design fit
in your curriculum renewal process…?
Curriculum Innovation Team, GMCTE
The curriculum innovation/renewal
process is basically a six-step action
research cycle. As a department
undertakes the renewal process,
there comes a time when course
design or redesign may address
some of the changes needed to
align practices and actions with the
overall vision and program goals.
The curriculum renewal process
is a collective decision-making
process while course design and
redesign is generally the efforts of
individual instructors as they focus
the individual courses that contribute
to the program in general. In the
curriculum renewal process, course
(re)design often comes up in Steps 3
and 4 as is highlighted in Figure 1.
In Step 3 congruencies are identified
between the desired state and what
is currently occurring. At Step 3 the
basic question to be answered is:
“How does what you have match
what you want?” Often at this stage
there are pleasant surprises like
the innovative pedagogies already
in use, the constructive overlaps
and distinctions that exist in teaching
and assessment methods, and the
overall building blocks and sequencing
of content in the curriculum. Ideas
for improvement that may have been
percolating start to take on detail and,
usually, more energy. Other questions
asked at this point in the curriculum
renewal process include:
•
•
What strengths/shortcomings of
your current program have been
identified?
Where does this situate you in
www.usask.ca/gmcte
5
•
•
What can be learned from
comparator programs and
innovative peers?
What can you create that is
better than anything else that
currently exists?”
Here is where course design starts
to figure into the mix. During the
inventory stage you will have
gathered information about
currently used teaching strategies,
assessment practices and course
goals, and it now becomes obvious
to explore how individual courses
can be adjusted and updated
to create alignment. Active
course redesign fits into Step 4—
Implementation—plan and do.
Step 4 questions to ask at this point
include:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
relation to department’s/colleges
vision? What new questions do you have
about your program that may
not have been answered by the
inventory?
How does what your current program
looks like match your vision?
What is needed to improve the match
between the vision and the program?
What can be done to improve the
match?
What can be undone to improve the
match?
What are the key areas that might
benefit by accessing new resources?
•
•
•
How can courses be designed
to better align with the vision
and stated program goals? (This
may incorporate appropriate
uses of technology, experiential
learning, inter-cultural
awareness, and the 10 high
impact educational practices
see http://www.usask.ca/gmcte/
resources/curriculum_practices.
What processes, policies,
procedures might be
addressed?
What needs to go into a
program proposal that will be
approved readily?
What budget implications
exist, and where can additional
resources be found?
Syllabus Template
by Heather M. Ross, GMCTE
•
•
•
•
•
Who will do what, with whom, by
when?
When will the new program roll
out? How will it be staged?
What communication and promotion
strategies will be needed?
What training (about teaching or
assessment) might help?
What special messages are required
for student recruitment?
Courses are the most foundational units
that constitute a coherent program
(Figure 2). They should be thoughtfully
designed or redesigned to contribute
to the vision and stated program goals.
Instructors could attend the Course
Design Institute workshop to design new
courses or redesign existing courses.
Changes may include incorporating
appropriate uses of technology,
experiential learning, inter-cultural
awareness, and the 10 high impact
educational practices. Course content
may remain the same with adjustments in
assessment practices, assignments, and
teaching methods.
Intentional faculty development then
comes into play to support these
changes. For support with this, and all
other aspects of curriculum renewal,
instructors could attend various sessions
and workshops offered at the GMCTE
throughout the year.
The University of Saskatchewan requires
that students receive a syllabus for each
of their classes at the beginning of the
term. Instructors have a variety of ideas
about what to include the syllabus, while
some colleges want all of their syllabi
to look the same. Some require that all
sections of a course, regardless of how
many different instructors there may
be, must use an identical syllabus. All
of this is acceptable under university
policy as long as a syllabus includes all
of the required elements laid out in the
Academic Courses Policy. These include:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
learning outcomes of the course;
the type and schedule of term
assignments, with approximate due
dates;
notice if any mid-term examinations
or other required class activities are
scheduled outside of usual class
times;
the type and schedule of mid-term
or like examinations;
relative marking weight of all
assignments and examinations;
procedures for dealing with missed
or late assignments or examinations;
whether any or all of the work
assigned in a class including any
assignment, examination, or final
examination, is mandatory for
•
•
•
•
•
passing the class;
attendance expectations if
applicable, the means by which
attendance will be monitored,
the consequences of not meeting
attendance expectations, and their
contribution to the assessment
process;
participation expectations if
applicable, the means by which
participation will be monitored and
evaluated, the consequences of not
meeting participation expectations,
and their contribution to the
assessment process;
contact information and consultation
availability;
• location of rules and guidelines
for both academic misconduct and
appeal procedures;
class website URL, if used.
* notice of whether the instructor intends
to record lectures and whether students
are permitted to record lectures.
In 2012, the University of Saskatchewan
Instructional Design Group, including
representatives from the Centre for
Continuing and Distance Education
(CCDE), the College of Nursing,
the GMCTE, and Information &
Communications Technology (ICT),
set to work on developing a syllabus
6
Bridges, Vol. 12, No. 1
e & Guide
created for the U of S
template and guide to assist instructors
in crafting syllabi that met all of these
requirements. The template is based on
one that has been used by CCDE for a
number of years.
A corresponding Web page was also
developed by the GMCTE that includes
links to the template, the guide, the U
of S Academic Courses Policy and other
resources, including videos related to
various aspects of the syllabus to assist
instructors in creating their syllabi. This
page is located at http://www.usask.ca/
gmcte/resources/teaching/syllabus
The template and guide include all of
the required elements listed above,
plus additional items recommended by
the U of S Instructional Design Group,
Disability Services for Students (DSS)
and others on campus. These items
include:
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•
•
•
•
•
course description including
prerequisites (this much match
what is in the course catalogue)
U of S grading system for the
appropriate level (undergraduate or
graduate)
course overview and schedule
instructor profile (should be written
in first person)
required resources (books, software,
etc.)
student feedback (how it is
gathered and how it is used)
There were some recent amendments
made to the Academic Courses Policy
related to the syllabus including one
regarding the recording of lectures (the
last point in the list of required items)
and this:
www.usask.ca/gmcte
7
“The syllabus is a public document
that provides details about a particular
offering of a class for enrolled students. It
is also useful for recruiting prospective
students and sharing information about
University of Saskatchewan courses with
the broader community. Instructors
must make the syllabus available to
Department Heads prior to the start of
the course, and to all enrolled students at
the beginning of the class.
Syllabi should be posted on the
Blackboard Open Courseware site or
a publically accessible departmental
website.”
the items required under the Academic
Courses Policy.
Also, your syllabus should ideally be
a reflection of you, the course you are
teaching and your teaching style. One
syllabus style does not fit all and you
should take steps to personalize your
syllabus by including a short biography,
a short summary of your teaching
philosophy, or details about how you
use student feedback to shape your
current and future classes. For more
on personalizing your syllabus, see the
Bridges article that Kim West wrote for
the August 2012 issue.
... your syllabus should ideally be a reflection
of you, the course you are teaching and your
teaching style.
Making your syllabi public offers a
number of opportunities including
allowing students to view them from
previous terms to decide which section
of a course they may wish to take, what
types of teaching strategies you might
utilize, what resources will be required
and when major assignments will be due.
It is important to remember that the
U of S considers syllabi to be contracts
with the students and certain parts of
them, such as the due dates for major
assignments or the date of the midterm
may not be changed once students
have received a copy of the document,
including paper copies, or electronic
versions through PAWS, BBLearn or Email.
The syllabus template and guide are
available as resources. They are not
required by the university, but rather
serve to help you get started in crafting
a document that will fit the needs of
both you and your students. Again, your
college or department might have its
own required template that you must
use, but those syllabi must still include
If you would like assistance with
creating or revising a syllabus, or have
questions about the template or guide,
please contact the GMCTE to set up
an appointment with one of our staff
members.
Putting
Course Design
Institute
through
Course Design
-By Ryan Banow, GMCTE
Introduction
The Course Design Institute (CDI), an
intensive workshop for instructors offered
by the GMCTE, provides instructors a
chance to design new courses or to
redesign old ones. Instructors come in
with one specific course in mind and
when they leave they should have all of
the major planning pieces completed.
It is not feasible to plan and create all of
the materials for the course during the
workshop, but by the end participants
have a focused plan and are ready to
hit the ground running. This workshop
has been offered in some form over the
past number of year, but during the past
two years, it has evolved and is currently
being redesigned for future iterations.
The next offering will be in February
2014.
What it was
As of 2012, the CDI was offered once
a year in the second week of May.
Instructors would sign up and pay a
nominal registration fee. The workshop
lasted five full days and consisted
of entirely face-to-face sessions.
Presentations took place in the mornings,
along with a few afternoon sessions,
but most afternoons were saved for
participants to work on various aspects
their courses.
What it is now
main sessions that were decided upon
for greatest impact and use of time were:
In 2013, it was decided that we would
begin offering the CDI twice a year to fit
with more instructors’ schedules. The first
offering would be during mid-term break
in February and the second offering
would be offered in the familiar second
week of May.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
One major change came when Jim
Greer and Brad Wuetherick visited the
University of Kansas (KU) and met with
Dan Bernstein, the Director of the Center
for Teaching Excellence. They learned
that KU offers grants to their successful
CDI participants. Upon reflection, we
decided to move to an application
process, rather than an open registration
process, and we also decided to offer
$1000 grants to faculty who complete
course designs that meet one of the
University of Saskatchewan’s learning
priorities. Some of the possible uses of
this grant are to hire a student to help
with building course materials, aid in
purchasing required technology, or
to aid in creating an evaluation tool
to evaluate the new course design.
Interested instructors must complete
an application form (on our website)
that describes their projected course
designs and at least one of the university
priorities it aligns with. Out of the
applications, up to 10 instructors are
selected - although, not all of the
selected participants are necessarily
eligible for the grant depending on their
design and their role at the university
(i.e. graduate students are not eligible to
receive the grant).
Due to the Family Day holiday during the
break in February, we could only hold
the CDI over four days rather than a full
five-day week. This forced us to take a
closer look at the sessions being offered
and we were able to pare down some of
them. We essentially put the CDI through
the course design process. We thought
about our audience and the required
learning outcomes. We read Rethinking
Teaching in Higher Education: From a
Course Design Workshop to a Faculty
Development Framework by Saroyan and
Amundsen and also consulted with what
other similar centres were doing. The
Context Analysis
Learning Outcomes
Types of Assessments
Rubrics
Constructive Alignment
Blueprinting
the Syllabus
Instructional Strategies
We also offered an additional four
optional lunch sessions on the university
priorities: Experiential Learning,
Aboriginal Education, Learning
Technologies, and Internationalization.
All of the afternoons were held open for
participants to focus on designing their
courses.
Along with the face-to-face sessions,
we posted all of the learning resources
within a private Blackboard Learn course.
On this course page we also posted a
wide variety of additional resources to
facilitate further learning. At the end of
the February 2013 offering of the CDI,
we had an informal conversation with
participants and the consensus was that
four days was an appropriate length
for this workshop due to the intensive
conversations and time on task.
The next offering, in May 2013, was
offered in a very similar fashion to the
February offering. We chose to continue
with the four day format and offered
sessions on the same topics. Participants
from both offerings have been receiving
the $1000 grants to aid in implementing
their course designs.
Where it’s going
We consider both 2013 offerings of
the CDI to be great successes. Going
forward we are implementing further
improvements to the design. At the
GMCTE we have become advocates for
flipped teaching; therefore, we are going
to put our money where our mouths
are and flip the CDI. What this means is
that we are developing short resource
videos and collecting resources on all of
the topics. These videos will serve two
purposes. The first is that we will ask the
8
Bridges, Vol. 11, No. 3
CDI participants to view them prior to each day’s sessions. The second purpose is that these videos will be publically available on
our website as just-in-time resources for instructors who are seeking immediate assistance in course design. If an instructor wants
course design assistance and cannot attend an offering of the CDI, then these resources will be available to at any time.
By having participants view the videos prior to the sessions, they will now have more time to discuss the concepts with the
instructional designers and their peers. Participants will also have more time to work on their courses during the four days-a key element of this time to work is that participants are able to work one-on-one with instructional designers and are also
encouraged to share their ideas with their peers in the room. The environment can be extremely productive and collaborative.
Another goal for the CDI going forward, is that participants will create a portfolio of their new course design after, after having
taught the course. This is another idea that has been inspired by KU and other institutions. These portfolios would be shared with
other faculty on our website and could also be shared in a presentation to interested colleagues. There is so much passion and
great work coming out of the CDI and we need to share it!
Building your
Skill Set:
Be a Mindful
Graduate
Student
A conversation with Wenona Partridge,
GMCTE & Amelia Horsburgh, GMCTE
Wenona is completing her MA in the
Department of Philosophy at the University
of Saskatchewan and works for the GMCTE
as a Communications and Program Support
Specialist. Amelia is completing her PhD in
the Department of English at the University of
Saskatchewan and teaches for the GMCTE as
a Graduate Teaching Fellow.
Background
W: The path I took to university was not
direct. I worked for several years after high
school, then again after finishing a BA in
philosophy. I also worked while studying, off
campus as an undergraduate and on campus
as a graduate student.
A:Unlike Wenona, I have never taken a break
from my studies. I have been in school
from Montessori all the way through to
my PhD studies, only taking a six-month
leave from graduate school when I had my
son. Throughout my graduate studies, I
have supported myself by way of research/
teaching fellowships and scholarships.
www.usask.ca/gmcte
9
Impetus for Study
W: Intellectual curiosity was my primary
motivation to pursue university: I was looking
for a community of interesting peers and
mentors who were also intellectually curious.
I wanted to become a better, more critically
reflective citizen who contributes to her
community.
A:Familial influence was my motivation
to pursue graduate studies. As a young
woman, I witnessed the career opportunities
presented to my mother (who holds a PhD
in Nursing) and wanted to have those same
professional options and standard of living.
Visions of Success
W&A: Most students, particularly in the
humanities, pursue graduate studies with
the intent of eventually becoming a faculty
member. The story we are told is that, if we
work hard enough, we will have the same
success as our mentors. However, this story is
not typically accepting of alternative endings,
i.e. careers that fall outside a tenured faculty
position.
Academic Realism
W&A: Despite intellectual curiosity and a love
of teaching, we also hunger for food, a decent
apartment and a not-empty savings account.
For humanities graduate students on the
cusp of graduating, the job market in higher
education has the appearance of being
unjust: teaching too many courses (in an
attempt to make ends meet) with little time
to pursue their research interests, impedes
the likelihood of obtaining a tenured
position. For those of us who are uninterested
in filling a sessional role, the traditional story
of what comes after graduate school needs
to change. As we make that leap into the
paid workforce, we must consider alternative
narratives. That said, such alternative
narratives should be considered throughout
a graduate students’ education.
continued on page 17
Celebration of Teaching 2013!
Outstanding
GraduateStudent
Teacher
Leah Ferguson
College of Kinesiology
Excellence in
International
Teaching
Simonne Horwitz
CollegeofArts&Science
Outstanding
Innovation in
Learning
Christopher Todd
College of Arts & Science
This Year’s
Provost’s
Teaching
Awards
Recipients
Outstanding
New Teacher
Regan Schmidt
Edwards School
of Business
Outstanding
GraduateTeaching
Bonita Beatty
Excellence in
AboriginalEducation
Sheila Carr-Stewart
College of Education
College of Art & Science
Provost’s College
Awards Recipients
Provost’sAwardfor
OutstandingTeaching
Provost’sAwardfor
OutstandingTeaching
CollegeofArts&Science
College of Kinesiology
Social Science
Louise Humbert
Pamela Downe
10 Bridges, Vol. 12, No. 1
Provost’sAwardfor
OutstandingTeaching
CollegeofEngineering
David Sumner
Provost’sAwardfor
OutstandingTeaching
CollegeofEducation
Debbie Pushor
The Provost’s teaching awards for 2013, in special
recognition of the University’s award-winning
teachers during the past academic year are be
presented at the annual Celebration of Teaching,
The Provost’s Awards recognize outstanding
teaching in each College, as well the categories
of Aboriginal education, international teaching,
innovation in learning, new teachers, graduate
teaching and graduate student teachers.
We are proud to announce this year’s Provost
teaching awards recipients!
If you would like to learn more about the awards, please
visit www.usask.ca/gmcte/awards/provost
Provost’s Award for
Outstanding Teaching
College of Arts & Science
Science
Provost’sAwardfor
OutstandingTeaching
EdwardsSchoolofBusiness
KeithWilloughby
Neil Chilton
Provost’s Award for
OutstandingTeaching
College of Pharmacy
& Nutrition
Shawna Berenbaum
Provost’sAwardfor
OutstandingTeaching
College of Medicine
Sean Mulligan
Provost’s Award for
OutstandingTeaching
Western College of
Veterinary Medicine
Sue Taylor
Provost’sAwardfor
OutstandingTeaching
College of Arts & Science
Humanities & Fine Arts
Greg Marion
www.usask.ca/gmcte 11
Provost’s Award for
Outstanding Teaching
College of Agriculture &
Bioresources
TomYates
Open Textbooks: A new
Introduction
In 2012, British Columbia launched their open
textbook project, which is being coordinated by
BCcampus. In an effort to help educate the U of
S community about this initiative and further
conversations around a variety of aspects of
open education, the GMCTE requested some
opinion pieces from individuals in higher
education in BC on this topic.
• First and foremost, open textbooks
are free -- obviously the biggest draw,
especially in the eyes of students and
those helping to fund their education.
With $100-$200 sticker prices in some
disciplines, making textbooks free can
significantly increase access to postsecondary education.
Following are pieces by Clint Lalond and Sylvia
Currie from BCcampus, Will Engle from the
University of British Columbia, and Valerie Irvine
from the University of Victoria. In addition, there
is a piece by Frank Bulk (from the GMCTE) who
sat down for a conversation with USSU President
Max Fineday who made the concept of open
textbooks a part of his campaign platform when
running for that position.
• Open textbooks are also available in
multiple technical formats, including
ePub, PDF, HTML or (for a small fee to
cover the cost of creating a physical
copy) print-on-demand. This provides the
greatest technical choice for students as
they can pick the format that they prefer
and works best for them.
The B.C. Open Textbook Project
What does “Open” mean?
Last fall, British Columbia became the
first Canadian province to launch an open
textbook project (at the annual Open
Ed conference in Vancouver). Under the
direction of the ministry responsible
for advanced education, BCcampus, a
post-secondary service organization with
a long history of involvement in interinstitutional open educational projects, is
coordinating the project.
Since this announcement, we’ve been
working to identify the top 40 first and
second year subjects across the 27 postsecondary institutions in B.C., undertake
a review process of existing open
textbooks, and to engage faculty and
staff in dialogue around adaptation and
adoption. We have also connected with
other open textbook projects around
the world to identify possible areas of
commonality and collaboration.
Open textbooks are similar to traditional
textbooks in a number of ways. They
are created by educators, often peerreviewed and classroom tested, and
sometimes even printed in familiar
format of a physical book. However, open
textbooks are also very different from
traditionally- published textbooks in a
couple of important ways:
While the promise of free textbooks is
what catches the attention of the public,
it is the culture of OPEN that has the
potential to provide real pedagogical
innovation in teaching & learning. It is
both exciting, yet uncertain, territory.
At the heart of open textbooks, and
what makes an open textbook “open”,
is the Creative Commons (CC) license.
The flexibility of CC licenses allow
faculty to have complete control over
the textbook and modify, use and
redistribute the content without having
to ask copyright permission from a
publisher. This gives faculty a great
deal of flexibility when it comes to
customizing and contextualizing learning
materials to fit their specific teaching
needs. Photos, charts, and other visual
resources from the textbook can easily
be reused in another medium, such as
in a presentation for students. Learning
the mechanics of how to execute all of
this ranks highly among faculty we are
working with:
“How do you make textbooks visually
appealing?”
“Can you change a license assigned to
your work?”
“How do you track revisions?”
Open resources can transform education
However, many of the questions
and comments that have emerged
through conversations at our Adopting
Open Textbooks workshops are more
philosophical and transformational in
nature, and speak to the bigger picture.
This project has provided a spark for
faculty to re-examine current practices
around choosing and using educational
resources. For example, commercial
textbook publishers have often been the
default starting point for many faculty
when choosing learning resources, and
this project has some re-examining that
default position in light of the fact that
we now live in an age where abundant
information is freely available. Do we
need to pay for it?
“How can we use this open textbook
initiative to inform innovation around
pedagogy?”
“How are concerns around use,
attribution, etc different from
concerns we’ve always had?”
“Are we replacing expensive texts, or
are we providing alternatives?”
As individuals supporting this process, we
make every effort to present the adoption
of open textbooks as a reachable goal for
everyone. Because it is! There are many
ways to get involved, and it doesn’t have
to mean taking on a huge task.
“I would be hesitant to sit down and write a
textbook and think that it would
be an improvement in some way over what
exists”
In the past few years a number of open
textbook projects have launched to
develop high quality university & college
level open textbooks. One example
is Rice University’s OpenStax College,
funded with grants from the Hewlett and
Gates Foundation, where high quality
introductory textbooks for Physics,
Sociology and Biology are available for
free with Creative Commons licenses.
The early stages of the BC Open Textbook
12 Bridges, Vol. 12, No. 1
w initiative for the U of S?
Project has been to identify and review
these types of resources in the hopes
they will form the foundations of the
open textbooks used in our province.
What’s ahead?
Educators and administrators are keen to
get involved in a project that promises
to be a very practical solution to a
very large problem: prohibitive cost of
textbooks. The long-term benefit for
our educational system will be a shift
to more open practices. Fortunately,
feedback so far from faculty points to a
future that is both exciting and doable.
“Collaboration is the most interesting
piece when thinking about the
possibilities”
“Change begins with the individual.
Start thinking of open as an option in
the everyday of what we do.”
“It doesn’t all have to happen at once“
Clint Lalonde and Sylvia Currie
Open Textbooks;
Enhanced Learning
Someday soon, a psychology instructor
will visit an open textbook website to
read the reviews of first-year psychology
texts. As she browses, she will recognize
colleagues’ names as both editors and
peer-reviewers and, based on their,
reviews, she will select different texts
to explore. She will decide that for her
fall class, she likes how one book covers
specific topics while another other
provides a rich background. She will
combine sections from each book into a
new file and then, from her own course
notes, she will add information providing
a Canadian context. Next, she will embed
videos, dynamic 3D renderings, links
to relevant websites, and interactive
quizzes that will help students to gage
their mastery of the material. Finally, she
will add a student-generated knowledge
base created by her previous class as
an appendix. When her students access
www.usask.ca/gmcte 13
the textbook, they will have the options
to view it online or to download it in a
mobile or e-reader supported format
for free and to keep it for as long as they
like. Additionally, they will be able to
print a bound, static version of the text
at the university bookstore for less than
$30 dollars.
A number of different factors have
recently pushed this scenario from the
future to the near present: the high costs
of traditionally published textbooks, the
development of the Creative Commons
licensing framework that supports the
reuse and modification of materials,
and the continued proliferation of
technologies that support both the
publication and reading of electronic
media. This past fall, the government of
British Columbia further drove this reality
when they announced an initiative to
offer free, open textbooks for the 40
most popular post-secondary courses.
Much of the motivation and attention for
this BC open textbook project has been
focused on the cost savings benefits to
students. This benefit is, indeed, very
important: the BC Ministry of Advanced
Education, Innovation, and Technology
(2012), estimates that students spend
between $900 and $1,500 per academic
year on textbooks. A recent report
published this June by the United States
Government Accountability Office (2013)
found that the textbook prices have
gone up 6% this year and have risen 82%
over the last decade.
Most instructors sympathize with the
reluctance of students to purchase high
priced books that will only be used for
a few months. A faculty member at a
workshop for the BC open textbook
project recently confessed that he
stopped assigning textbooks in his
teaching. “I was reviewing potential
textbooks for a course and realized
that I wouldn’t want to learn from
them myself,” he stated. And, yet, the
instructor was genuinely excited about
the potential that open textbooks could
have in his teaching. While he had
currently moved to creating custom
course packs and curating online
resources, he found that a textbook
provided a comprehensive framework
for approaching the material and he
like the idea of being able to provide
a course contextualized, high quality
resource that students could easily
access for free on any device.
Even traditional publishers and
educational technology companies
are beginning to see the potential of
openly licensed educational materials
for enhancing teaching. In late June,
both Pearson and Blackboard launched
search tools to help instructors find
and incorporate open educational
resources into their teaching. Pearson
(2013) described their search tool as a
way of providing educators with the
21st century materials, assets and best
practices they need to keep students
engaged.
The BC open textbook project is helping
BC faculty and institutions be leaders in
developing these 21st century resources
and best practices by working to remove
some of the biggest hurdles in terms
of quality and technology. By building
a peer review process and enabling
a framework in which the textbooks
can be developed collaboratively by a
network of peers, the project is ensuring
that the textbooks are written and
edited by expert faculty members, not
committees, and reviewed by their peers.
By exploring and implementing modern
and emerging technologies, the project
is also helping to drive innovation and
move textbooks away from being just
text.
The BC open textbook is helping to
ensure that learners and instructors
in British Columbia and the world will
have access to not only more affordable
resources, but also better resources that
enhance learning for everyone.
References
Ministry of Advanced Education,
Innovation and Technology. (2012).
B.C. to lead Canada in offering
students free, open textbooks.
Retrieved from http://www2.news.
gov.bc.ca/news_releases_20092013/2012AEIT0010-001581.htm
Pearson. (2013). Pearson introduces the
OpenClass Exchange. Retrieved from
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/6/
prweb10858753.htm
United States Government
Accountability Office. (2013). College
textbooks: Students have greater access to
textbook information (Report No. GAO13-368). Retrieved from http://www.gao.
gov/assets/660/655066.pdf
Biography
Will Engle is a Teaching and Learning
Strategist at UBC’s Centre for Teaching,
Learning & Technology. He is engaged
with projects that are leveraging
emerging technologies, approaches,
and pedagogies to support flexible
and open learning. With a background
in library science, Will is interested in
understanding and supporting the
removal of barriers that limit access to
education, information, and knowledge.
The MOOC as text:
A long term vision
Valerie Irvine
Luke Richards
Technology Integration and Evaluation
(TIE) Research Lab
University of Victoria
Textbooks have been central to the
operation of higher education, but
they are a target of criticism for being
synonymous with the traditional
approach to education as well as
imposing a financial burden upon
students who already face significant
living and tuition costs with little
opportunity for income. The State
of Educational Technology Directors
Association recently released a report in
2013 called “Out of Print: Reimagining
the K-12 Textbook in a Digital Age” which
cites that states and districts in the
United States spend $5.5 billion annually
on content yet many students are still
using textbooks that are 7 to 10 years old
(Fletcher et al, 2012). With a modern day
student population that is accustomed
to access to free content, and dynamic
content at that, the static textbook
that is a significant proportion of their
university tuition presents itself as an
idol worthy of resentment. Furthermore,
the movement to support open access
to work published by publicly-funded
academics is fueling the momentum
toward the open textbook. Fortunately,
there are a growing number of open
textbooks emerging with print, epub, or
PDF versions available (BCCampus, 2012;
Creative Commons, 2012; Openstax
College, 2013).
Textbooks should be recognized,
though, as a highly adaptable literary
genre and needs to change to resolve
classroom problems as they emerge
(Wakefield, 1998). In the 21st century, it
is recognized that “information sources”
include the people one connects
to in addition to or instead of static
content. Our value of knowledge as
something individually held is also
being redefined through emerging
theories such as connectivism (Siemens,
2005). It is important to also consider
the role of social networking and how
MOOC capabilities are incorporated
into the higher education sector. The
connected textbook or text portal to a
learning community is becoming more
dominant over all things static in nature.
McFadden (2012) suggested tablets will
begin to dominate within 2-3 years with
embedded applications for connecting
faculty and students within a class. The
growing ability to bring in social and
dynamic content in some digital formats,
as opposed to flat text and images,
may allow for the community-building
affordances never before possible in
a traditional text. Looking forward to
the next evolution of the dynamic,
community-connected portal, at what
point does the open textbook disappear
as it transitions into status as a MOOC?
Currently, a variety of different types
of MOOCs are emerging with the
most notable being the xMOOC and
cMOOC. There are growing instances
of instructors wrapping a MOOC in a
course, as we did in 2013, but there
were considerable issues that arose
for us and in some instances terms of
service from MOOC providers prohibit
it. Emerging from the open textbook
initiative, we recommend a collaborative
inter-institutional regional MOOC
with all instructors working together
in authorship and design. As dozens
of courses across a state or province
are offered and funded from the same
taxpayer pool of funds, there are many
opportunities that appear to redefine
what a textbook is to both meet
the needs of learners and to create
communities between institutions.
Moving toward a meta-course to
collaborate as an instructional team will
be a challenge because our institutions
do not encourage it. Universities are in
a competitive marketplace. We strive
to recruit the strongest students and
although research collaboration is
encouraged among faculty at different
institutions as it is an evaluation
criterion for obtaining grants, teaching
collaboration among faculty at different
institutions is more rare as there is no
such incentive and likely obstacles exist
within the competitive recruitment and
branding culture. The key will be for it
to be a top-down initiative combined
with student demand from bottom-up.
The instructors and the institutions in
the middle will not want to miss the
opportunity for involvement.
As more open textbooks or “portals”
emerge that are regional and overlap
with the MOOC phenomenon, perhaps
another category of MOOC might be
created for the open textbook MOOC,
which we suggest would be called
tMOOC. The t stands for textbook and
emphasizes the open textbook MOOC’s
role in supplanting the traditional
textbook and having a specific course
profile it is intending to serve in regional
campus-based environments. Where
a traditional textbook in print form
contained static text and still images, the
tMOOC can contain hashtags, embedded
14 Bridges, Vol. 12, No. 1
community spaces, and dynamic content
that can be contributed by instructors
and student alike across the same course
from various post-secondary institutions.
Since open textbook initiatives are
typically linked to a government region,
the moderators of the MOOC would be
expected to be the course instructors
from the corresponding course (e.g,
Psychology 101) in that region. The
tMOOC would act in place of the
textbook. Rather than students asking
“what text is required for Psychology
101?” the question will be “what tMOOC
is required and what is the hashtag for
Psychology 101?” Time will tell if this
becomes a reality. We certainly hope so.
References
BCCampus (2012). BCCampus to coordinate provincial open textbook
project. Retrieved February 12, 2013
from http://www.bccampus.ca/
bccampus-to-co-ordinate-provincialopen-textbook-project/
Creative Commons (2013). California
passes groundbreaking open textbook
legislation. Retrieved from http://
creativecommons.org/weblog/
entry/34288
Fletcher, G., Schaffhauser, D., & Levin,
D. (2012). Out of Print: Reimagining the
K-12 Textbook in a Digital Age. State
Educational Technology Directors
Association.
McFadden, C. (2012). Are textbooks
dead? Making sense of the digital
transition. Publishing Research Quarterly,
28(2), 93–99. doi:10.1007/s12109-0129266-3
Openstax College (2013). Retrieved from
http://openstaxcollege.org/
Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A
learning theory for the digital age.
International Journal of Instructional
Technology and Distance Learning, 2(1),
3–10. Retrieved from http://www.itdl.
org/journal/jan_05/jan_05.pdf
Wakefield, J.F. (1998). A brief history of
textbooks: Where have we been all these
years? Paper presented at the Meeting
of the Text and Academic Authors, St.
www.usask.ca/gmcte 15
Petersburg, FL. Retrieved March 30, 2013
from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/
ED419246.pdf
Open Textbook Interview with
Max Fineday – Making Student
Life Better
By Frank Bulk, GMCTE
In the April 12th issue of the OCN, I
read an interesting article that profiled
our new USSU president, Max FineDay.
I was intrigued with his simply stated
pre-election platform “to make student
life better” and wanted to hear more
from him specifically on the persistent
concern that students’ have over the
cost of textbooks.
Along with Brea Lowenberger, I invited
Max to discuss this with us over coffee.
Max suggested a date and time when
we could meet in the Louis Loft, and on
arriving I was surprised to see that the
shelves of used books that were once
sold in “Browsers” had all vanished. In
literary terms I believe this would be
considered an interesting element of
“foreshadowing” as it related to the
conversation we were about to have.
Frank: Thanks for meeting with us today.
To start, please tell us something about
the dialogue you have been having
with U of S students as it relates to the
cost of textbooks.
Max: During the campaign, a big thing
that kept coming up was the cost
associated with coming to university,
and particularly the cost of textbooks.
So when I introduced the open
textbook part of my platform, there
was a huge response from students.
Students were so excited about finding
a new way to do textbooks, a new way
of transmitting information to each
other that wouldn’t cost them hundreds
of dollars per semester, because that’s
a huge barrier to education and to
coming to university.
Frank: In addition to cost savings,
do you feel that flexible access to
educational resources is also an
important consideration for students?
Max: Yeah, absolutely, particularly
students my age are used to
having information at the tip of
their fingers, on their laptops, on
their smartphones. I think that is
something we can work into an open
textbook program - transmitting that
information to wherever they need it
to be.
Frank: Do you believe that students
are ready to move entirely into an
electronic format for their required
reading? Past arguments would
suggest that there is still a level of
comfort and familiarity in holding a
printed textbook.
Max: Yeah, absolutely, without
question. It’s 2013. My generation
has largely grown up with computers,
where they can go onto the Internet
and find what they’re looking for and we’re still using these books that
cost hundreds of dollars, and that
are replaced with new versions every
few years. It’s very hard to reuse and
repurpose these textbooks for new
students. It’s sort of a generational
gap that I don’t think the university
is seeing yet, or it’s not on their radar
yet. We have to move from physical
copies of textbooks to something
more interactive, to something
more accessible, to something more
relatable to students today – and
that’s online stuff.
Frank: So how are students coping
within the current cost model, are
more and more students sharing
textbooks, looking for library loans, or
simply not buying them unless they
feel it is absolutely necessary?
Max: There is a subculture of what to
do with textbooks after – how to avoid
the extra cost. There are so many tips
and tricks of saving the extra cost.
Some people are buying them online
directly from Amazon for 75% off
what they would pay at the bookstore.
There’s other ways for students to
access this information, without having
to pay $250.
Frank: As you know there have been
some exciting developments in places
like California and British Columbia
where open textbook programs have
been implemented for the benefit of
their students. Are you familiar with
how they’ve gotten to where they are
now?
Max: BC’s an interesting model and is
the first Canadian program. There was
a really courageous step on part of the
BC government to take the initiative
and run with it. So the way they’ve
done that is they’ve set it up through
“BC Campus”. They’ve taken it on and
they’re moving forward without any
blueprint. They’re kind of seeing what’s
going to work. They’re doing a lot of
consultations, which I think is crucial in
this process. And they’re really talking
to everybody, including publishers,
including professors, including
everyone who might be a little bit
skeptical of this program, and getting
them onside. I think it’s a great model
that Saskatchewan could learn from.
Frank: What do you hope to accomplish
this year to move the U of S in this
direction?
Max: The end goal is having an open
textbook program implemented at the
U of S. That’s going to take a lot of time
and conversations, so I think my goal for
the first part of my term is starting these
conversations. Starting them with the
provincial government, with university
administration, and with the campus
community as a whole. Because
those are the players that need to be
included to have this kind of program
implemented.
Brea: You mentioned collaborating with
the provincial government, do you
also see the possibility of collaborating
across Canada with other student
executives?
Max: Yes, absolutely. I think there’s
room for collaboration with other
students at other universities. Really,
this is something that affects us all, and
I think there’s a national conversation
to be had. And even to get people
talking about this issue in a broader
way – and not just students. It needs
to be university administrators as well
as politicians, whether it’s members of
parliament or the legislature.
When I’ve talked to my counterparts in
BC and Ontario about an open licensing
program, they’re really excited about
it; they’re saying that it just makes
sense. They recognize that it’s a national
program. I think there’s a big want on
the part of student leaders to see a
change.
Frank: From an institutional standpoint,
what do we need to do to make this
happen?
Max: I think we need to want to change.
We need to want to be the best. We
need to realize that the textbook
industry as it is right now is not working
for students. In our Third Integrated
Plan, we’re talking about innovation,
we’re talking about how to better the
student experience, and we’re talking
about how to be at the top of the
U15. We want to keep in pace with
our comparator universities. We’ve
seen that UBC has taken the first step.
I think we can definitely follow them
and still be one of the leaders of this
area, and provide some innovation for
this country. This is where education
is moving, and the University of
Saskatchewan should be at the
forefront of these changes.
Brea: Are you planning on having any
campaigns, carrying forward the “Be
Booksmart” campaign?
Max: Yes, we’re in the process of
planning the “Be Booksmart” campaign.
This is going to turn into a lobbying
effort so that we can have conversations
with government, conversations with
the university administrators to show
that this is an issue on students’ minds.
This is an issue that students really care
about, and have been talking about
for years – the cost of textbooks is
something that’s been on the USSU’s
radar for a very long time – so we’re
going to be having these conversations,
and that there’s ground-level support
for changing the industry.
Brea: At the national level in the
past there has been the Canadian
Roundtable of Academic Materials,
which has been largely focused on
collaborating with and trying to address
issues with publishers. Is there still
interest in this?
Max: There is going to be some sort
of national collaboration that will be
talking with key stakeholders in the
industry. I’m not sure how that’s going
look right now, but I do see some sort of
working group of presidents or vicepresidents of student unions/societies
who are having these conversations
with universities and industry.
Frank: Do you see evidence of U of S
faculty trying to support student on
this issue by not assigning expensive
textbooks and instead putting together
reading packs, assigning materials
from open access sources or relying
on materials that are secured by our
library?
Max: Yes. There’s a really big want
on the part of faculty to see a change
in how the system operates. Classes
that I’ve been involved in, and I can
only speak for my classes which has
largely been Political Studies – some
professors have been addressing this
issue, and they have been assigning
supplementary readings from online
journals or texts that are easily
accessible from the library, just to
have that sort of understanding that
university costs a lot of money, and
the textbooks don’t have to be an
added barrier to education. And I think
there are a lot more faculty who are
recognizing, understanding, and doing
something about this.
16 Bridges, Vol. 12, No. 1
Frank: What advice would you offer
faculty who are similarly concerned but
have not yet taken advantage of open
educational resources?
Max: I would say to faculty that this
is the way that education is moving
forward. It would be helpful to look
at what’s out there already, and see if
there’s anything they can pick for their
particular courses and see how they can
implement free open, online resources
into their classes. I know that professors
understand that there is a huge barrier
to university education, and I think any
sort of effort on part of the professors
would help ensure that students are
able to come back and succeed.
Frank:
Is there anything you would like to
mention as a concluding comment?
Max: If faculty are supportive of the
initiative, don’t be afraid to talk about it
with their peers, with their deans, with
university administration, with us, the
USSU, because these are conversations
that we’re trying to start, and any brief
thought or brief show of support would
go a long way toward making this
process easier for students. It would be
helpful and welcomed.
It is the mark
of an educated
mind to be able
to entertain a
thought without
accepting it.
Aristotle
www.usask.ca/gmcte 17
continued from page 9
well as assistance with resume and cover
letter writing.
Pathways to Success
W&A: As we have both discovered, students
who enter graduate studies with the intent
to access multiple opportunities outside
their niche area and develop a professional
skill set are better for it. They graduate
prepared to take on a broader range of
challenges and opportunities. Regardless of
whether your career aspirations are inside
or outside academia, for-profit or non-profit
sectors, you must continue to pay rent/
mortgage and provide life’s essentials to
the ones you love; the cat needs to eat
after all. Employment opportunities for a
humanities graduate with an MA or PhD
outside academia are not necessarily what
you had imagined. It could look quite
different indeed. And, as we see it, this is the
beauty of a humanities graduate degree:
the flexibility it affords you in the breadth of
your job possibilities. However, it requires
that you be mindful in the choices you
make as a graduate student in regards to
building your skill set. The ability to write
in a clear and concise manner; to research,
disseminate, and respond to huge swaths
of information; to lead projects (such as a
Master’s thesis or PhD dissertation) and take
them to fruition; these skills are the breadand-butter of a Masters or PhD prepared
employee.
Building your Skills
W&A: Outside the bread-and-butter, where
can you as graduate student turn to build
your professional skill set? Specific to the
GMCTE, we offer a variety of courses and
workshops to enhance professional and
teaching skills for graduate students such
as GSR 982 Mentored Teaching, GSR 984
Thinking Critically, GSR 979 Introductory
Instructional Skills, and GSR 989 Philosophy
and Practice of University Teaching, as well
as workshops that are offered throughout
the academic year. The GMCTE also offers a
three-day Fall Orientation to Teaching and
Learning for graduate students and new
faculty at the end August each year. The
University Learning Centre offers a variety
of paid opportunities (such as the Writing
Help Centre), and workshops directed
at graduate students. Another option to
explore is the Student Employment and
Career Centre which posts on and off
campus jobs, volunteer opportunities, as
Be your own Cheerleader
W&A: As a graduate student, take it upon
yourself to be your own cheerleader and
help your potential future employer see the
breadth of your talents. For instance, make
the most of your online presence: market
yourself in the virtual world. We have found
ways to market our skill set and network
through such sites as LinkedIn, Academia.
edu, Twitter, About.me, as well as services
specific to the University of Saskatchewan
like WordPress blogs and individual
webpages on Homepage.
Conclusions
W&A: In the end, graduate students
are like anyone else. They want to find
employment that is meaningful and valued.
These meaningful and valued positions
may not be the coveted faculty position
they currently imagine, and that is not
necessarily a bad thing. It is worthwhile
exploring the avenues available to you as a
graduate student to create a more robust
professional skill set that sets you apart,
which could foster a more fulfilling graduate
student experience. We believe this is an
exciting time to be a graduate student. Take
ownership of your studies and future career
potential!
Invitation to Join the Conversation
W&A: Are you, dear reader, a graduate
student thinking about your future career
options? What are your thoughts about the
possibility of finding employment inside or
outside academia? We value your opinion
on the subject. Please e-mail amelia.
horsburgh@usask.ca & wenona.partridge@
usask.ca to contribute to our conversation in
future installments of Bridges.
Lessons learned at the
Course Design Institute
The pitfalls of trying new
teaching methods and
climbing back out
Murray Drew
College of Agriculture and Bioresources
For a long time, I have talked with my peers
about how traditional lecturing using
PowerPoint slides results in a very passive
classroom. Students sit quietly and are very
difficult to engage in discussion. To liven
things up, I decided to try a different style
of teaching. My goal was to move beyond
presenting facts, I wanted students to
apply these facts to problems they would
encounter in the real world. I also wanted
to encourage more class discussion about
material. Mostly, I wanted students to be
active learners. After reading about different
teaching strategies, the flipped classroom
model seemed to be ideally suited to this
goal.
First, let me set the stage. Animal Science
315 is an introductory course in animal
nutrition. In the laboratory section of the
course, students run animal feeding trials
and perform laboratory analysis of feeds.
This is the first real hands-on experience
with animals our students have and they
love it (well except for having to write the
lab report perhaps). The lecture section is
divided equally between two instructors. I
teach the last half of the course (18 lectures)
and the final exam is only on my section
of the course. My final exam is mostly
essay questions that try to get students
to integrate course material. While exam
questions change each year, the knowledge
students are asked to integrate remains the
same and over 10 years the class average
on my exam has been very stable, ranging
from 68-73%. Only 1 or 2 students per year
achieve marks over 90%.
Developing all new course material is a
daunting job so I have put off trying the
flipped classroom model for several years.
Finally, last summer, I bit the bullet and
spent many hours developing new online
lectures and classroom problem sets. The
first day of class arrived and I was ready to
take my students to new heights of higher
learning. However, only about 60% of
students were present so it was obvious that
some of them did not share my enthusiasm.
Class attendance remained low and I began
taking note of which students attended on
a regular basis to see how they fared on the
final exam.
Many good things came out of my switch
to the flipped classroom. There was
definitely more class discussion and student
engagement. However, there were major
problems as well, the biggest being the
way I was assessing students. I had changed
my teaching method, but the only way
I assessed students was using an exam
worth 40% of their final mark. There was
no assessment of their work in class. Not
very good alignment of student activities
with assessment! It was also apparent that
students did not like the new approach. I
usually get excellent student evaluations.
However, my student evaluations on the
online SEEQ this year were very low. Many
students commented that they were unsure
of what they should be doing in class and
how they were going to be tested on the
online lectures and on in-class work. Some
students even came to my office and told
me how much they hated the flipped
classroom and asked me to switch back to
traditional lectures. However, I stuck it out.
Then came the final exam and some very
surprising results. Students who did not
come to class had an average of 61% on
the final (see Figure). Those who came to
class had an average of 82%. I also had 8
students with marks above 90%. Compared
to 2011, where traditional lectures were
given, students in the upper 50 percentile in
2012 had marks approximately 8% higher.
My exam was similar to my past exams but
I noticed that the answers of the students
who came to class showed a much better
understanding of course material. So here’s
the dilemma: students hated the flipped
classroom but they learned more. Should
I continue using the flipped classroom
model and accept poor student evaluations
coupled with high student outcomes? The
answer is obviously to improve the in class
experience of students.
On to the present. I am now developing
a 1st year course called Domestic Animal
Biology (ANBI 110) for the new B.Sc.
program in Animal Biosciences. This is the
first Animal Science course that 1st year
students will take and it is essential the
students are engaged in the classroom,
and that they are exposed to animals in a
meaningful way. These students are taking
this program because they have a passion
for animal biology and I want to make sure
that their experiences with animals in this
course feeds this passion. As with ANSC 315,
I needed to develop teaching methods to
improve the student experience.
I signed up for the Course Design Institute
that staff at the Gwenna Moss Centre for
Teaching Effectiveness (GMCTE) put on
several times per year. The course is one
week long and covers topics from course
blueprinting to assessment to experiential
learning. Several topics really resonated with
me. Constructive alignment is “focusing on
what and how students are to learn, rather
than on what topics the teacher is teach”
(Biggs and Tang 2011). I am now thinking
more about student learning activities and
outcomes and how to relate course material
and student evaluation to these activities.
This was completely missing in my first
attempt at flipping the classroom.
I also came to understand the importance
of setting up student outcomes as a first
step in course development. I original spent
my time thinking about the structure and
content of lectures and labs in my new
course but did not give much thought to
what I wanted students to know and be
able to do after the course. I went back and
came up with clear and concrete learning
outcomes.
One of the most important things I
wanted to accomplish in ANBI 110 was
to incorporate experiential learning into
the course. My first attempt at developing
animal labs was to base them on my
strengths as a researcher. While teaching
what I know is great for me, it is probably
not the best experience for students. What
I want students to know and be able to
do is to evaluate the relationship between
domestic animals and humans. What are the
ethical concerns about the use of animals
in research? What are the animal welfare
issues in intensive livestock production?
What is the role of companion animals in
human societies? These are large, open18 Bridges, Vol. 12, No. 1
ended questions with no clear-cut answers.
I want students to struggle with these issues
and develop their abilities to evaluate and
incorporate opposing points of view.
I have also rethought my normal method
of assessment--examinations. In the case
of the animal laboratories I am planning
to use student blogs. Students will be
expected to write a reflective blog on
laboratory material. They will also have to
read and comment on blogs written by at
least 2 other students (thanks to Heather
Ross for the idea). In class, one activity
I am planning is assigning students to
groups of 3 or 4 and having the groups
give short presentations on important
issues in domestic animal biology. I intend
to use peer evaluation using rubrics to
assess student presentations. The groups
will evaluate themselves and the students
in the audience, and me, will evaluate the
presenters. This will show students explicitly
what is expected of them and how their
own performance compares to those of
their peers.
Overall, the most important thing I learned
was to begin with the end in mind. Easy to
say but hard to do.
Now, taking off my instructor’s cap, I would
like to make a comment as the Associate
Dean (Academic) for the College of
Agriculture and Bioresources. Trying new
teaching methods is risky. It takes time to
develop the skills to become good at these
new methods. Further, these methods often
require more work from the student and
that is never going to be popular. From
my own experience with new teaching
methods, my student evaluation scores
dropped significantly. I am concerned
about this but I expect these evaluations
to improve as I gain more experience
and refine my skills, but while I do this, I
do not have to worry about tenure and
promotion. New faculty members are the
people we should be encouraging to try
new teaching methods. However, poor
teaching evaluations can negatively affect
their careers and this might deter them
from trying new approaches to teaching. We
need to open a dialogue on how to balance
low scores on SEEQ course evaluations
and negative student comments with
encouraging new faculty to innovate as
teachers. Student outcomes as well as
student evaluations should probably also
be taken into account. In my case, students
acquired a deeper understanding of course
www.usask.ca/gmcte 19
material in ANSC 315. Thus, low evaluation
scores were not the entire story. Finally, I
encourage all faculty, instructors and grad
students to take advantage of the resources
at GMCTE. Most of us teach the way we
were taught. It’s worth taking a look at some
alternatives.
References
Biggs, J. and Tang, C. 2011. Teaching for quality
learning at University. 4th ed. New York: Open
University Press.
Student performance on the final exam in
ANSC 315 in 2011 and 2012. In 2011, traditional
lectures using PowerPoint were given. In 2012 a
flipped classroom model was used and students
are divided into those who regularly attended
class and those who did not.
Reflective Journal & Draft
Course Outline
John Kleefeld
College of Law
Opening Salvo
When I teach, I like starting with a
problem or practical question and
working from there to the theory. I was
delighted, then, when reading about
the Course Design Institute, that we’d
design or redesign a course as part of the
training. Delighted but daunted, because
I decided to design a completely new
course from scratch. Art of the Judgment
is the title of a book I started in 2003 but
never completed. I figured it was not only
time to get back to the book, but that
the best way to do so was to turn it into a
course. And in keeping with my learningby-doing philosophy, I decided to make
the course outline for Art of the Judgment
the basis for my reflective journal.
Drafting Learning Outcomes:
How Hard Can it Be?
The biggest eye opener for me related to
drafting learning outcomes. I had done
this sort of thing before, but realize now
that my efforts were meagre and perhaps
even misguided. We were asked to take
a rigorous approach, stating learning
outcomes not only in terms of what
learners should be able to do (contrast
“understand,” “appreciate” and other
words that so often appear in learning
goals, but reflect a state of mind rather
than an ability or skill), but also the means
by which they would be able to do them
and demonstrate their achievement.
Further­more, we were invited to tie all of
this into learning activities and Bloom’s
taxonomy of learning.
I found the experience mentally
exhausting, but was grateful for the
class time to work on this and share the
results with other committed colleagues.
Surprisingly, it took all my energy just to
draft the three top learning outcomes
that I settled on. The reason, I think, is that
the drafting process forced me to think
about a lot of other things too, such as
learning activities, modes of assessment,
and scheduling.
One of the results of this exercise was the
realization that I could offer two streams
of the course. I began to get quite excited
about this and decided by Day 3 to start
drafting the course outline itself so I could
keep track of the ideas that were coming.
Commentary on Course Outline
for Art of the Judgment
The course is a three-credit seminar,
which is an upper-year type of course that
all law students take at least once in their
JD (juris doctor) programs. Here is the
course description that I drafted:
Art of the Judgment addresses the history,
development, reporting and practice of the
judgment (a term comprising both judicial
and quasi-judicial decisions or opinions)
from the earliest recorded judgments to
the present. This has two aspects. One is
analyzing the judgment from multiple
and interdisciplinary perspectives—e.g.,
literary, historical, sociological, political
or jurisprudential. A judgment that is
amenable to such analysis is provided
in Appendix II to this outline. The other
aspect is gaining practice in applying
the require­ments and skills of reasoned
judgment writing for modern-day courts,
arbitrators and other tribunals. This will
involve rewriting judgments such as the
one in Appendix III to this outline. If you’re
interested in the art and craft of judging,
this course is for you.
I thought a lot about this description.
It changed during the program and
continued to change afterwards. The
most important change was to emphasize
the judgment-writing aspect more than
I had originally envisioned—largely due
to our readings and exercises around
learner analysis. I thought that learner
motivation would be higher with a
tangible outcome—judgment-writing
skills (the “craft,” if you like). This is not to
say that I was willing to give up on the
judgment-appreciation aspect (the “art,” if
you like), which was the original impetus
for the book. But I wanted to find a way
into that aspect for the law student who
is interested in the topic for its own sake
and who also has an eye on professional
development. Hence my pitch for both
the “art and craft” of judging in the course
description.
The three learning outcomes are
reproduced below. Some things changed
from the original versions. For example,
during the drafting of the outcome
relating to writing a moot judgment, I
rethought the course design and ended
up developing two streams (discussed
below). Also, the original outcome for the
minor/major paper (see below) spoke of
being able to apply “a particular analytical
perspective”; subsequently, I changed
it to “a particular analytical or aesthetic
perspective,” intended to better relate it to
the “art” aspect of the course.
· Through completing course readings
and participating in seminars, you
should be able to identify and illustrate
four common modes of legal reasoning
used in judgments: rule- or precedentbased, analogy-based, policy-based, and
narrative-based.
· Through judging a first-year moot case,
engaging in mini-writing exercises, and,
for those in Stream I (see below), writing
a decision after hearing the moot case,
you should be able to demonstrate the
ability to write a reasoned, well-structured
judgment
· Through writing and submitting an
original minor or major paper (see
Streams I and II below), you should be
able to demonstrate the ability to apply
a particular analytical or aesthetic
perspective to a judgment or to a series or
genre of judgments.
One of the things we learned about in CDI
is that when designing a course, degree,
or program, the learning outcomes,
learning activities, and learning
assessments should be linked. This
three-way linkage is called “constructive
alignment” or, simply, “alignment.” The
literature tends to present this as a
logical-linear process, with outcomes
dictating activities, which in turn dictate
assessment modes. However, I found
that thinking about any of these things
ended up impacting the way I thought
about the others, such that the “loop”
or “feedback” model in the draft U of S
Syllabus Template Guide better reflected
my mental process:
This gave me some room, and the idea, to
create two streams for the course: one for
the student who prefers to put most of his
or her energy into an in-depth research
paper and the other for the student who
prefers to spread his or her efforts over
a number of smaller assignments. Since
I wanted judgment writing to be part of
the course, I had to find ways of working
this into the non-paper components of
the course.
The key difference between the two
streams is the written moot judgment
required for Stream I, but not for Stream
II. Some explanation is in order here.
One of the basic law school traditions is
the first-year appellate moot (or “mock”)
court. All students act as counsel in this
exercise, which takes place in February.
They argue the legal issues in an appeal
case before a mock tribunal comprising
one faculty member and up to two upperyear students. The upper-year students do
this on a voluntary basis, and my proposal
relies on the tradition, the difference
being that anyone in this course will be
required to judge one of these moots.
However, the upper-year students are not
currently required to write a judgment
after the hearing, though some of them
occasionally do. If they take this course
and opt for Stream I, they will all do that,
or do an approved substitute exercise.
Even for students in Stream II, though,
it seemed important to create learning
activities related to judgment writing.
I made a start on this through various
in-class exercises. I have put all of this
activity under the general heading
of “Participation,” along with other
participation activities such as asking and
answering questions. I’ve allocated 15% of
the final grade to it. I have also created a
self-assessment form for this component,
based on a “class contribution record” that
a colleague uses elsewhere in the U of S.
The other 15% component, “Presentation,”
is more along the traditional lines of
what is expected in a seminar. The
idea is to lead a class discussion, which
is sometimes done on the basis of a
textbook chapter and sometimes on the
basis of a particular set of readings.
This leaves the written judgment and
minor paper (for Stream I) or major paper
(for Stream II). I described the judgment
requirement and allocated 30% of the
grade to it. To the minor and major
paper, I allocated 40% and 70% of the
grade, respectively, and provided barebones descriptions of the requirements.
These will need to be fleshed out in
language that explains the nature of the
assignments (even though they are well
know at the College of Law), perhaps
accompanied with a marking rubric.
I included an appendix, the idea for which
came from one of the sample syllabi from
other faculty members, circulated to us on
the last day of the program. I picked up on
some ideas in that syllabus by including
a judgment of Justice Benjamin Cardozo,
one of my judicial heroes. I created a short
introduction outlining the procedural
posture of the case and setting out
several questions designed to stimulate
interest. But then the outline seemed to
emphasize only the aesthetic side of the
course, so I also created Appendix III—a
run-of-the-mill judgment that needs
rewriting, along with some preliminary
remarks on how to start going about
that. I had hoped that this would pique
students’ interest in the course.
From all of this, I hope that it is clear
how much I benefitted from the CDI. My
outline is still a work in progress—indeed,
I’ve watermarked it “draft”—but even this
draft version is superior to anything I’ve
drafted before, and the CDI has given me
the tools I need to make it even better.
20 Bridges, Vol. 12, No. 1