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News Pedagogy

COVID-19: Nobody Signed Up For This

Some principles and guidelines for teaching through an unprecedented and interrupted semester – adapted from this article: www.chronicle.com/article/Nobody-Signed-Up-for/248298


1. Nobody signed up for this.

  • Not for the sickness, not for the social distancing, not for the sudden end of our collective lives together on campus.
  • Not for an online class, not for teaching remotely, not for learning from home, not for mastering new technologies, not for varied access to learning materials.

2. The humane option is the best option.

  • We are going to prioritize supporting each other as humans.
  • We are going to prioritize simple solutions that make sense for the most.
  • We are going to prioritize sharing resources and communicating clearly.

3. We cannot just do the same thing online.

  • Some assignments are no longer possible.
  • Some expectations are no longer reasonable.
  • Some objectives are no longer valuable.

4. We will foster intellectual nourishment, social connection, and personal accommodation.

  • Accessible asynchronous content for diverse access, time zones, and contexts.
  • Optional synchronous discussion to learn together and combat isolation.

5.We will remain flexible and adjust to the situation.

  • Nobody knows where this is going and what we’ll need to adapt.
  • Everybody needs support and understanding in this unprecedented moment.
Categories
News Pedagogy

Creative Action Labs!

Tickled by the Yes Men, we are happy to present the Creative Action Labs this fall.

We’ll hear from artists and activists who are changing the world, followed by workshops to delve into creative tactics and strategies.

If you’re interested in hearing stories from inspiring organizers and thinkers – come out on Thursday evenings!  If you are interested in exploring the history of art as direct action and working with others to plan your own interventions – come on Fridays! Workshops will be facilitated by Sean Devlin, starting Sept 18 and running till Oct 23.

Sean Devlin 叶 世民 is a comedian, filmmaker and creative agitator who supports artists and activists in channeling their Trickster spirit. He has been worked as facilitator for communities, academic institutions and non-profits in the Netherlands, Germany, England, Poland, Lithuania, Turkey and Brazil. He currently serves as the Executive Director at ShitHarperDid.com and as an action coordinator and thought stylist at the Yes Men’s Yes Lab (NYU).

For the Friday workshops, we ask that people consider registering together as small working groups (approximately 2 to 6 people a group). Space is limited – please register by emailing creativeactionseries@gmail.com.

Thursday talks are free and open to the public. Here’s the schedule – we kick off the series with Eugene Boulanger on Sept 3:

Creative-Action-Labs-3

Categories
News Pedagogy

Open to Learning – a Conference Dedicated to Public Post-Secondary Education

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We would like to acknowledge the support of Berger-Marks Foundation in helping students and faculty work together on protecting the quality of and access to public post-secondary education. Students were able to participate in this conference thanks to the Berger-Marks Foundation.

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Pedagogy Regular Sessional

Reconciliation: Challenges and Opportunities

The City of Vancouver, located on unceded Coast Salish territory–the traditional homelands of the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil Waututh and Sto:lo people, has declared 2013 – 2014 to be a Year of Reconciliation. As educators, we are part of a larger, historic moment of reckoning, an opportunity to face Canada’s painful history of colonization with honesty and courage. It has been said that South Africa’s apartheid system was based on Canada’s Indian reserve system. Canada’s residential schools, which attempted to destroy Indigenous cultures, are part of a colonial system that continues, as we see more Indigenous children being apprehended from their families today than even at the height of the residential schools.

At the same time that systemic colonial violence continues, many efforts at healing and resilience are growing and deepening. An excellent example of this is the CBC show, Eighth Fire.  As Eighth Fire shows, the arts have a key role to play in healing and reconciliation. The project, From the Heart: Enter into the Journey of Reconciliation, is another great example. In her book, Unsettling the Settler Within, Paulette Regan writes:

Unless we who are non-Indigenous undertake to turn over the rocks in our colonial garden, we will never achieve what we claim to want so badly— to transform and reconcile our relationship with Indigenous people. Rather we will remain benevolent peacemakers, colonizer-perpetrators bearing the false gift of a cheap and meaningless reconciliation that costs us so little and Indigenous people so much. But what if we were to offer the gift of humility as we come to the work of truth telling and reconciliation? Bearing this gift would entail working through our own discomfort and vulnerability, opening ourselves to the kind of experiential learning that engages our whole being— our heads, our hearts, our spirits.

In the spirit of this deep, experiential learning, UBC and Emily Carr are both suspending classes for a day so that students and faculty can participate in the activities organized in conjunction with the arrival of the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Vancouver from Sept 18 to 21. Members of the Emily Carr community will be drumming to welcome the All Nations Canoe Gathering in Senak’w Staulk (False Creek) on Sept 17, and classes will be suspended on Sept 20 so that everyone can participate in reconciliation and resilience activities at Emily Carr. On Sunday, Sept 22, there will be a 4 km walk for reconciliation, starting at 10 am at Queen Elizabeth Plaza (near the central library) downtown. We invite you to come walk with us, or start your own team of walkers.

Rita Wong

Categories
Pedagogy Regular Sessional

Reflecting on Teaching

As 2012 comes to a close, this may be a good time to reflect on your teaching style. The Teaching Perspectives Inventory offers some ways of describing and identifying different approaches to teaching. It’s free, quick to do, and helpful to consider: http://teachingperspectives.com/drupal/