Glendon instructor livestreams field trips to provide experiential education throughout pandemic

December 6, 2020

A photo of the GoPro set up Charles-Antoine Rouyer used in his second livestreamed field trip

A course director at York University’s Glendon Campus is not letting COVID-19 restrictions disrupt experiential learning opportunities for his students. For Charles-Antoine Rouyer, who teaches Communication, Health & Environment to 125 students this fall in a remote format, cancelling the course’s field trips was not an option.

“We usually do two field trips in the fall in this course, as experiential education is a great addition to achieve some of the learning objectives,” said Rouyer, who has been teaching the fall/winter six-credit course since 2004. “It’s also an opportunity to see and experience what we talk about in the class.”

The field trips, focused on watershed dynamics and urban ecology education, allow students to see science in action and engage with what they are learning, he said.

When the course shifted to a remote format in September, Rouyer considered what alternatives might provide a similar experience to his students. His idea? To do the field trips anyway, and livestream it to his students. But first, he’d have to test it out.

It wasn’t as easy as expected; in fact, Rouyer admits it was “quite a bit of work” to figure out what technology would work best to deliver the experience. He spent a few hours of experimenting, first at home and then on site, and decided to stream via his smart phone with a 1080p camera and feed the video into Zoom. He used his earbuds’ microphone to transmit audio.

The first livestream event took place on Oct. 3 at the City of Toronto Brickworks Park to showcase manufactured nature with ponds to understand how wetlands construction provides natural water filtration and flood protection.

Rouyer surveyed the class to measure interest in participating on site – while ensuring COVID-19 protocols for distancing and social gatherings would be followed – and one student attended in person. Of the other 124 students, 76 logged on to participate.

“It was nice to have one student present for added interactivity and his questions and input benefitted the whole class watching online,” he said.

During the livestream Rouyer ensured students could ask questions and interact in real-time via Zoom. The event was also recorded to allow for viewing by students unable to attend online.

After reviewing the recording, he sought to improve the livestream quality for the next field trip, scheduled for Oct. 24. This time, he would broadcast live from the Glendon Forest along the Don River, to educate students on watersheds and ecological restoration.

For this event, Rouyer upgraded to a GoPro camera and connected it to the internet through his phone’s hotspot to provide a livestream. However, due to bandwidth limitations, the phone could not support both the GoPro livestream and Zoom session. To improve the experience, he asked a student participating online to host the Zoom session, and launched the livestream through a GoPro URL. One of the four students attending this field trip in person stayed on Zoom through her cell phone, and relayed information between the class and Rouyer.

Although there were some glitches in both methods – such as some interruptions to video and audio consistency – Rouyer feels both experiments were successful. And, according to a survey distributed to his class, so do his students.

Asma Zahra, a student who attended the Glendon Forest field trip in person, said she appreciated the time Rouyer took to be creative with experiential learning. Acting as Rouyer’s “ears” for the Zoom session while he was livestreaming on GoPro added depth to the content she had learned in class. She also commended him for being creative and innovative in his delivery of experiential learning.

“He is very passionate about the environment and it shows through his lectures and presentations,” she said. “Professors who take the time to be creative, engage their students and try to get the most out of experiential learning are much appreciated through this time.”

She notes that since taking classes in the summer semester, when learning went remote, she’s enjoyed this class the most.

“This is by far the best class I have taken through the online format since the pandemic,” she said. “It is very important to not only ‘adjust’ to our current situation, but to be more creative and innovative with delivery of education. Professor Rouyer … went out of his way to engage students and implement the experiential learning. Though there will always be issues with technology, he still fought through it to make sure students get the most out of this course through these times. I think that’s commendable.”

Rouyer said he tried to offer students a variety of options to experience the sites, including instructions for a self-guided tour, and site maps provided via eClass, so students could follow along during the livestream events. He surveyed all students who participated in one or both sessions and found that most students preferred the technology used in the second field trip. The feedback overall has been very positive, however.

Aameet Ekram, a first-year student studying political science from abroad, said the livestream field trip idea was “interesting,” and although he had reservations, the experience was better than expected.

“It was a format I could learn off of, and I genuinely did,” said Ekram. “I’d advocate for this type of programming being implemented into different programs. I’m sure it would be real useful for courses which would’ve had field trips in non-COVID conditions.”

Despite studying from overseas in a different time zone, Ekram was able to log on and participate, and gain valuable insights from the experience. “It showed a preview of the environments themselves – which is, really, the aim of the course – and allowed me to see the place in a way I would’ve never gotten to any other way (learning in an online environment).”

Though Ekram says it isn’t comparable to in-person field trips, it’s the next best thing. “I’d call the entire idea genius,” he said. “If anything, the livestreamed field trips actually made me want to go to these places in real life. I think I’ll do that once the entire situation is normalized and I can actually come to Toronto.”

Rouyer has presented his livestream field trip experimentations with faculty members who meet weekly to share e-learning strategies, and hopes his experiences will contribute to a University-wide community of practice about remote on-site livestreaming.

York faculty member Linda Carozza, a course instructor in the Department of Philosophy and an e-learning peer mentor in the Teaching Commons, leads the faculty group that shares experiences in e-learning. She said Rouyer’s account of his livestream teaching method offered a glimpse into the intersection of experiential education, digital pedagogy and educational technology.

“The pandemic may have thrown a wrench in a typically face-to-face course with field trips, but it also pushed colleagues like Charles-Antoine to lead the pack with innovative e-learning methodology,” said Carozza.

She says she hopes he documents his experiences and research in livestreaming in the domain of the scholarship of teaching and learning.

By Ashley Goodfellow Craig, deputy editor, YFile

Un enseignant de Glendon diffuse en direct des sorties sur le terrain à des fins d’éducation expérientielle pendant la pandémie

Charles-Antoine Rouyer ne voulait pas que les restrictions dues à la COVID-19 privent ses étudiants et étudiantes de possibilités d’éducation expérientielle cet automne. Ce chargé de cours du campus Glendon de l’Université York donne à distance le cours Communication, santé et environnement à 125 étudiants. Pour lui, il était hors de question d’annuler ses sorties sur le terrain.

« Nous faisons habituellement deux sorties sur le terrain dans le cadre de mon cours d’automne-hiver. L’éducation expérientielle est un excellent moyen d’atteindre certains objectifs d’apprentissage, dit Charles-Antoine Rouyer, qui assure ce cours de six crédits depuis 2004. C’est aussi une bonne occasion de découvrir ce dont nous avons parlé en classe. Les sorties sur le terrain, axées sur la dynamique du bassin hydrographique et l’écologie urbaine, permettent aux étudiants de voir la science à l’œuvre et de s’investir dans leur apprentissage. »

Quand son cours est passé à un format à distance en septembre dernier, Charles-Antoine Rouyer s’est demandé quelles options pouvaient offrir une expérience similaire aux sorties sur le terrain à ses étudiants. Sa solution? Les faire quand même, mais les diffuser en direct. Tout d’abord, il devait faire des essais.

Charles-Antoine admet que ce n’était pas aussi facile que prévu et que cela lui a demandé « pas mal d’efforts » pour trouver la technologie la mieux adaptée à l’expérience. Il a consacré quelques heures à faire des essais, d’abord chez lui, puis sur le terrain, avant de décider d’opter pour une diffusion en continu avec à la caméra 1080p de son téléphone intelligent. Pour l’audio, il a utilisé le micro de ses écouteurs-boutons et Zoom pour la diffusion en continu et en direct.

Le premier événement a été diffusé en direct le 3 octobre 2020 au parc Brickworks de la ville de Toronto. Cette sortie sur le terrain visait à présenter un environnement artificiel avec des étangs et comprendre comment la construction de zones humides permet la filtration naturelle de l’eau et protège contre les inondations.

Charles-Antoine Rouyer a sondé sa classe pour mesurer l’intérêt d’une participation en personne, tout en respectant les protocoles de la COVID-19 pour la distanciation et les rencontres sociales. Un seul étudiant s’est présenté à la sortie et 76 y ont participé au moyen de Zoom.

« C’était bien d’avoir un étudiant présent, précise-t-il. Cela ajoutait un côté interactif à la sortie; ses questions et ses commentaires ont profité à ceux qui étaient en ligne. »

Durant la diffusion en direct, Charles-Antoine s’est assuré de donner la chance aux participants de poser des questions et d’interagir en temps réel grâce à Zoom. L’événement a également été enregistré pour ceux qui ne pouvaient pas y assister en direct.

Après avoir visionné l’enregistrement, Charles-Antoine a peaufiné la qualité de la diffusion en continu avant la deuxième sortie sur le terrain qui était prévue le 24 octobre dans la forêt de Glendon, le long de la rivière Don. L’objectif pédagogique était de sensibiliser les élèves aux bassins hydrographiques et à la restauration écologique.

Pour cette sortie, Charles-Antoine s’est équipé d’une caméra GoPro et l’a connectée à Internet en utilisant le point d’accès de son téléphone pour la diffusion en continu. Malheureusement, en raison des limites de bande passante, son téléphone ne pouvait pas appuyer à la fois la diffusion en continu de la caméra GoPro et la session Zoom. L’enseignant a donc confié à un étudiant en ligne la gestion de la session Zoom et a lancé la diffusion en continu avec une adresse URL GoPro. Cette fois, quatre étudiants s’étaient présentés. Parmi eux, une étudiante est restée sur Zoom avec son téléphone pendant toute la sortie et a assuré la liaison entre la classe et l’enseignant.

Malgré quelques problèmes techniques avec les deux méthodes — notamment des interruptions du flux de l’audio et de la vidéo —, Charles-Antoine considère que les deux approches étaient fructueuses. Selon les résultats d’un sondage distribué par la suite, tous les étudiants de la classe étaient du même avis.

Asma Zahra, l’étudiante qui était présente lors de la sortie dans la forêt de Glendon, se dit reconnaissante du temps investi dans cette expérience d’éducation expérientielle. Le fait d’avoir été les « oreilles » de la rencontre Zoom — pendant que l’enseignant était en direct sur GoPro — a ajouté de la substance au contenu de ses cours théoriques. Elle loue également la créativité et le sens de l’innovation déployés dans cette possibilité d’éducation expérientielle.

« M. Rouyer se passionne pour l’environnement et on ressent cela dans ses cours et ses présentations, déclare-t-elle. En ce moment, les professeurs qui font des efforts pour être créatifs, faire participer leurs étudiants et tirer le meilleur parti possible de l’éducation expérientielle sont très appréciés. »

Ce cours est d’ailleurs son préféré depuis le passage à l’apprentissage à distance durant le trimestre d’été. « C’est de loin le meilleur cours que j’ai suivi en ligne depuis le début de la pandémie, ajoute-t-elle. Il est très important non seulement de s’adapter à la situation actuelle, mais aussi d’adopter des approches pédagogiques plus créatives et innovantes. M. Rouyer s’est donné beaucoup de mal pour maintenir l’intérêt chez ses étudiants et leur offrir des possibilités d’éducation expérientielle. Malgré quelques problèmes techniques inévitables, il a fait tout son possible pour que les étudiants et étudiantes tirent le meilleur parti de ce cours durant cette période. Ce sont des efforts vraiment louables. »

Charles-Antoine Rouyer dit qu’il a essayé d’offrir à ses étudiants diverses options pour découvrir les sites, notamment des instructions pour une visite autoguidée et des plans de sites sur eClass, afin que les étudiants puissent mieux suivre les événements en direct. Les résultats d’un sondage auprès des étudiants ayant participé aux deux sorties ont indiqué que la majorité d’entre eux préférait la technologie utilisée lors de la deuxième sortie sur le terrain. Dans l’ensemble, la rétroaction a été très positive.

Selon Aameet Ekram, un étudiant de première année qui suit des cours de science politique à distance, la sortie sur le terrain diffusée en continu et en direct était très « intéressante », et malgré ses réserves initiales, l’expérience s’est beaucoup mieux passée que prévu. « Ce format permettait d’apprendre, et franchement, j’ai beaucoup appris, déclare-t-il. Je préconiserais de mettre en place ce type d’expérience dans d’autres programmes. Je suis sûr que ce serait vraiment utile dans des cours qui auraient offert des sorties sur le terrain si la pandémie n’avait pas frappé. »

Bien qu’il étudie à l’étranger avec plusieurs heures de décalage horaire, Ekram a pu se connecter, participer et tirer des enseignements précieux de cette expérience. « Cela m’a permis de découvrir réellement les environnements en question — ce qui est l’objectif du cours — et d’explorer des lieux que je n’aurais jamais eu l’occasion de visiter (dans le cadre d’un apprentissage en ligne). À défaut de visites en personne sur le terrain, c’est ce qu’il y a de mieux. C’est vraiment une idée de génie, ajoute-t-il. En fait, la diffusion des sorties sur le terrain m’a donné envie de visiter ces endroits. Je pense que je le ferai quand tout sera revenu à la normale et que je pourrai venir à Toronto. »

Charles-Antoine Rouyer a présenté ses expériences de diffusion en continu et en direct aux membres du corps enseignant qui se réunissent chaque semaine pour partager des stratégies d’apprentissage en ligne. Il espère que ses expériences contribueront à une communauté de pratique à l’échelle de l’université sur la diffusion en direct à distance.

Linda Carozza, membre du corps professoral de York, chargée de cours du Département de philosophie et mentore partenaire de l’apprentissage en ligne au sein de Teaching Commons, dirige le groupe de professeurs qui partagent leurs expériences sur l’apprentissage en ligne. Selon Mme Carozza, le récit de Charles-Antoine Rouyer sur sa méthode d’enseignement en direct offre un aperçu de l’intersection entre l’éducation expérientielle, la pédagogie numérique et la technologie pédagogique : « La pandémie a certes mis des bâtons dans les roues d’un cours généralement donné en face à face avec des visites sur le terrain, mais elle a également incité des collègues comme Charles-Antoine à être des pionniers de cette méthodologie innovante d’apprentissage en ligne ».

Elle espère vraiment qu’il documente ses expériences et ses recherches sur la diffusion en continu en matière d’enseignement et d’apprentissage.

Ashley Goodfellow Craig, rédactrice adjointe, YFile

Assessment up for discussion across the University, Dec. 10

November 29, 2020

image shows a class in the Curtis Lecture hall

The pandemic is prompting York University to reconsider how student learning is assessed. This pan-University effort is being led by William Gage, associate vice-president, teaching & learning, with support from the Teaching Commons and its new speaker series, the Assessment Strategy Exchange, launching Dec. 10.

“Although exams have long been the dominant mode of assessment worldwide, with the pandemic, we’re in a position where we simply can’t write exams in a way that works for everyone,” said Gage.

Writing exams online can pose challenges in terms of accessibility, invigilation, privacy and time zone, Gage noted, as well concerns that are related to systemic biases in the online platforms.

“What if we could create a world without exams, but enhance our ability to evaluate learning?” Gage asked. “There have always been questions about whether exams really do evaluate learning, and there are approaches to evaluation that don’t involve exams, and many faculty members are now becoming aware of them and we’re trying to help with that.”

Although reconsidering assessment is a long-term initiative and acknowledging that some fields require more traditional exams because of accreditation requirements, Gage noted that the pandemic offers an ideal opportunity to consider some changes quickly, given the challenges of remote assessment. Until now, there hasn’t necessarily been a strong imperative to attend to it.

Gage says he is finding enthusiasm in all corners of the University for these discussions, and there is an appetite for including students in the conversation. Gage is putting together a pan-University working group to explore the issue and he has had more interest than he can accommodate.

“We’re bringing brilliant people to the table so we can tackle the problem, but we’re so early in the process that I’m not sure what the products will be yet,” he said. “The outcome could be a report with recommendations to the University, but that’s not definite.”

Meanwhile, Teaching Commons is giving the entire community an opportunity to learn more about the issues surrounding assessment through its new speaker series, the Assessment Strategy Exchange.

“Since we launched our Going Remote earlier this year, the assessment pages are among the top five most visited,” said Geneviève Maheux-Pelletier, director of the Teaching Commons. “You can adapt the classroom experience reasonably well on Zoom and eClass, but assessment is part of the teaching practice that is most challenging online and people are looking for support.”

It has been a long time coming, Maheux-Pelletier says.

“From the perspective of teaching and learning in higher education, we’ve tried to push the practice toward other forms of assessment that connect content with real-life problems, application and synthesis of information. Now, the limitations of online assessment and a long overdue pivot towards authentic forms of assessment are dovetailing.”

The Teaching Commons series is offering support to Gage’s process and inviting a broader conversation about assessment. It will be supplemented by enhancements to the Commons’ Going Remote website that include information about more than 30 alternative strategies for assessing students and by a new TC course, Rebooting Your Final Exam.

The Dec. 10 event features Professor Laura Winer from McGill University, the director of teaching and learning services at McGill, discussing Pivoting Assessment Strategies in Response to COVID-19 and Beyond, and a student panel discussing What Learning Remotely Has Meant for Me this Fall, moderated by Maureen Barnes, York’s director of student accessibility services in the morning. There will be a Lunch & Learn session at noon where faculty will offer pre-recorded short presentations about assessment tasks and strategies, followed by a live Q-and-A session with the presenters and break-out room discussions. Teaching Commons will continue this series in the winter semester with more events featuring faculty and students.

“Professor Gage’s initiative and this series will feed off each other,” Maheux-Pelletier said. “As difficult as this year has been, it’s a time when people are coming together and wanting to share.”

By Elaine Smith, special contributing writer

Osgoode Investor Protection Clinic will use $157,750 court-directed award to provide pro bono advice

November 18, 2020

An Osgoode Hall Law School clinic that provides free access to legal services for vulnerable investors has received a cy-près award of $157,750 from a class action settlement approved by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

“The Osgoode Investor Protection Clinic fills a critical gap in the retail investment landscape. We’re grateful for this award that allows us to continue our important work in the face of growing demand, while also raising awareness of the potential benefits of directing a cy-près award to our clinic,” says Professor Poonam Puri, the clinic’s academic director. Ontario’s Class Proceedings Act gives the court discretion to grant cy-près (French for “as near as possible”) awards when it’s not cost-efficient or feasible to distribute the awarded funds to members of the class action.

The first of its kind in Canada, the Osgoode Investor Protection Clinic was launched at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School in 2016 to provide pro bono legal advice to people who believe their investments were mishandled and who cannot afford a lawyer. Funded by the Law Foundation of Ontario and the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, the clinic pairs 12 second- and third-year Osgoode JD students for a year with supervising lawyers from leading business law firms in Ontario. Together, they support clients ranging from seniors who lost their entire retirement savings, to people swindled by trusted members of their community, to investors who had their portfolio mishandled by advisors.

Among many impacts, “the cy-près award will assist with the development of investor education, the recruitment of Osgoode students as summer interns and with the clinic’s research activities,” says Puri. By acting as a “living lab” to collect data, Puri and her team identify trends in investor protection, inform public policy debate and contribute to legal practice and reform.

The Osgoode Investor Protection Clinic was awarded the funds as the result of a decision by Justice Benjamin T. Glustein in a class action case involving global pharmaceutical company Endo International PLC. The representative plaintiff, an Endo investor, alleged that the company had misrepresented and/or omitted important information about its generic pharmaceutical business and certain other risks that, when revealed, caused a significant decline in the price of Endo’s securities.

The court approved the cy-près donation at the request of the plaintiff and with the approval of the defendant “so as to provide an indirect benefit to Class Members on top of the monetary recovery that most of them will be entitled to under the U.S. Settlement,” wrote Glustein in his decision.

This marks the second time in as many years that the Osgoode Investor Protection Clinic has been named in a class action settlement.

“A cy-près award aims to serve the interests of class members, which makes us an ideal match in securities class action cases where it’s impractical to directly compensate class members,” points out Puri.

Osgoode alumni and legal representatives seeking further information on the Osgoode Investor Protection Clinic and court-directed awards are invited to contact Puri at 416-736-5542 or ppuri@osgoode.yorku.ca.

YU Experience Hub helps bring virtual experiential education to life

September 17, 2020

Photo by Donatello Trisolino from Pexels

Thousands of York University students count on some form of experiential education (EE) – placements, co-ops, internships – to give them a leg up in their understanding of a subject and allow them to develop skills to successfully enter the job market.

This past spring, the YU Experience Hub, the institutional unit at York that helps students bridge the gap between the classroom and the workplace, was able to leverage federal government support to increase student employment opportunities through the Talent Opportunities Program (TOP) funded by Employment and Social Development Canada.

“We were able to use their wage subsidies to hire students for remote work, something that wasn’t previously available,” said Kathleen Winningham, director of the YU Experience Hub.

The government also increased the amount of the subsidies for eligible placements, allowing 75 per cent of wages to be covered up to $7,500 per student. The subsidies were even made available for those positions that weren’t newly created, enabling the University to hire more students during the past summer and the upcoming academic year.

In addition, employee partners hiring students were able to take advantage of the subsidies, making it easier to offer students paid opportunities during a financially challenging time. Any employer hiring a student for the first time was also able to fast track the hiring process.

These flexible measures allowed about 50 York students to each receive up to $7,500 in wages, meaning that more than $350,000 in funding was available to directly support student employment. TOP funding is in place until March 21, 2021, providing work-integrated learning opportunities for students during the 2020-21 academic year.

As EE experiences migrated into the remote realm, the YU Experience Hub was busy developing resources to ease the transition for both students and employers, said Winningham. The YU Experience Hub team created a tip sheet for students working from home as part of the overall redesign of the hub’s website. They have produced a video to promote experiential education with the help of a grant from the University’s Academic Innovation Fund. The video demonstrates how students continue to participate in EE remotely and is available on the YU Experience Hub’s website.

“We’re excited about the new ways of delivering experiential education,” said Winningham. “There is a lot of creativity in evidence, as Professor Danielle Robinson demonstrated with remote placements for her graduate students this summer. (To learn more, see the Aug. 5 YFile article.)

“We are also supporting students in their quest for EE opportunities by implementing a new module to our Experience York platform, the software platform that posts jobs and tracks. We’ll be rolling it out in September. It will be very convenient, since we’re using the platform already,” added Winningham.

The new module will allow staff to conduct virtual appointments and virtual information sessions and will allow employers to interview candidates through the existing portal. Students will even be able to use the module to practise interviews. In addition, York staff will be able to conduct virtual site visits for students involved in the various types of EE: internships, field placements and co-op opportunities.

Recent grad Abina Thayaparan took part in a Human Resources internship. She presented a poster about her internship and the experiential learning it provided at the last EE Symposium, which took place in January 2020. "You learn so much outside the lecture halls," said Thayaparan. — Recent grad Abina Thayaparan took part in a human resources internship. She presented a poster about her internship and the experiential learning it provided at the last EE Symposium, which took place in January 2020. “You learn so much outside the lecture halls,” said Thayaparan.

Finally, the annual EE Symposium will go ahead as always, but it will be held virtually on Jan. 28, 2021. The symposium is a celebration of all types of EE and generally features a panel of students and faculty sharing their experiences and a poster session that allows students to explain their EE projects and what they’ve learned. The call for posters for this year’s EE Symposium opens Oct. 5. Students are encouraged to visit the YU Experience Hub EE Symposium web page to apply to take part in the symposium. website if they are interested in taking part in the symposium.

“We generally start planning in March for a January event,” said Winningham. “This year, we’ll be planning for a virtual event with some great, new ideas.”

So, pandemic notwithstanding, “experiential education continues to thrive,” said Winningham.

By Elaine Smith, special contributing writer to Innovatus

Quick pandemic pivot provides globally networked learning opportunity

September 16, 2020

A screen shot of the class participants reflecting on the day’s lesson, including Professor Ian Martin, top centre, and student Rachel Whittle, middle centre

In an ordinary year, the final course of Glendon College’s Certificate in the Discipline of Teaching English as an International Language (DTEIL) offers fourth-year students the opportunity to go abroad and test their skills in a foreign classroom. But, as the coronavirus pandemic raced across the globe, it quickly became obvious that spring 2020 was anything but ordinary.

Fortunately for the DTEIL students, Glendon English Department professors Ian Martin and Brian Morgan were determined to ensure their students still had a cross-cultural opportunity, even if it couldn’t take place in person. When York University decided to shut down, the professors were a month away from leading groups of students on an experiential education trip; some students were heading to a partner pedagogical university in Cuba with Martin; the others were off to our partner university in Campo Grande, Brazil with Morgan. Within days, the trips were cancelled and the professors were working their contacts to “make lemonade from lemons,” said Martin.

“We had to think quickly about how to come up with an online equivalent,” Martin explained. “Cuba doesn’t have the online infrastructure to allow us to work together remotely, but Brazil does. We contacted our partner university in Campo Grande, as well as two others in Rio and in Curitiba, to see if we could find enough opportunities for our students, and they all said, ‘Yes.’”

Prior to the start of the remote cross-cultural exchange, Martin had his class watch various recorded teaching sessions and write up their ‘noticings’ using the observation skills framework they had learned for in-person instruction. During the next five weeks, the Glendon students offered a Zoom-enabled five-session, one-and-a-half hour series of classes to around 20 graduate students in programs in applied linguistics for English Language Teaching at the two universities in Rio and Curitiba.

All students participated in the whole course, and each had a chance to host their own content – thematic modules whose content is both global and local. By the end of the experience, the students learned to exploit the full Zoom functionality: breakout sessions, shared screens and live chats. The professors added written homework (submitted via email) and pre-readings (along flipped class lines). They also kept up the weekly meetings as a class, reflecting on the week’s experience and rehearsing the class for the next week, usually with a Brazilian professor pitching in with comments.

Teaching the Campo Grande students involved an additional three-week assignment via Skype and two separate classes: one of medical students, one of future English teachers in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies. In working with these classes, the Glendon students followed the original in-country format: a week of classroom observation, a week of co-teaching with a local teacher and a week of teaching one’s own material.

“It was a heavy load for the students, because they had to reflect on one lesson and prepare for teaching the next,” Martin said.

Rachel Whittle, a recent Glendon graduate, was one of the student instructors. Whittle, who has an honours BA in linguistics and language studies, hopes to teach in Japan as soon as travel is safer.

“The professors encouraged us to create a lesson plan with a general theme and a global context,” Whittle said. “Mine focused on language for educational technology, something I’d originally planned to teach live, but I taught it via Zoom instead. It was challenging moving online, but delivering it that way turned out better.”

An additional challenge came from the nature of one of the Campo Grande classes: it was a course for Brazilian medical students who were learning English in order to read medical journals and research papers. It required the Glendon students to use specialized vocabulary – and so the students had a deep-end experience in teaching an English for Special Purposes (ESP) course.

Thoughtfully, the Brazilian professor chose articles about COVID-19, a topic that had relevance for both the teaching students and the medical students.

“We did a lesson plan, despite not knowing about medicine or studying ESP,” said Whittle. “It worked out really great. They were learning a new discipline – English – and we were able to teach them vocabulary for the pandemic. That was something that connected us.

“It was an experience that no one can ever take away from us, it was so unique,” she added.

Martin said it was an experience borne from the unusual circumstances of the pandemic. While the students were unable to travel, they gained valuable experience and knowledge that wouldn’t have been part of an in-person opportunity.

“Both of us professors felt it was a very positive experience overall and we were very proud of our students,” he said. “It wasn’t inferior to an in-person experience, and it was granted equivalent status by our associate principal, so the students earned their three credits for the course.

“There were also some good friendships struck up, similar to what would have happened if we’d been there. There was enough free time during the question and answer portion of each class to get to know each other.”

Martin is pleased that he and Morgan were able to find a solution for their students, pandemic notwithstanding, and sees how he might incorporate some of the positive outcomes in the future.

“This opened more doors for us in Brazil, and I think we’ll keep in touch with all three universities now, perhaps with a Globally Networked Learning project,” he said. “In addition, I will now include online teaching as part of our Glendon language-teaching methodology course – it’s going to be a useful skill for teachers in this century.”

By Elaine Smith, special contributing writer to Innovatus

1033 – Emergency management grads respond to pandemic’s call

September 16, 2020

Featured illustration of the novel coronavirus

COVID-19 has had a tremendous effect on businesses globally, leaving not-for-profits and small business owners grappling with plans to re-open. Many face the difficult question: What needs to happen so that I can stay afloat and keep my business running? Enter Master of Disaster and Emergency Management graduates Alisha Khan and Magda Sulzycki. Both are certified risk and emergency managers and together they have founded 1033, an organization that can help.

Named after the radio code for “help me quick” or “emergency,” 1033 is a global network of Emergency and Business Continuity Management (EM/BC) professionals who provide free advisory and consulting services to organizations impacted by COVID-19.

The inspiration for the new venture resulted from Khan and Sulzycki witnessing first-hand the struggles that small businesses like nursing homes and childcare providers were faced with. Knowing they had the skills and the networks to help, they decided to mobilize their connections to provide pro bono support to organizations that would typically fall through the cracks.

Much of 1033 business is focused in Canada/GTA and they are incorporated as a non-profit with a focus on small business/vulnerable services. However, since the startup’s humble beginnings it has gradually become a network of global experts, with 55 active volunteers from as far as the U.K., Bulgaria, India, UAE and Australia.

“It originally began as small way for us to help people and has turned into an HR platform where we connect not-for-profits and small businesses with resiliency professionals to support them with their response strategies,” said Khan. “We are using best practices and standardized approaches so that clients are confident in the work being done. This isn’t the time to experiment and try things we haven’t done before. We need to provide real support.”

All of 1033’s services are provided by volunteers who follow a structured and analytical approach to support. They have since brought on a small staff, of which the majority are York University graduates. Many current students have also been taken on as volunteers and they get paired with an experienced project lead to learn how to practically apply what they learned in school.

“We thought this would be a great opportunity for students to work on a meaningful initiative, especially at this time when it is hard as a new grad to get into the workforce. It gives them the ability to take advantage of some spare time at home, and team up with a seasoned resiliency practitioner,” said Sulzycki.

Consultations with clients typically includes an initial assessment where 1033 evaluates the organization’s response and outlines areas of improvement. In most cases, clients end up asking for support with return to office strategies, incident reviews, business impact analysis and support communicating with staff and customers.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency preparedness for small organizations was rarely considered a top priority. However, thanks to the quick action of alumni from the School of Administrative Studies, in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, 1033 has been and will continue to do a remarkable job bringing health and safety preparedness to another level.

“It’s been a very eye-opening experience to go around and convince people that they need to be prepared for emergencies and disasters. This awakening in the community is a step forward for sure. The landscape small businesses are operating in is a lot less stable than the one they imagined; it’s important for our community of professionals to inform people that this is not just a one-time thing, emergencies happen all of the time and we can help you to be prepared and responsive,” said Sulzycki.

York students can choose how to change the world together during C4 Pitch Week

September 7, 2020

The international award-winning course C4: The Cross-Campus Capstone Classroom is kicking off its second year at York University with a Pitch Week, running from Sept. 8 to 14.

C4 is open to all York students at the end of their degrees and enables students from different faculties to work in multidisciplinary teams focused on solving pressing, real-world challenges posed by organizations operating in both the for-profit and not-for-profit worlds – and to get credit for their work.

“York student are being offered a chance to customize their final year and impact the world at the same time,” said Danielle Robinson, the co-founder and director of C4 as well as an associate professor in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design.

C4’s interactive website enables hundreds of students at York to explore potential projects that engage with challenges that have the power to transform people’s lives, including their own.

This year, the program is showcasing more than 75 projects from a wide range of partners, who are eager to mentor the interdisciplinary teams of students on their project journeys.

Community partners involved in this year’s projects include the Town of Whitchurch-Stouffville, Markham Arts Council, Jobster, Centre for Free Expression, TechConnex, the Canadian Language Museum, University Women’s Club, StoryPlanet, Peel Community Climate Council, Toronto Region Immigration Employment Council, Electronic Recycling Association, For Youth Initiative, YuRide, Barnes Management Group, MaRS Discovery District and Nascent Digital, in addition to several on-campus partners.

Students will only be able to preview the projects during Pitch Week, when the community partners pitch their challenges to the student teams, by pre-registering for C4 at: https://ampd.apps01.yorku.ca/machform/view.php?id=94302

Some of the exciting, big-picture questions students can expect to engage with include:

What would a collaborative community-integrated and industry-based loop waste system look like that is engaging, affordable, scalable and effective?
What does a community-driven approach to celebrate and support Afro-Diasporic heritage and promote paths to further learning look like?
Which policies and structures in Ontario and Canada would we revise to address anti-black and systemic racism, and how?
How can student learning and well-being be supported by reaching out both locally and globally, in the wake of the challenges from COVID-19?
How can design and use of AI be reframed to ensure more equitable benefit for all?
How would we reimagine city and rural spaces to make them more equitable, sustainable and healthy to live in?
How can we imagine repairing the cracks, tears and vulnerabilities in society that have been exposed through the challenges of social distancing?
How can countries better support their newcomers, to feel welcomed, supported and successful?
How can we support community efforts to enhance their own mental health and wellness?
How can interdisciplinary approaches to medical research and design speed innovation as well as accessibility?

C4 makes it possible for as many as eight students from different to come together to engage in problem-based learning, with the potential for each group to have a completely different disciplinary makeup.

The good news is that these challenges aren’t only for C4 students. After Pitch Week, any remaining projects will be converted into a Capstone Project Bank for the whole University to make use of, which will be managed by the York Capstone Network. To learn more contact ycn@yorku.ca.

Faculty, staff and students can learn more about getting involved with C4 by joining a Zoom Townhall on Sept. 10 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. and pre-registering at: https://yorku.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYvdO-rrDssGNA4UVJUgAuYKDFIA1bOWPw0.

Want to get involved? Write to c4class@yorku.ca.

Project management students can be agents of change in pandemic recovery

September 7, 2020

Panorama of Toronto skyline at sunset in Ontario, Canada

Ushnish Sengupta, an instructor at the Schulich School of Business, wants students to be agents of change, and part of post-COVID-19 recovery planning for the City of Toronto.

In light of this perspective, his summer project management course – MGMT 4700 – provided students with an opportunity to create projects geared toward meeting the requirements of the Toronto Society of Architects’ Main Street Design Challenge, in which participants are invited to develop innovative, responsible, sustainable and resilient design solutions for Canadian main streets that can be implemented during the recovery and post-pandemic.

Alina Mirza

Sengupta believes experiential education projects, which apply knowledge learned from the classroom to real life contexts, are still possible during COVID-19. In his course, he encouraged students to take advantage of tools like Google Maps and socio-economic Open Data available from the City of Toronto in place of traditional physical site visits typically used to develop these kinds of projects.

Students in Sengupta’s class created projects ranging from the redesign of a community park with a playground, solar panels and a green roof, and a makerspace at a Scarborough library, to projects which will fill the gap in under served areas in the city of Toronto based on student research.

Milena Chikhalina

“I am pleased to see the quality creativity, and practicality of student projects and solutions created based on research and application of course project management principles,” Sengupta said.

While all students have been encouraged to, one group – Alina Mirza, Milena Chikhalina, Aishwarza Das and Sara Jamalian – formally submitted their project, titled “Revamping Ephraim’s Place Community Centre,” to the Main Street Design Challenge and received a positive response.

Aishwarza Das

“The project management course provided us with a strong foundation of knowledge regarding project management skills, terms and processes,” said Mirza. “An in-depth understanding of these concepts allowed us to approach the Main Street Design Challenge in a well-informed manner, considering the many factors that play a role in successful projects.”

Accepted submissions receive inclusion in the Main Street Design Playbook, to be released on Oct. 15 for World Architecture Day, in addition to promotional and media exposure across Canada and acknowledgement in Canadian Urban Institute, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, and Bring Back Main Street communications and news.

Sara Jamalian

“Having the opportunity to incorporate a class project into an external challenge has allowed us to apply and enhance our knowledge in a real-world setting,” Mirza explained. “There’s always a gap between theoretical knowledge and actual application, so participating in the Main Street Design Challenge encouraged us to think critically about real-life complexities and how we would adapt to them to ensure project success. It’s definitely been a valuable and rewarding experience.”

Sengupta says instructors have to be willing to take risks with experiential learning and experimental projects. He argues that, while in some cases taking such risks will generate impressive results such as recognition in a competition, in other cases acceptance of failure is part of the learning process.

“I hope both faculty and students are encouraged to implement experiential learning projects that can be completed remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Sengupta said.

Revamping Ephraim’s Place Community Centre blueprint

York collaborates on development of virtual educational tool for nursing students

August 30, 2020

Educators play a vital role in developing and implementing effective teaching strategies to facilitate student’s critical thinking. A group of professors from York University, Ontario Tech University, Nipissing University, Durham College, along with a PhD computer science student from Ontario Tech (Andrei Torres) and York University undergraduate nursing research assistants, are developing a Virtual Simulation Game (VSG) to enhance student performance.

The VSG development received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant titled “Person-Centered Serious Games for Mental Health Education.” Celina Da Silva, assistant professor in York’s School of Nursing, Faculty of Health, is leading this mixed-method research to understand more deeply the lived experiences of persons living with mental illness to inform its design.

York University faculty collaborating in various phases of the project include Professors Bill Kapralos, Eva Peisachovich, Charles Anyinam, Sue Coffey and Leslie Graham from nursing and computer science.

VSGs enhance student performance through cognitive rehearsal and engage them through a system of rules, rewards and consequences to accomplish specific tasks and to meet learning outcomes.

Amid the pandemic crisis, VSGs can be used to complement online and hybrid learning and provide students with the opportunity to experience real-life virtual scenarios between nurses, allied healthcare workers and patients in the healthcare setting through a computer screen.

Bilal Qureshi, a research assistant from the team, said “the usability of VSGs provides an active and constructive educational environment based on challenges presented throughout the game facilitating not only understanding, but promoting a deeper application of knowledge over memorization and recall.”

A critical aspect of the VSG design is to depict how to care for persons in a culturally sensitive way, and bear in mind emancipatory contexts of gender, race and privilege. This design addresses the lack of VSGs representing the diversity of patients and social conditions encountered in healthcare. It will also allow educators to modify and create new VSGs that are evidence-informed, and help students apply theory to practice, i.e., conducting a mental health assessment. The storyline for the VSG was informed from the themes generated from the interviews of persons living with mental health disabilities.

In addition to an enriched learning experience, VSGs also provide students with scheduling flexibility, giving them the opportunity to interact and practice skills on their own time.

“With the use of VSGs, nursing students have the advantage of performing nursing interventions without the fear of harming the patient or themselves if a mistake occurs,” said Nelson Rodriguez, a nursing research assistant working on the project. “Instead, they can learn from the mistake and avoid it when practicing the same intervention in clinical nursing practice in the future.”

Nursing student Oyewunmi Oyelowo refers to her experience as transformative while working on the development of this VSG project. “The way we are looking at the design of the virtual simulations will empower and aid many healthcare professionals and students to come,” she said.

The VSG design incorporates the Healthcare Simulations Code of Ethics by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare in its design.

The team collaborated through Zoom and Google Meet to facilitate the project’s Phase One deliverables during the pandemic, and now that the prototype is complete, the team will move on to Phase Two to conduct usability testing and a randomized controlled trial to assess effectiveness in learning outcomes.

The team plans to post the VSG on the Sims Beyond Walls website soon; for more details email celinads@yorku.ca.

C4: Groundbreaking, interdisciplinary experiential education initiative enters second year

August 21, 2020

After a successful pilot test, an international award-winning capstone course will begin its second year this September at York University.

C4: The Cross-Campus Capstone Classroom, which meets Mondays from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. between September and April, is open to all York students at the end of their degrees, and enables students from different faculties to work in multidisciplinary teams focused on solving pressing, real-world challenges posed by organizations operating in both the for-profit and not-for-profit worlds – and to get credit for their work.

C4’s intertwined personal, professional and academic journey offers students a chance to expand and refine their portfolios and uniquely prepares students to succeed after graduation

Past C4 partners include the Yonge Street Mission, Markham Arts Council, Canobi Tech, L’Arche Daybreak, Foundation for Environmental Stewardship and Panoplo Inc., among many others.

In last year’s course, 74 York University students from eight faculties designed solutions for 11 social impact challenges.

In one project, for example, students from the Lassonde School of Engineering, Glendon College, the Faculty of Environmental Studies and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, worked together on “Solar Floatie,” a solar home system that provides affordable heating and electrical power for homeowners, farmers and workers in Chile.

“Capstone courses provide high-impact learning opportunities for students that set them up to succeed after graduation,” said Danielle Robinson, the director of C4 and executive director of the York Capstone Network, as well as an associate professor in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance, & Design.

“These important experiential learning courses, which are offered in many departments across the University, apply and thus consolidate what a student has learned in his/her/their major,” Robinson explained. “This is achieved generally through an individual or group project, but placements can also serve as excellent capstone experiences for students, if they are integrated with ongoing critical reflection and assignments that apply students’ skills and knowledges.”

Robinson and Franz Newland, an assistant professor in the Lassonde School of Engineering, are co-curriculum leads for C4 as an extension of the York Capstone Network (YCN) they founded in 2018, with integral support from the Teaching Commons and the Career Centre.

C4 is a pan-University classroom, but not yet an official course, that requires students to register for a total of six credits in an independent study, directed reading, senior thesis or capstone course within a department. Once students gain entry to C4 through a department, they will meet senior students from other faculties, form interdisciplinary teams and have the opportunity to work on problems pitched by community partners, who will mentor them over the course of the school year.

While other multidisciplinary capstones might bring together students from two or three pre-selected disciplines, C4 makes it possible for as many as five to 10 students from different Faculties to come together to engage in problem-based learning, with the potential for each group to have a completely different disciplinary makeup.

At the end of the full-year course, C4 student teams present their projects to the community partners at a capstone showcase event. Newland says that “C4 ends with a big celebration, of these students and all they have accomplished this year, of the partners and all they have contributed and of York and its commitment to pedagogical innovation, experiential education and student success.”

C4’s intertwined personal, professional and academic journey offers students a chance to expand and refine their portfolios and uniquely prepares students to succeed after graduation.

This summer, the C4 project was awarded the Airbus Global Engineering Deans Council Diversity Award for increasing diversity among engineering professionals globally, so the industry reflects the diversity of its communities.

More information about the impact of C4 can be found by watching the “What do Students Think of C4” video.

Students interested in joining the C4 classroom and making real social impact must pre-register and register for the course by Sept. 11. The pre-registration site can be found here: https://ampd.apps01.yorku.ca/machform/view.php?id=94302. The gateway courses students can register through are listed here: https://capstone.yorku.ca/c4-linked-courses/.

Pitch Week, when the community partners pitch their challenges to the student teams, begins Sept. 8 and continues until the first C4 class meeting on Sept. 14 (5:30 to 8:30 p.m.). Multi-disciplinary teams will then be created on Sept. 15. To access Pitch Week and the first class, students must pre-register in advance.

Community partners for this year’s course include Jobster, Centre for Free Expression, TechConnex, the Canadian Language Museum, York’s Office of Sustainability, University Women’s Club, StoryPlanet, Peel Community Climate Council, FYI – For Youth Initiative, Barnes Management Group, MaRS Discovery District and Nascent, with many more to be announced soon.

To learn more, visit the C4: Cross-Campus Capstone Classroom webpage on the York Capstone Network website, and the “What is C4?” video.

To read a student blog about C4, visit YUBlog.

Want to get involved? Please write to c4class@yorku.ca.

YFile
Newsletter

Tag: Experiential education

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Osgoode Investor Protection Clinic will use $157,750 court-directed award to provide pro bono advice

YU Experience Hub helps bring virtual experiential education to life

Quick pandemic pivot provides globally networked learning opportunity

1033 – Emergency management grads respond to pandemic’s call

York students can choose how to change the world together during C4 Pitch Week

Project management students can be agents of change in pandemic recovery

York collaborates on development of virtual educational tool for nursing students

C4: Groundbreaking, interdisciplinary experiential education initiative enters second year

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Un enseignant de Glendon diffuse en direct des sorties sur le terrain à des fins d’éducation expérientielle pendant la pandémie

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