Positionality Statement

I am a white, middle-aged, straight, cis-gendered, able-bodied woman. I hold a Bachelor of Science in Physical Geography and Geology and a Master’s in Earth Science. In my teaching I invariably bring the experience of my middle-class upbringing, my first-generation university student experience, my parenting of two children, my elder care responsibilities, and my professional development to my work. I recognize my privilege in having access to resources that are not available to everyone, strive to be aware of how my blind spots shape my teaching, and aim to celebrate, support, and equitably teach students who bring diverse experiences and identities into my classroom.

Introduction

When I started my teaching career at TRU my choices in pedagogy were driven by wanting to share my enthusiasm for learning about earth processes and my overall goal was to inspire interest and excitement for learning in fun, experiential, and active ways.  I focused on each lesson that supported the arc of the course. I was primarily content and skill driven.

Although, as my teaching evaluations attest, I still explore material in interesting and active ways, the refinement of my teaching over the past decade has been guided by values of compassion, belonging, growth, experiences, and equity in both programming and courses that create an environment that balances challenge and support.  My focus on teaching has broadened from just my classroom to influencing the curriculum within my Department, Faculty , and University.  I have taken a reflective academic approach to having these values embedded in my teaching practice and have chosen to enact them through evidence-based strategies.

Compassion and Teaching the Whole Student

I am increasingly aware of how our university system focuses on supporting students’ academic challenges; however, this focus fails to respond to both the entirety of the student experience and the diversity of student needs. Few students have the privilege of only experiencing challenges associated with academics; this is especially true for first year students.  Responding to this reality has been the primary focus of my change in teaching practice and my programming leadership. I strive to create learning environments where students feel comfortable sharing how they differ from expected identities and life experiences so that I can best support them (Schoem et. al., 2017). Through offering a supportive environment and being a navigator towards additional supports, I want to become a partner in strategizing ways in which all students—despite diverse and privilege-related challenges—are afforded equitable opportunity to achieve their goals or success, as defined by them.

I may be a science educator, but my office door is covered with contact information for support services, and my student conversations during office hours typically involve collaboratively determining which services suit their needs and reducing barriers to accessing these supports (even if those supports include scheduling regular meetings with me). I have had students disclose tremendous trauma. The emotional load is often heavy, but the importance of acknowledging and responding to academic, social, and emotional challenges and connecting students to relevant supports buoys my motivation to do my job well. 

I also make room for students to bring their whole selves to learning within my courses by a) having a structured yet flexible approach to deadlines to make room for student roles and responsibilities beyond the classroom, b) vigorously encouraging students to come to office hours in person or virtually, c) acknowledging that experiences beyond the classroom may impact their performance, emphasizing that their performance on graded work is not a reflection of their worth or their potential for academic success,  d) having a tab on my course websites to assist them in accessing community and university services, and e) incorporating opportunities for students to bring their own personal interests and priorities for learning by having them complete a highly scaffolded research project and/or community engagement project of their choosing in almost every campus based course I’ve taught (including first year).

Relationship & Belonging

Learning is a relational activity (Fenton, 2020). Decades of research indicates that to learn successfully and to persist in university, a student must establish good relationships between classmates, peer mentors, teaching assistants, support services, and professors (Bentrim et al., 2023). I designed the Faculty of Arts Qéq’llemwilc Cohort Project to have connection and belonging be at the heart of the program because I believe it an essential ingredient to student thriving.

I cultivate a positive relationship between myself and my student by getting to know who my students are, what is important to them, and what they are striving for. Understanding these aspects of my students are important whether a student is in an introductory course of 60 or my field school of 12. It is only when I know a student that I can truly help them learn in a meaningful way. I accomplish this in multiple ways. For all my courses, I learn all my students’ names within the first month. This is particularly important in my large introductory courses as I share my struggles and strategies (like using digital flash cards to do retrieval and spaced practice) to model effective learning strategies, but I also know that just knowing that I have tried to learn their preferred names is important (Cooper et al., 2017).  I also invite all students to voluntarily fill out a student questionnaire where I ask about their lives, their interests, goals, and their backgrounds. I establish mutually respectful and less hierarchical relationship by posting the answering to the questions for myself, as well as what my answers would have been when I was a student in their shoes. In this way, all my students learn about my life, my positionality, my goals, and my interests.  They also learn that their educational path may take unexpected turns as mine did.

Advances in my teaching practice have also focused on positive peer relationships. I have been an advocate for developing student teamwork skills by developing the curriculum for two of the very few courses that meet the Teamwork ILO in the Faculty of Arts (GEOG 3700 and ENST 3120).  I also designed and taught an entirely team-based course (GEOG 3990 Special Topics: Sustainability in Action) that will also meet the Teamwork ILO. I initiate positive relationships between peers with icebreakers and then regular, repeated, and structured group activities.  Group work is also integrated into GEOG 1000 and ENST 3120 as I adopted the interteaching (Hurtado-Parrado et al., 2022) method of co-learning.

Transparency in Teaching and Learning (TiLT)

Having come from a family where my father did not complete high school until I was 18 (we were competing to see who finished first) and the highest level of education attained by my mother was a 8-month college certificate, I profoundly understand that the hidden curriculum of how to learn and navigate university must be unmasked for first generation and other underserved learners.  When I went to university, I had no idea what to expect. I had not grown up with stories of what it would be like and what I would need to do.  My success was a product of luck and privilege. For this reason, I embrace the tenants of Transparency in Learning and Teaching TiLT (Winkelmes et al., 2019). I continually teach how to be strategic in studying for my tests and writing my assignments. I have also incorporated mandatory reading and reflection on learning sciences into my third-year geomorphology course. My course curriculum is not only the curriculum of my subject matter, but the curriculum of navigating university, life, and academic work. I once ran into an alumnus that admitted that she forgot most of the science I taught her, but still remembered the ten-minute weekly university advice I would give in concluding my Wednesday lectures in what I would call, “Crystal’s Wednesday Words of Questionable Wisdom”.

Co-Learning Through Interteaching

Even though there should be very pragmatic elements to teaching (e.g. while assigning grades), the instructor and student relationship also includes a component of partnership, or individuals working together to explore and internalise knowledge. For this reason, I create an atmosphere for group interaction, idea-sharing, and problem-solving during lectures and lab period.  In my science courses, students partake in the very structured approach to unstructured academic discussion of interteaching (Hurtado-Parrado et al., 2022) where students practice taking on the teaching role with peers, and then participate in the meta-cognitive work of evaluating their own learning.

Civic Engagement

My courses convey the relevance and rewards of learning about our physical environment as well as taking action to protect its functioning.  I hope that students walk away from any class that I teach with a profound sense of the relevance of physical geography and sustainable development to their lives and to society but also develop an ethic to take action. It is with this in mind that GEOG 1000 and ENST 3120 have community engagement projects and GEOG 3990 (Sustainability in Action) is completely action-based.

Grading Philosophy

Part of an instructor’s role is that of being an evaluator.  One of the greatest concerns that students have is whether they are going to be graded fairly.  In response, I ensure that my goals and expectations are always clear and that my marking is as transparent and objective as possible with detailed rubrics. Admittedly, I set high and firm expectations, but the path to accomplishing these expectations is transparent and flexible. I find if an instructor is fair, approachable, and sincere, students will usually make a more determined effort to excel in their assignments.

Experiential Learning

My courses emphasize experiential learning through field courses, field-based laboratory assignments, incorporation of authentic research experiences, authentic community engaged action, and project-based courses. I believe that the best way to learn about a phenomenon, a technique, research, or even how to change the world is to experience it.  This experience-forward approach is central to the new courses I’ve design, the research experiences and field trips I have incorporated into my courses, and experience- (versus exercise-) based laboratory activities.  I have been so impressed with the level of student motivation when classes are presented with authentic challenges that individuals, companies, communities or societies are facing that are contemporary in tone, complex, yet focused enough to be partly resolved.