Posts Categorized: Learning Design

[Theme Music]

TRACY ROBERTS: Welcome to this final episode of the BCcampus Mixtape for 2022. We’ve had a lot of fun remixing this podcast for you from previously recorded BCcampus offerings such like the Lunchable Learning Radio Show and Open Knowledge Spectrums. And speaking of fun, that’s the topic of this last episode! You’ll hear me, Tracy Roberts, as I chat with Venecia Williams, Jason Toal and BCcampus’ own Selina McGinnis about what it means to have fun in the work that they do and in their everyday lives.

You’ll also hear Selina McGinnis chatting with Clint Lalonde about learning with VIDEO GAMES. This excerpt is originally from Selina’s own Anarchy podcast and is for gamers and non-gamers alike!

[Theme Music]

TRACY: Hi, I’m Tracy Roberts. I live, work and record this on the lands of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations of the Lekwungen ancestors and families. I’m also the director of Learning and Teaching at BCcampus.

Welcome to the fun show, where I talk to colleagues in B.C. higher ed about fun. Because my hunch is that fun is the method, the vibe, the ultimate engagement strategy we need right now to help us get more connected and engage with each other and with our work. I also ask them to pick us a fun song.

[Theme Music]

Here with me today is Venecia Williams, who is a colleague from the B.C. higher ed sector who is no stranger to the BCcampus audio adventures having recently come to Lunchable learning to talk about UDL (Universal Design for Learning) EDI (Equity, Diversity and Inclusion). And today she’s here to talk about F-U-N. Will you introduce yourself to the people in whatever way you like? And then we’ll dive into the topic of fun.

VENECIA: Hello, everyone. It’s so great to be here to talk about fun. This is a topic I never really think about for myself, although I feel like I’m having fun in my job, but I never really think about how much fun I’m having or definitely when I’m doing course design (LAUGHS). I don’t design for fun for myself, for my students yes for me, no. So I’m happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

TRACY: Right. OK, well, let’s dive into your job. We’ll start there. Yeah. So what is fun about your job or what parts of your job feel like fun when they’re happening?

VENECIA: So it’s interesting when the pandemic started and you know, for lots of instructors, everything just got turned upside down, especially if you weren’t teaching online before. For me, that became a real opportunity because at VCC where I work, there was this new position created for online developers to help instructors who were with Moodle, or just to give a hand to the online aspect of things that we had to quickly transition to. And for me that’s really interesting. I really like to learn about technology, but it was a great opportunity. I feel like as an instructor, I don’t always have time to learn. And then the second year, because, you know, Tracy, we’ve been in this pandemic for a while.

TRACY: It has been a while. Yeah.

VENECIA: It has been a while. I started working with my colleague Heidi and we work with instructors where we make videos about universal design for learning, UDL, and it’s been really fun sitting with her and talking to her and coming up with ideas, writing the script, doing the editing, because that’s a side that I really like. I, you know, I like to make movies, but I rarely (LAUGHS) will go and do something like that. So this has given me a really, really great opportunity to have some fun in my job.

TRACY: So it sounds like if you’re learning something new that feels like fun.

VENECIA: It does. I think if I’m learning something new that I know will benefit students, then it’s fun, even if it’s challenging, which it sometimes is, but it’s fun. I just get to, again ,learn something new and it’s really rewarding, especially if it’s challenging and I figure it out. Then I’m (LAUGHS) really happy.

TRACY: It feels like a win.

VENECIA: Yeah, it does.

TRACY: Yeah. OK, well, what about outside of work? What kind of things do you like to get up to for fun outside of work?

VENECIA: Reading. But I rarely have time for that. So one fun thing I do is dance. So, again, we’re talking about the pandemic. At the beginning of the pandemic, I reached out to a few parents from my daughter’s school, and I said, you know, do you want to get together and exercise? Because we weren’t able to go to the gym and I was eating (LAUGHS) a lot like everyone.

TRACY: Yes, absolutely.

VENECIA: So we got this group together and we would share videos on YouTube and we would workout together and I would try to find a dance. And they found most of the dance out there very difficult. And so I said to them, well, do you want me to choreograph something? Oh, yeah, I know! So side story: I used to live in Japan and I used to teach dance in a club in Japan ages ago. And so I started putting something together and I really love to dance. So it was just really great for me. And then the December of that first year, my husband gave me a gift. It was for a Zumba instructor training. And so (LAUGHS) and so I did that. I don’t know if I’ll ever go and teach anyone else, but I do teach my friends and we have just an amazing time (LAUGHS).

TRACY: That’s so fun. It sounds like. So fun. Yeah. So the music is a big piece of it. Hey, I noticed that for myself too. It just I can be doing something very mundane, but somehow if I had music to it, it….

VENECIA: Oh, definitely. And sometimes people ask me about the kind of music that I like, and it really depends on the mood when I need energy, I’m just really tired and I need to get to the end of the day. I put some music on, I sing, I dance, and I just kind of get through the rest of what I have to do. So yeah, music is, is wonderful for me. It’s really great for my mental health.

TRACY: OK. Well, thinking then, about what you’ve told me so far, what do you think are the elements of fun? What has to come together to make fun occur?

VENECIA: You need some kind of motivation right? I think you have to be interested in it and not think about it too much. Just try to be there within the moment and enjoy it. And I think the same about reading for me when I, I have time and I sit and I read, I just kind of I get lost. If it’s a book I’m interested in (LAUGHS).

TRACY: Right. So there’s an engagement piece.

VENECIA: There is engagement. I think it’s with everything. If you’re not motivated to do something or if it’s not engaging for you, then it’s not fun.

TRACY: Yeah, it isn’t. And, well, if I think about the opposite. Right? To me, the opposite of fun. What do you think?

VENECIA: The opposite of fun for me is boredom. (CROSSTALK) Just boring boredom.

TRACY: Yeah. So that is like no engagement, right? You’re very disengaged, so. Yeah, there’s something there about the engagement.

Anything else you’d like to say about fun?

VENECIA: I just think it’s important. I know it’s really difficult. Even I was saying to you, today has been just a really long day, but I looked forward to having this opportunity to talk about fun because it just allows me to pause a little bit and reflect on fun. And so I think that’s really important. I know, especially as instructors, a lot of us are really busy designing curriculum or, teaching or doing research, but just making the time even, I don’t know, ten, 15 minutes to do something that we like that’s engaging to us. I think it is really helpful and I know for sure when I feel happy, I step into the class happier, but also more determined to make my students feel happy or engaged. I want to share this joy or this fun feeling with them. And I try to put that into my lesson. So it really and of course my interactions with everyone. Right. You know, sometimes I’m grumpy and I feel like, OK you need to either sit down or read a book (LAUGHS) or you need to go dance (CROSSTALK) or something.

TRACY: Well, it’s probably generative, right? When you walk in or with a fun way, it invites you to (CROSSTALK). Yeah. Show up in that way.

VENECIA: And students respond to that. So you know I always try when I can, I normally try to start my class with some music or I’ll ask them what kind of music they like and they will share something. I teach a lot of international students, or sometimes they share something from their culture and they get energetic and they immediately start smiling. And then it really sets the tone for a great class.

TRACY: Nice, speaking of music, did you pick a song?

VENECIA: I will dance to anything from the Supremes that just puts me in a great mood. I’m thinking about my Zumba playlist. I have a lot of reggaeton on it, lots of anything that’s like an afro beat, anything with drums. So it’s really hard (LAUGHS)… I think that’s a very long way of saying it’s hard to pick one. I just, I respond to beats.

[Theme Music]

TRACY: Love the Supremes. Thanks so much to Venecia for that. Next up is someone I always have fun collaborating with and talking with. He is an educational media expert, learning experience designer, visual artist, facilitator, felter, consultant, DJ, extreme doodler Jason Toal.

Welcome and please introduce yourself in whatever way you like.

JASON TOAL:
Well, thanks so much, Tracy. It’s hard to top that introduction, actually. Thank you for having me on. As you mentioned, my name is Jason Toal and I’m a newly minted Educational Consultant with UBC Okanagan in the Centre for Teaching and Learning there. My area is Technology Projects and Strategy. So, it is proving to be a lot of fun, even though it’s been just a few short weeks.

TRACY: Oh, that’s good to hear.

JASON: Yes.

TRACY : Well, let’s get into it. Tell me just like what about it is fun? What is fun about the work or when you’re there does it feel like fun?

JASON: Well, I do even though it’s been a few short weeks at my current gig. It’s been quite a few years that I’ve been doing similar types of work, basically working with educational technology and the employment of it by instructors and faculty in post-secondary. So, I do have some experience to draw from. Just to sum it up in two words: It’s the creative process. Yes. And I found that a technology, let’s say a challenge can often lead to, I don’t want to say the “I” word, but I’ll just say a discovery. A spark. (LAUGHTER) Something that is sort of new and fresh. And so that inevitably will unleash some sort of a design process. I think you mentioned I do like working in visual practice, working with folks that are drawing or using drawing as a means to teach or to learn. And also in the area of audio, if you’re producing a podcast, let’s say, it sort of, to me, that is the fun part.

TRACY: Can I just ask a little more about that. So, I have now got three of these shows in the can, I am starting to notice a theme about problems and the solving thereof. And I’m wondering for you with the work that you do, which I’m imagining is very often in partnership with an educator is do you think it’s for you about helping them to solve the problem? Or is there something that you are solving? Or does it even matter who owns the problem?

JASON: That’s a good question. For me, it is about helping, I can definitely… I’m consistently the helper bee. It sort of ties back in, I think, about my high school years. And I had a lot of friends that were in drama, “dr-ah-ma”..

TRACY: Drama.

JASON: The “theater”. Yes. And I was not involved in the drama club at all. I did end up helping with a lot of the backstage purely for fun. Working on the lights, working on the smoke is particularly fun (LAUGHTER).

TRACY: I bet. I bet.

JASON: Yeah. To answer your question. I definitely think the helping of faculty and instructors that are teaching classes is a big part of it.

TRACY: OK. Well, let’s leave the workspace for a moment and just talk about the wild open spaces outside of that. What do you get up to for fun when you’re not at work?

JASON: Well, I liked the phrasing of your question actually, in the notes. The key word being: outside. And, you know, never has this become more prominent in my head, that fun and being outdoors are connected. And for me that could be working in the garden.

TRACY:
Yeah.

JASON: If I am lucky enough to have a place to dig and plant things. But also, in terms of sports. You know, we’re big outdoor enthusiasts for winter sports. Mostly skiing downhill, and Nordic skiing. That’s what we sort of tried to design our lives around. How can we ski more?

TRACY:
Nice, nice (LAUGHTER). Nice. So, literally playing outside is a big part of…

JASON: Absolutely, yes. I mean, we were sort of chatting about this earlier, there used to be a time when maybe watching movies inside or going through my music library on iTunes was considered fun. Gaming. These things are less fun to me these days, simply because they involve more screen time.

TRACY: Right? Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah, that makes total sense. OK, so maybe just thinking about everything we’ve talked about so far. What is essential about fun, or what conditions have to be in place for fun to occur, what comes to mind for you?

JASON: Something about spontaneity and or, you know, the unexpected. We always frame our trips as adventures. So, you potentially have a destination, a goal, some kind of project, we’re going to this location or we’re traveling this route, but then unexpected things will inevitably occur along the way. Sometimes they’re not pleasant, dealing with those navigating around them enjoying our time along the way.

TRACY: I’m hearing that problem thing again. There’s something about (LAUGHTER) solving problems, that you know, there’s some fun….

JASON: Oh my goodness moving to that. Yeah.

TRACY: Something to that. Yeah.

JASON: Which I do not like. I’m more of a chill seeker, if you may have heard and so avoiding potential stress is my where I like to go.

TRACY: Yeah, I hear you the spontaneity thing. I love when a plan happens without a plan. You know, somebody just shows up at your door rather than like spending weeks trying to nail down details. Yeah, that I love. There’s something fun about that for me.

JASON: Yeah, agreed.

TRACY: Alright, well, um, you were invited to pick a song that for you in some way conjures fun or is fun. How about bring some of that DJ magic to the fun show and set us up with your fun song.

JASON: Alrighty. Well, this was… I hummed and hawed for like, five seconds. And then I it was immediately obvious what song I would have to contribute. So, when I’m on my adventures, and I said, we, by we, I meant my wife, Jenny and I. And so the song that I’ve picked is a bit of a love song. And it was our first dance, both at our wedding and in the living room. It’s a fun party song. That’s really all I need to say. Except I need to say what it is.

TRACY: Oh, yeah, say what it is.

JASON: So, the song is ‘Lady You Bring Me Up’ by the Commodores.

[Theme Music]

TRACY: Awesome, thanks Jason for that song suggestion and for reminding us all to get outside. Now it’s time to chat with Selina McGinnis who is a colleague of mine at BCcampus and definitely a person I associate with fun and games. Selina, would you please introduce yourself to the good people in whatever way you like before we dive into the topic of fun.

SELINA: Yes, absolutely. So like you said, my name is Selina and I am a user experience designer at BCcampus. And I am honored to be associated with fun and I am situated on W̱SÁNEĆ territory and happy to be coming to you from there.

TRACY:
Great. Thanks so much. Talk a little bit about fun at work. What is fun at work when it feels like fun?

SELINA: Yeah. So I appreciate this question because it made me reflect on why that is that I have fun because I do have a lot of fun at work. And I didn’t really think about the key ingredients until you asked this question. So I kind of narrowed it down to I have kind of two kinds of fun at work. And the first type of fun is the kind of fun I have or I have a lot of this type of fun in my life, which comes from challenge or tension and collaboration, whereas the second comes from kind of like unwinding and letting loose. So for the sort of the challenge type of fun, that is basically my job. So it’s the same kind of feeling I get from playing rugby where, you know, there’s a tangible goal or challenge and a bunch of work to get done to get there. You can score, you can win any way you like, but you have to figure out the successful way to do it, given the people you have, the weather conditions, the team you’re facing. And it’s the same with our projects. So I have the awesome job of basically just trying to solve problems with my teammates and there’s just this huge amount of satisfaction and I would say fun that comes from that grind and then success at the end, you know.

TRACY: So can I ask is the… yeah. Is the fun associated with the grind part or is it once it’s the grind is ground and you’ve won in whatever way. Is that when it’s fun or is it fun the whole time?

SELINA: Oh, man. OK. So yeah, that’s a great question. So across the board with rugby or hiking, it is not fun while you’re doing it. I mean, there are moments of fun for sure, but it’s hard work like there’s no rugby game where I’m like, Oh, I wish it would go longer. It’s always like, How many minutes are left?

TRACY: Right.

SELINA: But I think it’s that grind that makes the end so fun. I guess like when you have that success. For me anyways, I mean, it’s always fun to score tries, it’s always fun to get wins at work in terms of, you know, someone says they like the design that you made, but like when you see people using it, then you’re like, yes, it made all of that work worth it.

TRACY: Nice. So what’s fun for you outside of work? Could be indoors, but outside of work.

SELINA: It doesn’t have to be outside.

TRACY: It does not. It does not have to be outside.

SELINA: Well, I do a lot of stuff outside of work. And again, as I’m trying to reflect on this and be like, how can I seem really fun in my life? I participate in search and rescue and I spend a lot of time like taking on hobbies and like personal interest courses. But then I was like, what the heck do I do to unwind? Which is that other kind of fun I was talking about. And so in the post or start of pandemic, post-pandemic period, henceforth known as PPP, I learned to play and now I look forward to doing this every week or so is Dungeons and Dragons.

TRACY: No, really? Tell me everything.

SELINA: Yes. Oh, man. OK, so I reconnected with one of my high school friends recently. I guess not recently, a couple of years now. And we had like these Zoom calls and it was so awkward because he would say, like, what’s new, which is great for the first zoom call?

TRACY: Sure.

SELINA: But then, you know, you’ve been in isolation. The next time you say what’s new, it’s…

TRACY:
Right. (CROSSTALK). Yeah. My sourdough is coming along.
SELINA: Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Or not. Oh, yeah. I was making cider back then. That’s right. And I wasn’t sure if it was going to end up being cider. But, yeah, so they are like, well, why don’t we. One of them was like, hey, I play Dungeons and Dragons. And of course, I was like, Oh, I want to play. And, you know, I had this image in my mind of a bunch of people in a dark basement.

TRACY: Yeah.

SELINA: Possibly in hoods.

TRACY ROBERTS: Yeah.

SELINA: Around some candles.

TRACY: Yup.

SELINA: Playing the game. But it was, we just got online in Zoom and basically it’s storytelling with your friends, and there’s some dice involved to make it interesting.

TRACY: Sounds fun.

SELINA: Yeah, it was fun. And it kind of gave us this thing to laugh about. You know, you have these events in life, and then it gives you something to talk about later. Like, remember that time or you tease each other. Now you have these moments that even though they were like fictional, you have these things to draw on and it’s and it’s just like being in real life. I think we’ve only met a handful of times, but that was super fun, mostly because we laughed a lot and it was something new. Solved mysteries in the most ridiculous way possible.

TRACY: OK, so. If you think about these and other things. What do you think is essential for fun? Like what are the conditions that have to be in place for fun to happen?

SELINA: Yeah, I think that’s a really hard question because I can find so many things that are fun that don’t fit this. But I think for me, really important, these moments of fun where maybe there’s no agenda in the moment, even at work, you know, you have an ultimate goal for your project. But the times that I have the most fun is when we’re like iterating on something. Like, what are your wildest ideas? Let’s just there’s no constraints and you know, it’s satisfying and still fun to come up with the thing that satisfies those requirements for the people you’re building something for. But, you know, they came from this moment of chaos almost. And, you know, same with, I think some of the best movies or the best stories. You know, there’s not necessarily a moral to it. It’s just, you know, it’s just a story. It’s just something you’ve created. And yeah. And then sharable. So something you can either work through with somebody else or some friends or can share with others. So I can have lots of fun of my own making music or whatever, but at the end it is just kind of nice to either laugh about how terrible it was or enjoy how amazing it is.

TRACY: Right. Right, right. So sharing and also this sense of spontaneity or unplanned, that’s like…

SELINA: Yeah.

TRACY: Yeah.

SELINA: Yeah.

TRACY: OK. Anything else you’d like to say about fun conditions?

SELINA: No, I don’t. I’m really curious to hear what other people have said.

TRACY ROBERTS: Me too. Yeah.

SELINA: Because actually, you know, when I was thinking about this, I was thinking about Wordle and like, that was really fun. And some people play this every day. And for me, one thing I didn’t mention is that variety is really important. Like, I find like that newness of something or it’s got some risk that I can be bad at it. That’s really fun. And so, you know, I quit playing Wordle after a while because I’m like, Oh yeah, this is cool. I got it. But I’m really interested to see for maybe some people, if it’s consistent, if that’s important to them.

TRACY: I think for the little bit of reading that I have done. There is this sense of, like, liberation is how some people describe and like a sense of, there’s a sense of freedom which makes, you know, that feels like that unplanned, unconstrained thing that you’re talking about. There’s something there’s a freedom to it. Which I think is why we need it now, because it has felt constrained lately.

SELINA: Yeah. Well, like actual constraints, like limitations on where you can go.

TRACY: Yes.

SELINA: What you can do, who you can see like probably the most amount of constraint I’ve had in my adulthood anyway.

TRACY: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I want to thank you very much for being here with me. And I would like to invite you to set up the fun song that you have chosen for us. Who’s the artist? Why did you pick it?

SELINA: I get to say that?

TRACY: Yes.

SELINA: Yes, (CROSSTALK).

TRACY: So fun.

SELINA: Oh, no pressure. OK.

TRACY: You didn’t know that. And so it’s spontaneous therefore fun.

SELINA: There’s a real risk effect. I love it. OK. So the song that is fun is You Shook Me All Night Long, which people might know by AC/DC. But this is the Scary Pocket’s cover featuring Judith Hill, who I love their voice. And I chose this song because music is an important part of my life. And to me, there’s nothing more fun than funk and R&B and jamming with friends, kind of like in that spontaneous way. And this is also a bit of a shout-out to my daughter Ry, who loves AC/DC.

TRACY: Yes.

SELINA: Thunderstruck and is a huge inspiration for fun in my life and spicing up the old into something new.

[Theme Music]

TRACY: Thanks Selina for that chat and for being spontaneous with me. For the last part of this episode, we’ll listen to Selina talking with our own Clint Lalonde about what software and education influencers can learn from video game design.

[Theme Music]

SELINA: 5,000,000. That’s how many video games there are in the world. And while there may be video games that you play for a day, a week. There are people who’ve played video games their whole lives, and they keep coming back. Today I’m going to talk with someone who says that they keep coming back to video games because of the social aspects, because of the stories, and to kind of just see what happens and discover. And if you’re one for nostalgia we will fittingly start this series with someone who was around when video games really started. Yeah, that’s right, pinball and pong. They’re also an educational technologist that you’re bound to be familiar with if you’ve been around BCcampus for any amount of time. And if you’re not sure, I’ll give you a little intro song to give you time to figure out who it is.

[Video game style music plays]

CLINT LALONDE: I started, you know I was an early adopter of video games. I mean, it was kind of my first foray into technology, and even before that we always had games around our house when I was growing up and my dad was a huge lover of pinball.

SELINA: Yep, that’s Clint Lalonde self-proclaimed lifelong gamer.

CLINT: And so you know, the first game that we had in our – other than board games – the first sort of electronic game that we had in our house when I was growing up was a pinball machine that it..

SELINA: You had one in your house?

CLINT: Yeah, yeah it was. It was super fun yeah. And then yeah, from there you know when, uh, TV based video games first came out? My dad jumped on it and bought a console for us in like 1978 or 79. Like really early days. Yeah, I’ve been playing video games ever since, and I’m also of the generation too that grew up in video arcades. Video games were just kind of coming to the to the mainstream with, you know Space invaders and those kinds of things in the early 80s, and so that’s when I kind of was entering my teen years and spent a lot of time and a lot of money at video arcades so.
I’ve sort of a long history with gaming.

SELINA: What was sort of the sentiment around gaming in your home?

CLINT: There was no limits really put on to, you know video games and you know the amount of time that I spent. You know, playing games and the amount of times that I spent playing games with my siblings. You know, for one thing, I mean most of it was really social. So I was spending time with my family. We would play board games like we would have like game nights at our home where we would spend time with families. I mean my mom was not crazy about me spending a lot of time in an arcade. I mean, at that time I grew up in a small town in northern Alberta and the video games were also in the pool hall and the pool halls were, you know, shady places in small towns, so.

SELINA: Right.

CLINT: But that’s where the video games were, so my mom wasn’t crazy about me going out and doing that, but it was also very social too because it was like that’s where my friends were. I would spend, I played Dungeons and Dragons when I was a kid too, and we played a lot of strategy games with my friends. So every Friday night we would have like a standing game night so you know it wasn’t frowned upon to play games, mostly because of the social aspect of it.

SELINA: Hmm, that’s really interesting. Uh, I just picked up Dungeons and Dragons. In the pandemic? Uh, yeah. I’ve been missing out this whole time.

CLINT: It was fun, you know. I mean, at the time we were the weird kids, right? So it wasn’t…It was kind of a bunch of outcasts that you know we weren’t necessarily hugely into sports and it was a small town. We didn’t have a lot of outlets, and it was kind of creative and fun and different. And yeah, it was certainly yeah, certainly fun to grow up with that. And you know, haven’t played Dungeons and Dragons now for years, but a couple of years ago I bought a starter set.

[Dramatic music plays]

SELINA: Ohh yeah. If possible, Clint LaLonde just got so much cooler in my mind, but nothing was cooler than the picture he sent me.

CLINT: That is my mom and I having a great time. I was probably, I don’t know 11 years old. I had mentioned my dad was kind of a, you know into gaming and so he bought a really early game console which was a combination of pong and then there was like kind of a shooting game that came along with it but you hooked it up to your television and played it, so the picture is my mom and myself we’re playing pong in the basement of our house, probably circa 1978 or 79, and just having a great old time.

SELINA: You both look so happy and what is that, like what’s the console called?

CLINT: Oh, I can’t even remember what the console was called.
SELINA: You know it’s a really simple. Game of two paddles moving back and forth, like how long can you play a game? Like that?

CLINT: Ohh man, we would play forever. [Laughter] Well and I remember it did have a couple of customization features of it. So right, you got the two paddles one on each side of the screen and it’s like tennis, right? It’s virtual tennis and then you’re hitting the ball back and forth, but there were a couple of mechanics in the game that kind of changed it up. So for one, you could flip a switch and have two paddles on either side, so you’d be controlling 2 paddles, a forward paddle and a back like playing doubles, tennis, right? And so if you wanted to kind of switch things up…

SELINA: OK.

CLINT: …A Little bit you could do that. And then the other mechanic piece was the ball would speed up, so the longer you play, the more it would speed up and then, so that, you know, added new challenges that you were playing and then you could also really adjust the angle of how your shot would go.

SELINA: Oh yeah.

CLINT: So if you hit it right on the edge of your paddle, you could make it fly off at a crazy angle, which would make it really tough for the other person to return. So there were, there was, I mean, it was more than just hitting a ball back and forth. There were ways that you could kind of interact with the game that change the dynamics of the game. Which is one of the great things around, you know when we start looking at learning principles associated with gaming, this ability to be able to impact the game and that interactivity that you can have to kind of change the dynamics of the game is what helps to make it really compelling, right? So the challenge then becomes: How do I position my paddle in such a way that I’m going to get this really crazy angle coming off of it? That’s going to, you know, mess with my opponent and so that becomes the challenge and you’re trying to do that every time, every time. And you’re trying to constantly perfect and practice on how to do that one little move until you get it just right to make like the trick shots.

CLINT: Right, yeah, like how did you learn it was it? Was there a tutorial that said if you hit the ball on this angle or you know was this something self-discovered?

CLINT: Yeah, there wasn’t a tutorial and so you know as you’re playing the game, you kind of fluke into these things where it’s like, ooh, I just caught it on the edge and ohh I’d sent it out at a weird angle. I wonder if I can do that intentionally, right? So something happened in the game, you notice it, and then you adjust to try to make that happen again. So yeah, no tutorial to do it, which is another great, you know, learning principle. One that I saw actually that reflected this idea of tutorials and how to learn things was the rise of Minecraft. My son was huge into Minecraft when he was really young. And the really cool thing about Minecraft -not only was it like a really creative game and kind of an expansive game where you can create.. you know it’s very, very open. But there was no rule book and there was no tutorials that came with Minecraft in the early days. Now that Microsoft owns it, they’ve come up with like tutorials and how-to’s and you have built that into it. But in the original Minecraft, that was never there, and so what the community became around Minecraft was people who were teaching others how to do things in Minecraft. And so there is a really educational piece there where you have people who learn something and then immediately want to tell the world on how to do this right? So they create these video tutorials and this is early days sort of pre-Twitch times where you’d start seeing the rise of gamers on YouTube sharing tutorials on how to do this and it became like this…

SELINA: Right?

CLINT: Huge community of gamers that were sharing tips and secrets and how to do things. And, you know, Minecraft never created any kind of tutorials to go along with Minecraft. It was just gamers teaching gamers. And so you know the educational aspect of being able to learn how to communicate to others, something that you have learned becomes a really powerful learning tool to be able to explain things to others in the community that they can do it as well. That was always one of the really cool things about Minecraft that I thought.

SELINA: I could see that being a really cool sense of achievement almost like, “hey I discovered this thing”. And sharing that achievement would be such a huge motivator, and I’ve seen tutorials for games that I’ve played. And people are just like “thank you for posting this.” or “This has changed the way that I play” or, you know, “I was stuck” and yeah, and it almost means more coming from a peer than you know a hint or tutorial.

CLINT: Yeah, and it you know there’s something about that too. That’s that next step in learning, right? You, the person who’s creating the tutorial is not just like a passive recipient of knowledge that, you know, sometimes traditional schools can be, where you know you have this person in authority that’s delivering a message and you’re this kind of receptacle that’s meant to take this all in and it really changes the dynamic because you’ve self-taught yourself something. Or maybe you’ve picked up things from other tutorials and then you want to share it with somebody else to be able to teach them how to do that. It really does sort of shift the dynamic of the teaching-learning relationship to now become this community learning environment where everybody is learning from everybody else and it becomes a very, very social kind of environment to be able to to see that in action. And to see kids doing that, just with no, I mean even the fact that you know a lot of kids at the time would just learn how to use YouTube so that they could share tutorials, right? And so it’s not “I’ve learned the game”. “I’ve learned this mechanic in the game, and now I want to learn a way to communicate that I’ve learned this mechanic in the game, so I teach myself how to do YouTube videos”. So it just becomes this huge, huge learning cycle all the way through.

[Music]

SELINA: Now I wonder, from the moment that you essentially end up playing Pong, how did your relationship with games evolve until today? Because you say you’re a lifelong gamer, like what other kinds of games have you played, and maybe what drew you to those kinds of games?

CLINT: You know, I’ve always well, I’ve always had technology, I mean buying my first computer, gaming was one of my huge motivations for getting my first computer, which was like a TRS-80 color computer back in the 80s, right? So that I could play some more high-end games that you couldn’t do, that that weren’t really easy to do on the gaming consoles at the time. So, that was really kind of my first motivation and ever since I’ve had computers, I’ve always played video games. I’m drawn to simulation games. I like games where you have these kind of expansive worlds. So like there’s a game called Civilization where you…I love that game and have played that game for many, many years. There was another game I played for a long time called Railroad Tycoon, where you, you know, had the world and you tried to, you know, become a railroad baron, but you had a lot of variables that you could kind of play with as you created this world so you know do I I increase taxes on my people or lower, like SIM city too? You know that was another game that I played a lot. These simulation games, so I really I kind of got into that. The sort of God-mode kind of games where you control the world and you can change the variables and certain things happen in it so I’ve always, you know, been drawn to those games. Also been drawn to games that kind of build on that Dungeons and Dragons tradition. I was a big – and still am- play World of Warcraft. And I love that for the social aspect of it. I mean, there’s a lot of people that play that massive like the first really massive worldwide video game where you could have a group of people come together, work together, and you had to work together in large groups to get over some of the big bosses and some of the big mobs. So you needed to really be able to coordinate with other people. And build those kinds of kills to learn. And it’s massively complex, right? So as you get into it…Which is another thing that I love about games is, you know, the ones that can kind of lead you through…You start off, it’s that another connection to learning here where you have this kind of scaffolded learning piece where games will often start you off at a lower level you know and you start working on some basic skills that will come back later on. That you’ll need to use in these bigger scenarios or situations that you find yourself in. So being able to kind of build on that and start small. Well, games do a great job of kind of doing that, which is something I think we need to do more and educate and good educators do this right? You scaffold the knowledge of what you learn in this little piece here, you’ll bring it back later on in some other context to kind of reinforce the learning so it’s another connection to gaming and learning that I like. And then you know, I’m a big soccer fan, so I like sports simulation games. I’ve played FIFA for many years and I love that. The mode that I love the mode that is not necessarily playing the actual soccer game, it’s the manager mode. [SELINA: So interesting.] Again, getting back to that kind of creative mode where you know you’ve got to develop players and you have training plans for players, or you trade for players and you kind of build the team and you put the formations together. The playing piece is fun, but I’m, I mean I much prefer the actual trying to build the perfect team and I often, you know, would start from scratch. You know, with like nothing and I still do this, I’ll just like blow off whatever I’ve done before and just start at like Ground Zero with like a team in like the 5th Division in England or something and try to get them up to the Champions League just by, you know, over the course of like 10 seasons or something so.

SELINA: So interesting, I didn’t know that was a thing and this is my experience: So I was exposed to video games as a kid and…but you know, I thought of things like first person shooters, things like FIFA, which you know were fun. You could play a match or two and it was fun. But when I came back, games have seemed to have changed a lot since, just like first person shooter and, you know, kind of one-on-one competition to what you’re kind of describing, something more complex. or maybe that’s just what I was exposed to, just, you know, because of what was in my house… Have you seen something like that as well?

CLINT: Yeah, yeah, they’ve become incredibly complex and some of them with really compelling narratives, right? I mean, I’ve never been a first person shooter gamer. I’m.. I get kind of bored with those, you know those pieces. I do like the kind of more expansive ones but you know when you look at some of the games now… I play this game called Red Dead Redemption and it’s a western and there’s a little bit of like you know, shooting and you know first person shooter in that, but that’s really not it. It’s got this huge, complex narrative with all of these different characters and storylines that you kind of follow through. And you know, that’s something that is just was not really possible, you know many, many years ago you would start to have some of them, but you could, you know, run the narrative out pretty quickly, but you know compelling narratives. I mean, the Red Dead Redemption is just like it’s a great piece of cinema. You know, I think of it like a great film or something, or a great novel or something with the stories that it tells and the characters that develop along as they as they go along. So you know, that’s where you can get into, you know, I can spend hours and hours and hours playing that game just because I’m following the narrative.

SELINA: Right? Sonic the Hedgehog clicks coins. That’s, that’s the narrative in my day. [Laughter] Yeah, that’s so true, yeah.

CLINT: Well, and even if you think of something like, yeah, like Mario brothers or you know the early, early games and that. Mario Brothers was quite revolutionary because it took this idea of like a little bit of – and this is a little game history- but like Donkey Kong, like Mario brothers were just like a couple of characters in Donkey Kong. And Donkey Kong, it’s very much like action-oriented, the game, but then Mario brothers when it came along, it did have that action, but it started to build out this narrative of like saving the Princess. And you know all of these other kinds of pieces. And so then all of a sudden they became characters and you followed the exploits of these characters. And part of that was very compelling to the whole experience as well as like now these characters are fun.

SELINA: Right, that’s really interesting. Yeah, because you’re going from Pong and Tetris where you know there’s a definite goal, and that maybe is sort of the end of it. But there’s now this emotional piece where if you don’t get to Princess Peach, then you know in theory, I don’t know, Boweser’s going to throw her off the tower or something.

CLINT: Yeah, well, you’re invested in it. Right? Yeah, it’s like I’ve gotta, I’ve gotta do this.

[Video game music with coins clinking]

SELINA: Now, since you’ve played lots of games. And you kind of touched on parts of games that you know, hold your interest and really help you progress and you talk about the social aspects of things that really keep you motivated and engaging with the games. What parts of games have you experienced that you wouldn’t want to bring to education? Cause I know that there’s this, there’s “gamification”.

CLINT: Yeah, well and I prefer the term game-based learning as opposed to gamification in education because as soon as you say gamification, people start thinking about, you know, levels and points and you know. That piece of it, which is not, you know, I think that’s probably the worst part of gaming that we could bring into education, because we already have, like grading systems that are kind of flawed as they are. And I don’t know, maybe some people. I guess some people do get motivated by ,you know, seeing how many points they have, but… It’s really kind of an artificial motivation. I’m a huge fan of people knowing how they’re progressing and you know, are they achieving a goal? But I don’t know if grades and numbers are necessarily the best way to do that. And the other thing that I really don’t like, and so there’s a guy who named James Gee, who’s written a lot about game-based learning and has come up with some principles for game-based learning and has made a lot of connections between video games and education. And you know the mechanics of why games could be good, what we could learn from video games around education, and he talks about a principle of, you know, these are safe, safe spaces – and by safe spaces he means you know there’s low risk involved – in real world simulations so you get to practice things. And you know one of the things that I’m starting to see… So in education, I think one of the things we could learn is to make as many of those low stakes environments as possible for students. And so you know, eliminating that the high that the tests are being able to practice things over and over again. That’s another concept that he talks about practicing in sandboxes. Or being able to put things into practice where there’s not a lot of pressure on the person who’s doing it. Not a lot of real world consequences, and I think in education there are a lot of real world or at least students feel like there’s a lot of real world consequences if they don’t do well on this test. That’s going to impact this, and it’s, you know, you know my son’s in grade 10 now and starting to think well, if I don’t do well in a test, I’m not gonna get into university and I’m like, no don’t think that way, right? It’s just like just enjoy the challenge of you know, learning the content and interacting with the content and being able to understand it and don’t worry so much about the grade attached to it, yeah?

SELINA: Yeah, because you know, like we want people to be engaged in learning but them participating doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re engaged or that they’re learning. For example, and you just reminded me of this. I recently took a design and innovation course. I was just auditing it so I had no stake, like no grades were on the line for me. But my peers, they were just… I… we did all the learning. We got to the project which was, in theory, supposed to implement all that learning and it just went out the window because they’re like “We need to get an A and this is how we’re going to get it.” We didn’t get to practice anything because it was so focused on the outcome rather than the process, which was a bit of a bummer. But you know, I can’t blame them. I was in that boat at one time too.

CLINT: Yeah, and that’s exactly it. Like the as soon as you attach like this high stakes grade to it, it becomes about getting the grade and not necessarily about the learning and it, you miss the process right? Because you’re just so focused on that end result you miss all of the learning that happens to get you to that end result. You know one other piece of game mechanics that I think education could learn from and that is sort of the individualized you know patterns of progression for different people. You know our education system is set up is. Just because you’re the same age you end up in the same grade like you know at the K to 12 system like all 8 year olds are treated exactly the same. You know they’re all in the same grade, all in the same spot. That’s not the case in video games like you said, I mean you can play with twenty different people in World of Warcraft and everybody is at kind of a different level and has gone through a different progression path to get where they’re at, so they’ve all had this individualized.. Even though we’re all having a collective experience and playing the same game. Everybody’s had an individual path to kind of get where they want to go in the game. And so that’s something I think that can be really powerful in education. If we kind of switch our mindset that just because these people are the same age that we’re dealing with, and you know I’m talking K-12 system now. But just because they’re at the same age doesn’t necessarily mean they’re gonna be at the same stage. Trying to create those individual paths for people is something that I think education can learn from gaming.

[Video game music]

SELINA: So there’s a lot that we can learn from game design as Clint points out. And at least these are the things that he as a gamer, find engaging. But have you heard of one of James Gee’s principles for game-based learning called pleasantly frustrating? No? Well, it’s about to be the catch phrase for this episode.

CLINT: You know he talks about things being pleasantly frustrating. I think you know when you talk about things being pleasantly challenging, you want things that will challenge people but not frustrate them. And so I think that’s a really important game dynamic that we can bring into education too. To be able to help people get to that pleasantly frustrating piece where it’s like, “Oh. You know that kind of twigs”, it’s like “I can solve this. I can figure this out. I know how to do this”. “This is a challenge, but I know how to do this. I’ve got some skills already to help me figure this piece out”, so I think that’s kind of one piece that’s important.

SELINA: Right? I love that. Pleasantly frustrating, I’m going to use that, probably in the wrong sense, but yeah, I totally get that, yeah. [Laughter]

CLINT: Well and Vigodsky talks about, you know the importance of having this “more knowledgeable other”, and that’s the role of the teacher and doesn’t have to be like a traditional teacher, but somebody else that can help you get to that zone or through that zone of proximal development, so that’s kind of like the social aspect of it too, so that would be another piece I would say to bring into it. The more we can bring teamwork and social interactions into the learning process and have people help each other through the learning process. And that’s also another a good mechanic that I think would be useful to have.

SELINA: Thank you, I really appreciate it.

CLINT: Alright and I hope I haven’t banged my microphone too many times I..

SELINA: Oh no.

CLINT: Got a little animated there.

SELINA: You’re very passionate.

CLINT: Yeah, apparently.

SELINA: Frustratingly passionate.

CLINT: Apparently, I really wanted to talk about this stuff.

SELINA: It’s so fun. It makes me want to play video games with people at BCcampus too. I feel really excited about this topic, so I appreciate you sharing all your gaming knowledge.

[Theme Music]

TRACY: Well that is a wrap! Thanks to everyone who made this podcast possible and thank you, our listeners, for listening to this final episode. If you liked this content, please let us know. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn under @BCcampus and on Instagram @bccampus.ca.

While this is the last podcast episode for now, don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter at BCcampus.ca for the latest information and details on all our offerings. You can also always find more information about our podcast at bcccampusmixtape.com. Thanks again for listening!

[Theme music]

Tim Carson: Welcome to the BCcampus Mixtape. This podcast is a remix of our previous live recordings and our other BCcampus offerings such as Lunchable Learning, Open Knowledge Spectrums, Praxis Pedagogy, and many more. If you love to learn, you’ve come to the right place.
My name is Tim Carson and I’m the provincial trades rep for open education at BCcampus. And I’m coming to you today from the unceded territories of the Katzie and Kwantlen peoples in Maple Ridge.
This episode is an opportunity I had to sit down with Chad Flinn, who is the dean of Trades and Technology at Medicine Hat College and is entitled “Pedagogy Over Technology” and it was great to have Chad Flinn on the show. He’s a great friend. He’s an awesome colleague. He’s also an amazing educator and an emerging leader and advocate for the evolution and reformation of trades, vocational education, and training. It is my honour to present this episode for you today.

[Theme music]

Tim: Hey everybody, welcome back to Praxis Pedagogy podcast. It’s been a minute since we’ve been on the show had a bit of a break, an extended break, so it’s been good to have that break, but it’s also good to be back and good to have you with us. Today we have a very special guest, a colleague, a friend, and all-around good guy. Dean from the Medicine Hat College in Alberta, dean of Trades and Technology, is that right Chad? Dean of Trades and Technology?

Chad Flinn: That is correct. Yep, Dean of Trades and Technology.

Tim: Well perfect, Chad Flinn. Welcome to the show.

Chad: Thanks, good to be back. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve been on the show. So, it’s good to finally [laughs] We’ve been talking about doing this, and we’ve tried a couple of times.

Tim: That’s right.

Chad: But yeah, it’s come a long way from when I was actually on, more often than not.
Tim: Yeah, that’s right. I was going back and listening to some old episodes and we’re like, wow. I remember getting together and doing all those things.

Chad: Remember doing that live in the basement or at BCIT, there back in the day. [laughs] And now here we are on zoom.

Tim: [laughs] Yep, and we did a few episodes live on YouTube with the famous Ed Logan from Ontario. Shout out to Ed.

Chad: Yeah, no doubt. It’d be good to get back into a conversation with Ed.

Tim: Sorry if you hear some strange noises in the back, that’s just my dog.

Chad: [laughs] I thought maybe it sounded like; you know those guys that chew all the time. They bring out the can and they’re smacking it to get their chew. Are you into the chew now?

Tim: No, no, not into the chew, not even close. I’m into coffee, I’m in the coffee. It’s early, but yes, it’s all good. All right, Chad. So, because it’s been such a hot minute since we’ve had you on the show, bring us up to speed and brother, what’s been going on with you?

Chad: Well, it’s funny you should mention, Tim. I just had my one-year anniversary at the college yesterday. So, because you’re in a position for a while you have to go through a probationary period. It was a one-year probation, so I met with my president yesterday just to reflect on the past year and man what a year it’s been. So previous to this I had a short stint working for Sask Polytech as a learning technologies trainer. Previous to that, you and I worked at BCIT, you were in the plumbing department, and I was an electrical instructor. So, over the past year, the amount of learning that I have had to go through stepping from a learning technology edtech fanatic, into an administrative role has been absolutely mind-blowing.

Tim: Oh, I can’t imagine. [laughs]

Chad: And that’s one of the things the president asked me yesterday. He was like, so what were your expectations going into it and how were they different? And I was like, OK, well.

Tim: You ready?

Chad: Yeah exactly. Well, my expectations going in, I said honestly having come from industry and working as I was an operations manager for an electrical instrumentation firm in Fort McMurray. I was an assistant area manager for electrical instrumentation up in Fort McMurray. I had management experience at a [yada, yada] and I had all this management experience in industry. Never having managed in academia before.

Tim: Right.

Chad: I said so coming on board and I had it in my head what I thought a dean did because of my time at BCIT basically. And then I said it’s like that meme where you got those four quadrants like what my mom thinks I do, what my friends think I do, and what I actually do. What I thought going into it was I thought I was going to be just an operations manager. I thought I was going to make sure that the day-to-day of the Trades and Technology Department would move forward. And yes, that’s true. That is one small aspect of the job, it turns out. I’m very very lucky in the fact that I have such a fantastic faculty that I don’t have a lot of problems with that. I don’t like to say they run themselves, but they self-manage a lot and they’re really open to new ideas, and we have great discussions, and I don’t have a lot of issues in that regard. So, also because we are at a small college, we wear a lot of hats, and we were talking about that yesterday as well. So typically like at BCIT you would have a dean, then you have an associate dean, and some schools have chairs. Where at BCIT we have a dean and then we have our coordinators. Not BCIT, at Medicine Hat College.

Tim: Right, right.

Chad: And so, all those other positions that are in between there, like the chair and the associate dean, we don’t have that. So, I have to kind of take on that aspect of it. So again, operationally I have a lot of stuff, but again, thank goodness that I have such a faculty that I don’t have to worry about that. But then there’s the other stuff where we don’t have AVPs, like associate vice presidents. So, a couple of things that got put on my plate, because I love technology, I love innovation, I love creativity. Whenever something would come up like the work-integrated learning was a huge thing that came across Alberta. Alberta got this Alberta 2030 report where they want all the PSIs or post-secondary institutes that have some form of work-integrated learning in absolutely every program. So even if you’re…

Tim: Really?

Chad: Yeah, even if you’re in like social sciences, they want to make sure that you have some touch to industry, which is very interesting. So again, we have work-integrated learning, we’ve always had work-integrated learning when we talk about trades. I mean, that’s what we do, right? So, I thought, OK, I’m going to jump in on the work-integrated learning initiative. Medicine Hat College had a very rudimentary one. So, we’ve been working the past year really stepping up the game and getting a framework built and now we’re getting policies in place and procedures, and I got a team working on that. So typically, that wouldn’t have been something that fell in my wheelhouse, as a dean. Luckily for me that it did. We also have a center of innovation that we’re starting up. So that’s because I’m in trades and technology and I had just a love of innovation that was an area that kind of fell into my portfolio as well. So again, building a strategic plan for that, working in industry. We’ve got a few people that are actually working with us now on projects, which is super exciting. So those are the kind of things that really kind of push forward. And so, like I said to my president yesterday, I love the operations. I love my faculty. I love that side of the house, but I also love that I get to play in these sandboxes as well. And so, my expectation for the job was high going in and it’s far superceded and exceeded anything I ever thought it could be.

Tim: Right. Wow.

Chad: Long story.

Tim: No that’s good, man. That’s good. Yeah, because you know, having a role like you do, I imagine that you could get bogged down in a lot of the operational details and aspects of what you need to do and all that, and/or personnel issues, right? I imagine that could bog you down pretty quick. But having lots of people taking kind of the self-directional perspective on what they’re doing sure frees you up a lot, right?

Chad: It does, and not also micro-managing. I’ve never, in any role I’ve ever had, I trust the people that are working with me, and so I don’t sit there, and I don’t require them to have to always tell me or come to me the decision. There are certain things that obviously are higher level things that might affect the entire institute or entire school. Yes, you have to talk to me about it. But within your own program, that’s your program. Yeah, I’m an electrician by trade. And then I’ve got a master’s in Learning and Technologies, if you’re a heavy equipment trainer or technology, or AST or carpenter, I don’t know that, I don’t know how to teach that. So, you have the freedom in which you want to run with that. If you want to run those ideas past me, we’ll have a conversation about it for sure. I don’t need you to come to me and ask if you should be doing this part asynchronous, or this part synchronous or you know, can I make videos for this, or should I be blah blah blah like there’s that’s up to you and I trust you, right? And so, and again, because I’ve got such a great faculty that they do that sort of stuff, and they’ve come up with really innovative, crazy, good ideas. And it’s kind of spilling out.

Tim: That’s awesome. That’s really good. And you know, because we’re friends and we talk a lot offline and online and I’ve seen your posts and all that other stuff. It’s amazing to see what can happen when you have a group of people who don’t need that real close management style. Yeah, right, they’re used to working in groups or without a lot of oversight. That’s really good. So, it probably didn’t take a long time to develop a foundation of trust between you and your teams when you first started, am I right?

Chad: And little, I mean, yes and no. I mean some people, because there had been previous.. I mean I’m stepping into a position that somebody else had. So there’s those relationship building that you have to go into and then like you do things differently than the previous, my predecessor did, so. Some people are very comfortable with that. Some people not so much so. Having those conversations of just being, trying to be authentic, trying to form relationships, really getting to know people. I made an effort to spend time with every single one of my faculty and staff. And get to know them as people, not just as an AST trainer or carpentry or plumbing/gas fitter, just as people. And so I made a big push on that, and so yeah trust built after, I was actually talking to my assistant yesterday about it, my trust is built over the past year, but, it’s like it has taken a lot of work because there has been those previous expectations and they didn’t know me. And I do do things differently than like, quite differently, than others had done it, and I give a lot more rope than others, and so they weren’t used to that. And so it did take time for them to realize that, like I don’t have to check in or I can go in to talk to him about this. So like any day and any kind of relationship., it takes time to build up and to prove that you’re authentic, yeah?

Tim: Yeah, no for sure, for sure, that’s good. So what’s on top your mind for this coming year then?

Chad: This year it’s, I think we’re really focusing on Alberta is going through a huge change with their Apprenticeship Act. I think you and I have talked about this offline before too, but they’re looking at trying to create this parity of esteem between trades, education, or TVET and academia. So typically you can go two years into a program. You get a diploma, and four years you get a bachelors and after that you can go into grad or with trades typically what will happen is you get your trades ticket. And that’s it. It’s kind of, yeah, I hate to say it, but it is a dead end. Now you can go find other institutes. There are some out there- shout out to Royal Roads – that will take previous life experience and then work with that right? And you and I have both gone through the Royal Roads program, having not had an undergraduate degree but what they really want to do here in Alberta is that if you get a trades ticket because of the amount of time you’re in class, they want to look at that as an equivalent to a diploma. So when a student comes out with their ticket. And whether it’s whatever like gas fitter, electrician, plumber, they get their Red Seal. They get their certificate of qualification, but they will also get a diploma so that you’d come out of Medicine Hat College with your ticket and a diploma in electrical technologies or whatever. Still trying to figure..that’s all getting worked out, so then you actually have those two years of credit. So if you want to go on to get a bachelors. You can take that, or if you want to go on to a masters that accept diplomas, then you have something to back that up. So that’s an area that really, we’re looking at doing. Also, we’re looking at how the industry and they’re really trying to tie together industry, post-secondary institutes and the students and the government is in there, but they’re trying to become more of a liaise than just telling us how to do things much like in B.C. we have the ITA that kind of controls all that. Here in Alberta we have what’s called AIT. AIT, we’re looking at partnering with the post-secondary institutes where we will have control of the curriculum. We will have control of the actual resources that are being put out and so we will work together. So right now, I’m part of a working group and just how that’s going to look, which we’re looking into things like the log book, which I know we, like the blue book, or whatever you want to call it, but that book that most of us had going through our apprenticeship that our journey people signed off on that, whether we’d done things or not.

Tim: Yeah, yeah.

Chad: So one of the big discussions we’re having about around all that is, proof of competency should not just be a signature. Proof of competency should be proof of competency. So now with the technologies we have, we can take pictures. We can show videos we can actually provide proof that a student has a competency in an area and then from that they can get a check mark or digital badge or whatever, and then that gets into a whole other discussion around blockchain and NFTs and all that fun stuff ’cause we’re looking at how to do that. Decentralize it, as opposed to having it, you have to be stuck within a certain system, so there’s a lot of work that’s going into that over the next year here in Alberta and we’re trying to… the legislation is passed for our Apprenticeship Act to change. It’s coming into effect now in January, but it’s the other work behind the scenes to get all this curriculum building and the new model of how we want to do these things. And then also, we’re trying to make sure that we are holding industry more accountable as well. Because like with trades, some you get some people who go out and have a great experience. I had an amazing experience during my time where I got a lot of great hands-on experience. My boss would take side jobs on residential stuff just so I can touch on a little bit of residential, but then you hear these horror stories of students that are treated like labourers and not students. Apprentices that are treated like labourers and don’t get that experience, so we’re really trying to hold industry to be more accountable for that as well. And bringing them into the educational process ’cause with apprenticeship is so siloed it’s you know you work for a bit, you work for your 50 weeks or whatever, but then you go to school but they don’t really connect. I mean, there’s this school, yes, and it’s.. you’ve got the theory and all that, but it’s we don’t tie it all together. And at the end we just kind of say, OK, you’ve got all this now your 6000 hours, like 5000 hours, whatever it is. 4500 hours. Then you know, you pass the theoretical side of things at the school. So let’s mash those two together and call it a certificate of qualification. Then you go on to write a multiple choice test and you are now a Red Seal whatever, right? So we’re trying to move outside of that, which I mean I’d love to get rid of that multiple choice. A friend of mine, Mike Smith, from an undisclosed college would talk about burning it down and getting rid of that because what does that really prove other than they get really good at memorizing? But again, it’s really easy, it’s really easy to mark.

Tim: No kidding.

Chad: So I see the value in it, but Mike would want to get rid of that, yeah?

Tim: Yeah, I don’t think Mike’s alone in that adventure. So a ton of stuff there. When you’re looking at bringing back the book and going into almost like a digital log where apprentices can track their progress through the system through not just year to year, but almost essentially job to job and skill to skill, task to task. Is there any talk or is there a hope to use that as.. in combination to the Red Seal exam or even because I know in Alberta you guys have the provincial TQ? So is there any talk in marrying that together where apprentices can essentially get credit for certain aspects of their exam where they don’t have to quote unquote, write that piece.

Chad: That hasn’t come up in the conversations I’ve been, but I think it’s a natural progression like I think it will end up in that direction. I think ’cause there has been like little quips about the Red Seal exam, and I think anybody who’s on that working group that I’m part of was, they say that it’s problematic, but there’s a reason for it. But I could see that Tim. I mean, I’d love to hear your thoughts on that too. Like what do you think if we had eportfolios? Do you think that gets rid of like having to prove the Red Seal. And what would we do with that Red Seal? Like, how can we assess for it? Because it becomes.. here in Alberta, you can get your…you can pass your TQ and you don’t even have to get a Red Seal. Right, you can. You don’t have to take that Red Seal exam.. you you’re still a plumber here in Alberta and you say, OK, I’m never leaving Alberta, so why even bother getting my Red Seal.

Tim: Yeah, and that’s been a problem, I think, nationally, when it comes to people being able to move from one job to the other and I’ve seen that from two arms lengths away where you know apprentices have moved from one province to the other to even go to school and then go back to their home province to work. And I think having a digital portfolio is probably the best of both worlds, and I look at trades like cook and hairstylist and we have a good friend, Sally Vinden who’s been on the cusp of that whole change with hairstylists where they actually have a practical and a written for their Red Seal. Which really just makes sense, because it’s a natural progression from the practical theoretical experience that apprentices have when they come to our schools, right? They’re going to be sitting in the classroom, yes, but they’re also going to be going to a shop or some kind of lab and not just in trades, but you’re seeing that in other areas of vocational education too, like nursing and lab tech and X-ray and all these, all these different subsets of that. There’s lots of hands on that happen, and the question that I think you and I wrestle with as well as a lot of other people is how do we assess that properly, right? Yeah, we can create a rubric and have all that stuff and check boxes off, and that’s great. But how does that integrate into their final mark, right? And traditionally, those practical exams have been weighted low compared to the theory. And I wonder if there’s room in the dialogue to see those numbers balance out a bit more. You know, because we could all say that there are people in the trades where they wouldn’t even need to come to school, they can just write the exams and off they go. And then there’s people who come to trades because they’re, for whatever reason, they’re not really good in the theory, right? But they’re great with their hands, and so why would we want to penalize apprentices with, uh, with an exam that’s meant to be more of a gate than an actual assessment tool. And you know our good friend Nikki-shout out to Nikki- would be shouting from the rooftops right now about all the assessment stuff that’s going on. But I think that there’s going to be have to be some kind of progression to proving that you can do the work outside of A,B,C,&D.

Chad: Mmhmm. Agreed. Even when I was in industry as an operations manager and I had a resume come across my desk and somebody would say they could bend pipe. But then when so you look at the resume, sometimes you have time to call the references, sometimes you don’t. You don’t call all the references, whatever, at the end of it you hired this person because you know they checked all the boxes, but then you get out and their pipe bending is absolutely horrific. And so if I had had access to somebody’s portfolio like when somebody goes for advertising or for marketing or art, fine art, they bring that in. They show their portfolio. Well why can’t we do that in trades? And sometimes they’re called artisans, right? So why not? Why don’t we have these portfolios? And I have had people bring their photo albums in to show me some of the work they’ve done and that makes a difference. So why can’t we put that in there? And it’s now so easy, our students can take pics. Our students do take pictures. They’re snapchatting and TikTok-ing all their work. Half the people I follow on TikTok now are tradespeople that are electricians. They’re posting almost every day about some of the amazing work they do well that becomes something. And if we could somehow link that to a portfolio, well, then they’ve got proof that they could do it.

Tim: Yeah, and this is part of that wholesale burning down and rebuilding of the trades education system because I think that we miss the boat educationally sometimes because we’re behind in the curriculum that we’re teaching. You know where, in the plumbing world, materials have been evolving and new technologies have been brought into the construction world so much, that why would they come to class and learn about a joining method that they have never done and never will do. And yet it’s part of this archaic, archaic may be a strong word, but archaic curriculum package that they have to read through and then write an exam on something that you know very few people actually really do, but somehow it made it into the curriculum.

Chad: Well, aside from like humanities, I mean this could go broad over almost every single discipline in a post-secondary institute. The moment, the curriculum is always outdated, always. I don’t care what field you’re in. You can be in nursing. You can be in electrical, you can be in informational technology the moment you show up and you buy that obscenely expensive textbook, it’s completely out of date. So maybe we need to rethink education, this is Mike speaking now, education as a whole, and think about well, do we..are we here to teach our students about the latest technologies? Because we can’t, we’re always behind, or are we here to help facilitate to learn how to learn? It’s this discussion you, Sally, and Lucy and Mickey and I have had ad nauseam. Should we work on those metacognitive skills, should we be working on those essential skills, and yes, we do it under the context of plumbing or we do it in the context of electrical or information technology or architecture. But we’re teaching our students more holistically, as opposed to the technologies and the hands-on stuff they should be getting out in industry. The same thing goes for like here in Alberta, too, with this apprenticeship stuff that they’re going through, they’re doing what they’re calling an apprenticeship expansion where they’re trying to bring in other disciplines into the apprenticeship model as well. So somebody who’s working in data analytics, well they could come to the college and we could teach them about algorithms and all that. And then after two years they get a diploma and try to get a job or we can partner with industry and we teach them how to do certain things that the industry is telling us that they need. Then they go out and they work for a bit in data analytics. So much like we do in industry except for now we, our, curriculum is always so behind on everything. And that’s what I’m saying. That’s one thing I could say as a dean, in having my feet in trades and in technology and being part of all these other committees, we’re seeing that in everything, aside from like a course on Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, like that maybe doesn’t change, but everything else is rapidly changing all the time. So why are we so focused on this curriculum when we need to be focused on other things I think, like we’re in this area where we can actually do some good for people.

Tim: Yeah, so do you think the curriculum needs to be um… well, there’s probably two parts to this question. One, do you think curriculum needs to be released regionally-that it can evolve and adapt regionally-as well as, do you think curriculum should be built or could be built with more interested stakeholders at the table A.K.A students or recent grads?

Chad: Yeah, I think what needs to happen is a opposed to- and this is I think a problem across PSI’s everywhere-is we have us sit down as our subject matter experts who’ve been in the college system now, I haven’t been on the tools for 12 years, but then I think that I’m part of committees where they’re designing curriculum for trades, right? And so, but I don’t see a lot of industry there, and I definitely do not see students there, and I don’t see former students there. So how powerful could it be if we actually have the students having a voice in there and industry having a voice? And yes, we have articulation communities and we have our program advisory committees and all that sort of apprenticeship committees. But it’s not the same as if we get them in there as an actual stakeholder as opposed to just like showing up to a meeting once a quarter and giving their two cents, it would be very interesting to see if we could design curriculum around that sort of thing.

Tim: Yeah, I absolutely agree. What do you think are some of the barriers to getting industry to the table to help with curriculum development? Because I don’t think Alberta is unique in the challenge.

Chad: I think it’s an old school mentality. The big thing that I think we’re going to run into is it’s always been done this way, why? Why are we changing it? It’s working. They’re getting students coming through, you know, apprenticeships. It’s very busy. Yeah, we have low… I can’t really…You’d know the stats better than I would, but from the time an apprentice starts, to the time they get the Red Seal. Is what? 50% actually make it through, so, but they look at that number and celebrate it.

Tim: Yeah, Yep.

Chad: And so I would say that’s 50%, it’s great we got a lot. If you have 700,000 start then you can have 350,000 people at the end of it, but I think that we got to get past that idea and it’s just it’s very different, like the change is hard and trades traditionally, even in the time that you and I’ve been in the trades over the past 30 years, we’ve seen it change substantially. But even like the mindset of you always treated your apprentice like they were garbage, because that’s the way you were treated. We’re starting to finally see that change, even though it’s taking some time. It’s just I would love to like, well, we always will burn it down and then build it up right away, but I think it’s going to be slow changes and getting the right people in the right positions and taking those students, moving them into faculty positions, moving them into administrative positions, moving them into government positions. That’s how that’s going to be a slow change, and I think that’s how we’ve got to where we are right now, just all that slow change from before, so I think we keep working ahead. I think in having these types of conversations, but not just with you and I, but with everybody that is interested in having them, then we can do something about it.

Tim: Yeah, I totally agree. Talk to me a little bit about the perspective that industry has of post-secondary in your context there in Alberta.

Chad: Well and how? Like as far as trades is concerned or…?

Tim: Yeah, as far as far as trades is concerned like what’s the perspective of industry to post-secondary?

Chad: It’s.. I mean for in my area, let’s just talk about Medicine Hat then, which is a small city about roughly, with the surrounding areas, we have 170,000 people here, right? The college, it has a presence because it is the college right? Everybody talks about, they don’t say it’s MHC or whatever. They always talk about this over-arching brand of “the college”, so I think there is an understanding that it’s there, it’s necessary. But it’s been islanded, and I think a lot of institutes are like that in this, and the ones I’ve been involved with anyways… and I don’t say that it’s a bad thing, it’s just, is the way that these things are, but… they will…an institute will design things and then go out to industry and say OK, here’s what we’ve designed: What do you think? Or are you on board? Or here’s what we’ve designed: Please enroll. Now that it’s, it’s been the way things have been done, it’s the way things are done internally in colleges. Today we have, and I think we’ve talked about this too, the problem is you have these instructional designers that will build things and then they will go to the trades department, say “here use this” and they… “But don’t worry, we’ve got a workshop for you.” Whereas how many times, how do we have people being brought in? BCIT was good. They had a great team there that would start to bring people like yourself in or me and to have conversations right? But what we need to do and what I think I’m excited about Medicine Hat College is. They’re really trying to like, yes, they maybe have been an island because that’s the way post-secondary institutes have been, but now they’re laying down a lot of bridge work and trying to bring in industry before they even come up with one single outcome for a course. Because that’s, I mean, if we talk, I mean Sally and I, we’ve talked about this, about backwards design. You need outcomes and work backwards, right? It would be interesting, or it is interesting and this is already starting to happen in our colleges, what is… what would the difference be from something that we as a college would design versus what an actual industry stakeholder would want. And it’s, sometimes they’re aligned, but there’s some things that we miss, and it goes back to my point about our curriculum will always be out of date because our fingers are not always on the pulse of what’s going on in industry. So, if we could put those bridges down, bring the stakeholders in before we even design a course. If we bring the stakeholders in just to say, “what are your needs?” And then from there, we decide OK, you know you need something in a sustainable energy professional. OK, well, let’s talk about that. What would that look like to you? And so, having those discussions then building something and having them go OK, let’s…we’re going to go away for a bit. You come back and then you build it and you bring it to them. And you say, what do you think? And when they say, “I wouldn’t have that part in there,” then take that part out. As opposed to just these stakeholder consultations that sometimes happen where we just show and we say “OK, well, thank you for your input” and maybe just go ahead with what we want to do anyways. It’s interesting when you actually listen to them and start moving things around because of the things that they’re saying and, boy, wouldn’t it be interesting to see what kind of institute you would have doing that? Where are you actually bringing the stakeholders in as opposed to being prescriptive, you’re being collaborative.

Tim: Yeah, it’s always more powerful when you’re collaborative like that, and it certainly goes a long way in building trust between the two entities, right? Because I mean there’s a…I think there’s a long history of mistrust from industry to post-secondary education. And you know, I’ve heard this statement tons of times where, you know, we’ll send you to school to learn the book stuff, but I’m going to train you how to really do it?

Chad: Yeah, totally.

Tim: And even that whole language behind are we educators, or are we trainers? Right, that’s a huge shift for a lot of people who are teaching. Because they come out of a system where they were trained to do certain things and now, they’re looking at teaching and it’s like well, I’m training them to do tasks. And it’s like, well, I’m not sure that that’s why we’re here, but okay, and then you move on to try and change that perspective.

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Tim: Thanks again, Chad for the wonderful time we spent together on this episode talking about pedagogy over technology. I also want to thank you the listeners for taking the time to listen to this encouraging episode. And I also want to encourage you to register for the Trade Summit series happening later this month at BCIT where you can attend either in person or virtually and you can register for that event at bccampus.ca/events. I also want to take some time to encourage you to sign up for our newsletter, you can go to bccampus.ca and sign up for our newsletter there. Visit the website and take a look around. There are some great tools there for you to use and consider in your own praxis. If you like this content, show us some love on our socials. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn under @BCcampus. We’re also on Instagram at bccampus.ca. Now again visit BCcampus.ca for more information and to subscribe to our newsletter to get all the latest BCcampus information and offerings. And you might be able to catch one of these episodes live. Tune in next week for BCcampus Mixtape, you’ll find more episodes on BCcampusmixtape.com and subscribe wherever you prefer to listen to your podcasts. Thanks again! Have a great day.

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Leva Lee: Welcome to BCcampus Mixtape. This podcast is a remix of previous live recordings from BCcampus offerings such as the Lunchable Learning Radio Show, Open Knowledge Spectrums and more. My name is Leva Lee.

Helena Prins: and my name is Helena Prins. We’re both on the Learning + Teaching team at BCcampus. If you love to learn, you’ve come to the right place. I am joining you from the beautiful homeland of the Lək̓ʷəŋən speaking people, which include the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.

Leva: And I’m joining you from where I live on the ancestral and unceded homelands of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples. Today’s episode features two interesting conversations, one with Saeed Dyanatkar from UBC Studios on “Innovation and Collaboration,” and Emerging Media Lab Community of Practice, and one with Mirabelle Tinio, Ed Tech advisor and instructor at Langara College on “Connection and Community.”

Helena: First up, Saeed. Let’s listen in.

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Leva: Saeed Dyanatkar is the executive producer of the award-winning UBC Studios and Emerging Media Lab at the University of British Columbia. He has been leading and facilitating innovation projects that focus on applications of emerging technologies in Teaching and Learning for over a decade at UBC. Today we are fortunate to have say, join us to talk about the EML and creating an innovation hub with permission to fail. Hi, Saeed.

Saeed Dyanatkar: It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Leva: It’s great. Yes, we wanted to learn more about your work at UBC. You are executive producer of UBC Studios and the Emerging Media Lab. So tell us, how did this all get started?

Saeed: Well, the UBC Studios have been here for a while, but the emerging media lab started in 2006, and then a group of faculty members and staff decided to get together. And then it’s time for the use of emerging technologies such as VR and AR. And I have to mention a couple of people that I really am grateful to for their collaboration and support. And that was Ben Brian Wilson from Vantage College at UBC and also Racu, who was a faculty member here at the time. We basically get together to see how potentially we could use this emerging technology that is being used outside of university in the industry and then how we can adapt it. There was a small group of faculty members and staff who had shown some interest 2 and they wanted to see it, learn how to use it, and how to use it in their classrooms and at work. So we decided to meet on a regular basis, and then after almost a year and after managing to complete a couple of very interesting projects, university and I am part of the IT Department, so the CIO, Jennifer Burns and the rest of the SLT saw the value in this and decided to support it. So the Emerging Media Lab, established in 2017, officially funded by the university.

Helena: Wow, such a neat story of how it came together. So how did the lab become such a creative space for collaboration? Do you mind sharing your secret sauce with us, Saeed?

Saeed: Sure. Well, I can’t take credit for all of the work that has gone into this. The study actually started in 2011 when a group of colleagues, including Brian Wilson, Alan Chalk, and Lucas Wright from the Library CTLT, got together and we decided to use augmented reality and create a project as a proof of concept. That was before Pokémon Go, when augmented reality became mainstream, so it was really hard to explain what you were talking about unless we showed something. So we created something for the library and that was very successful. And people could basically point their phones at different pictures of the history of the library and UBC and see video or more information about that specific event. And a year later, working with one of our faculty members who is amazing, Dr. Maja Krzic who’s one of the pioneers of using technology in education at UBC. I explained what augmented reality was. She said, “Let’s do something with it.” And I said, “That’s great.” So we decided to use augmented reality in soil science and we applied for funding. It was so new at the time. As I said, there was a bit before Pokémon Go. We didn’t even feel comfortable mentioning augmented reality in the proposal. Instead, we called it location-based content, and then we got funded by UBC and also BCcampus. So that was a very interesting and eventually very successful project. As far as I know, that was the first use case of augmented reality in Canadian universities. I’m not sure about the US, but at least in Canada. So that was when students could go on location and then pick up their devices and see the content that was already created by experts and university professors about the soil. As you can imagine soil. You don’t see the layers of soil unless you dig a hole, and you can’t do that all the time. So, it’s really helpful if someone else has already done it, and then you can watch it later when you go to a specific location. So that’s one of the examples before EML. My point was that since the beginning, we have always started to work in collaboration across different units and across different disciplines. So, when EML was established, we tried to do the same thing. The first thing I did was invite the faculty members who were interested, and they joined EML, as we call faculties in residence, and they’re different disciplines when they get together and they start talking to each other and brainstorming. At EML was just the best part of my experience working at UBC. It’s just so amazing to hear all these great ideas floating around the room and then people talking, “Oh, this is exciting. Let’s do this.” That’s how EML started. And then now at EML, the biggest part of EML is as students. So students, usually undergrad students from computer science or the arts, they are basically the engine behind EML. Faculty members come in as, basically, subject matter experts. So, they come up with a problem with the question. And our focus is always on the problem, not the technology. We don’t promote technology for the sake of it, and usually we find something that could solve the problem first and then explore that. And EML is a kind of platform agnostic. So, we don’t necessarily look at technology and find a use case for it, it’s the other way around.

Leva: That’s great. So I really heard some interesting things, like working with brave faculty. It sounds like this person, Professor Maja, was somebody who really got things going for you. And I really liked your story about soil. And at the time, you know, it was before the Pokemon Go craze and when everybody was getting into some sort of augmented reality experimentation. So, and then I love how you, in general, also engaging students. So one thing that we were wondering about is if you could tell us a little bit about how you select your projects, because it sounds like you have quite a busy operation there now.

Saeed: Yeah. So the projects, as I mentioned, are based on problems and questions that faculty have. At EML, at least, before pandemic, we had regular drop-ins and demos for faculty to come and explore different emerging technologies. And when they try something like virtual reality or augmented reality, usually people get very excited. That’s the first reaction say, “Well, let’s do something about this or let’s see if you can use this for my problem in the classroom.” And their reaction, usually the first reaction: why? Because, as I mentioned, we don’t want to use technology for the sake of it. So we always talk to the faculty to see if there is a good reason for using this specific technology. And then, if there is one, we basically assign resources for one academic term, and those resources could be lab space, equipment, and an interested student team and faculty. We work with the team as a peer. There’s no hierarchy. So the faculty are basically part of the same team and they work together, and that’s the first phase. We call it proof of concept. And at the end of that term, there is something more to this, and then we take it to the next level that will be explained later. But one thing about the EML that is really important to mention is that there’s permission to fail. So it’s okay if something doesn’t work. All we need to do is basically document the process, make sure we learn from it, and then share it with others because EML is also an open lab. So we try to make it very clear at the beginning when working with faculty that anything we do at the EML is supposed to be open. And we share our work regardless of success, even if it doesn’t work. We share the reasons, documentations, and then we try to make the projects interdisciplinary. So if there is a proposal that comes in, we usually consult with other faculty members. So to answer your question about how we select the projects that are coming in, we try to make sure that they’re not already done. We don’t want to compete with the private sector. If there’s something that’s already been done by a company, we just direct them to that specific service provider. If there is something that we can try for the first time and learn from it, we usually take those projects on every now and then. Otherwise, we make connections. EML is almost like a hub that connects people together.

Helena: Thank you, Saeed. There’s just so much there. I love the collaborative aspect. I really like to hear “permission to fail.” I think that makes people braver, right? You’re willing to try something if you have that permission. The fact that it’s open and you share it. An element that I’m also very curious about is accessibility. How do you address accessibility in tech and innovation? Because, as you know, the recent pivot to online really brought to the forefront the inequity of access, and there were barriers to access that learners experienced early. So how do you address that?

Saeed: Yeah, that’s a very good question because as I mentioned, a couple of technologies we use at the EML are virtual reality and augmented reality, and the forum, for the most part, they are visual. So we have a big problem. When I say we, I mean the whole industry, in terms of accessibility for that type of medium. That’s the problem we haven’t been able to solve completely, but at the same time, using this technology is providing access in a different way to other users. For example, if someone is physically disabled or, for any reason, can’t participate in in-person activities, a visual representation of the same activities or experience would be really helpful for them. For example, one of the projects we did was for geography. It was a visual tour of Stanley Park. And the last thing a geographer wants to do, basically, based on what they told me, is to take away the experience of field trip. So the idea of replacing a filter using virtual reality wasn’t really the reason behind this project. It was really meant to be a means for a group of students who may not be able to attend those field trips, either because of financial reasons or physical limitations, or if they knew, I guess, the realities of a pandemic. If they were not in the same location at the same time. So that was the idea behind it. And we are hoping that this kind of access will create some sort of global access to users across the globe. So, for example, if someone can travel to Canada or Vancouver to experience Stanley Park, then they can at least try the virtual reality version of it and vice versa. So, we are hoping that other universities and other countries will create the same kind of experience for our students then we can travel, literally.

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Leva: Building upon Saeed’s idea of how innovation happens when we connect and collaborate, let’s hear from Mirabelle Tinio and her take on the value of community and connection in and beyond the classroom.
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Helena: I know you wear many different hats at Langara College. Why don’t you tell us about that, please?

Mirabelle Tinio: First and foremost, I am a French instructor. I’m currently teaching an intermediate French course. And next semester I will be teaching a French conversation course, which is always a lot of fun. We sing songs, do interviews of francophones, and go on an outing. I’m also the Chair of Modern Languages at Langara College. And this involves administrative work and sometimes collaborative work, which is what I’m most excited about in this role. I’m also a student pursuing Master in Education, focusing on adult learning and global change. And one more hat, I am also an Ed Tech advisor. In this capacity, I facilitate book clubs, lead workshops, do consultations on Ed Tech tools with faculty and staff. So that’s four hats and sometimes also wearing toques so that’s five, if that counts.

Leva: Yes, that’s a lot of hats there, Mirabelle. So, I know that you’ve been doing a lot of thinking about connectedness with students and we want to hear little bit more about your thoughts on that and specifically your perspective as an instructor.

Mirabelle: Yeah, at the pandemic has taught me so much about how important it is for students and instructors to feel connected. When we moved online in March of 2020, my class had already gelled in the in-person environment, but I was a little anxious that moving online students might feel disconnected and not as supported. Interestingly, my students said that they were glad that courses continue online through Zoom, and this actually helped them to maintain a sense of normalcy. I was interested in my student’s wellbeing and frankly, I also wanted to hear from them. It was reassuring to hear about their struggles and share my own and share challenges and successes. For example, when technology did not fail us, we all celebrated the success. We would systematically start classes with a short check-in, for example, I might ask students to type in the chat, what was a challenge and success that they had experienced over the weekend in French, of course, or I would ask them to annotate a shared screen to circle the image of a face that expressed the emotion they were feeling at the moment. I believe these short check-ins really helped to build a sense of community and I’ve continued to set aside time for these check-ins at the start of my classes. I think when we take the time to ask students how they’re doing and really listen, this is one way to humanize education. And especially right now when there is so much hardship with flooding, the pandemic, job loss, etc. I think it is really important to consider the student holistically, as a person who has responsibilities and struggles outside of school. If students share struggles that we as instructors are not equipped to address. Sometimes all we can do is point them in the right direction to more professional support, but this is still something valuable. In North America and in Western cultures, we tend to be very individualistic, but we are all connected. What I do will affect my students and my colleagues. What my students do will affect the class and the entire college. We may not feel connected all the time, but we are, and so being intentional and creating opportunities to feel that connection in a positive light can help us build resilience during trying times.

Helena: Oh, that’s really it. So much there for me. I love that you celebrate successes, even if they are small, you mentioned check-ins, but really humanizing education by listening and acknowledging who our students are, right? And then being intentional about all of that. So, thank you for sharing that with us. And I know that your interest and connectedness goes beyond the classroom. So, how does all of that apply to the classroom and beyond?

Mirabelle: As you know, I am also student, so I’ve been learning about sociocultural learning theory and Lev Vygotsky, who developed social cultural theory in the 1930s, viewed learning as a socially mediated process. Learning or development is the result of participation in social cultural activities and leads to transformations in values and attitudes. It’s not merely the transmission of skills or facts. It’s so much more than that, and so for learning to stick, it has to be meaningful and relevant. We also have to be challenged to see varying perspectives. And the easiest way to ensure students are exposed to variation is to learn with others by including group work. And of course, for example. Essentially, what we have in our classrooms are communities of practice. Skills, values, attitudes, developed within the classroom or the community of practice in the class trickle out into society. And eventually these people and relationships constitute the global community with its strength and its weaknesses. And one of the weaknesses is the power structure. Inherent in the curriculum is the transmission of values and attitudes. In order to decolonize education and dismantle inequalities, we need to consider the student-teacher relationship. According to Paulo Freire, instead of maintaining a relationship where the teacher has the knowledge and the student passively receives it, he said that, and I quote, “Education must begin by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both students and teachers are simultaneously teachers and students.” And by trying to find ways to work with students as partners, we can hopefully slowly dismantle the hierarchy where certain voices and stories are heard and other voices are silenced and stories are not shared. In order to work with students as partners, for example, learners can also be called on to co-construct knowledge, collaborating with each other and instructors to expand their knowledge base. And one example that I have been experiencing in my studies is we’ve been working with our classmates who are from other parts of the world. And we’re co-writing an essay, learning about each others learning contexts and finding solutions to work on challenges together, such as hunger in South Africa.

Leva: Oh, Mirabelle, I can really hear the passion you have for this studying of all communities and about connection and about care for your students and how you’re employing those ideas into different activities and techniques in your teaching. And so, I know that we really benefited a lot from your knowledge and your practice as well when we did the book club together. And so, I’d like to a little bit about book clubs because we discovered your work and then we connected with you. You’ve hosted several book clubs. So, tell us about that? And how that fits into your commitment to connection and community building?

Mirabelle: Yeah, thank you so much for that question and for having reached out to me last spring. I was just so happy when I got your email invitationto collaborate on the book club. Book clubs have given me amazing opportunities to have discussions with staff and instructors, with whom I wouldn’t normally interact in my institution and throughout the province. It has also allowed me to get to know and work with you two, which has been so rewarding and so meaningful. Just recently at Langara College, we opened up the Spring 2021 Book Club to external, sorry, the Fall 2021 Book Club to externals. And this has led us to such enriching and engaging conversations regarding challenging topics such as surveillance culture and the ethics of EdTech. So, thank you so much for that opportunity. I hope we’ll keep doing book clubs together in the future. Leva: I know, we’re going to have to cook up some collaboration that we can offer the sector that can move them further along on some of these interesting experiments. I really enjoyed the applied aspect of what we did and doing nothing can beat the hands-on work. Helena, what do you think?

Helena: Yeah, there’s many things I want to respond to. First of all, I’m South African, so I really appreciate that your team is solving, you know, addressing the problem of hunger in South Africa. Thank you for that, Mirabelle. But also, it just really resonated with me when you called classrooms, potential communities of practice. And I think we felt that around the book club, too, right? It’s people coming together and connecting in a different way and helping each other, building each other up with resources and support. So, really love that. Now, I’m very curious what challenge you picked for the sector. We usually ask our guests to put forth a challenge, and I wonder what you came up with.

Mirabelle: Yeah, so my challenge is to invite someone over for coffee or a chat, this could be in-person or via Zoom, and to share a strategy you used to connect with students. And then of course, if you want to put it in…

Helena and Leva: Twitter.

Leva: If you do Twitter.

Mirabelle: You can tweet it as well and that would be great. And it doesn’t have to be too time consuming. Just reach out to someone and make an intentional, intentional effort to connect with someone.

Helena: What a salient message about committing to connection in and beyond the classroom. Thanks, Mirabelle.

Helena: Thank you for joining us today. If you like this content, let us know. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn under @BCcampus. And on Instagram @bccampus.ca. subscribe to our newsletter at bccampus.ca or the latest information from details on our offerings. You can also find more information about our podcast at bccampusmixtape.com and tune in next week for the next episode of BCcampus Mixtape.

[Theme music]

[Theme music]

Leva Lee: Welcome to BCcampus Mixtape. This podcast is a remix of previous live recordings from BCcampus offerings such as the Lunchable Learning Radio Show, Open Knowledge Spectrums, and more. My name is Leva Lee.

Helena Prins: And my name is Helena Prins. We are both on the learning and teaching team at BCcampus. If you love to learn, you’ve come to the right place. I am joining you from the beautiful homeland of the Lək̓ʷəŋən speaking people, which include the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.

Leva: And I’m joining you from where I live on the ancestral and unceded homelands of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples. Today’s episode features an impactful interview with professional career coach Isabeau Iqbal about personal and career planning in higher education.

Helena: Let’s listen in.

[Theme music]

Leva: We are so pleased to introduce you to our next very lovely guest, Isabeau Iqbal. We invited her to speak to us today on setting goals and planning. She is a career coach who works with ambitious perfectionists ready to move forward in their higher Ed careers. She has worked in post-secondary institutions as an educational developer and facilitator for over 19 years. Isabeau is certified, with the International Coaching Federation and is a Gallup Certified Strength Coach. She has a Ph.D. in education from the University of British Columbia. Welcome to Lunchable Learning, Isabeau.

Isabeau Iqbal: Thanks for welcoming me and happy to be here. It’s great to have you here.

Leva: It’s great to have you here. Maybe we could start by asking you how you got into coaching.

Isabeau: Yeah, I got into coaching as a client of coaching. Back in my mid-20s was my very first time as a client of coaching. I didn’t know what coaching was. I met somebody at a networking event. Her partner at the time was training to be this thing called the coach, and it sounded like it was, it would be interesting, and it could potentially help me with some of the things I was working through at that time.

So that was my very first encounter. And then, you know, I don’t think I was coached for a really long time until I was reintroduced to it as an educational developer. So, I started working as a developer in 2003 and at a Teaching and Learning Center at the University of British Columbia. And someone hired a coach to come in and do an event with us, like with the team there at the center. So then I started to be a client of coaching more often and loved it, but never with the intention of becoming a coach. Fast forward, I did my PhD, a few years after my PhD was starting to wonder what I would do with my own career. You know, I was starting to think, OK, well, I could kind of see what was in front of me. I also was thinking about, you know, the years ahead in terms of retirement, to work, whatever the word is, the retirement isn’t the right word anymore. And one of the work, one of the pieces of work that I love the most with educational development, is the one-on-one consultations with faculty members.

And there were a lot of people around me who seemed to be getting certified as coaches. And so I kind of put two-and-two together at that point. And I thought, this feels like it would really be something that I would enjoy doing. And so I decided to get certified as a coach at that time and to start my own practice. So I knew that I would do it in my role as an educational developer, my part time role as an end developer. But I also was very clear that I wanted to start kind of my own coaching practice outside of my work.

Helena: That’s a wonderful, rare story, Isabeau. And I’m curious, if you don’t mind sharing with us, what are some of the common themes that you encounter in your career coaching practice?

Isabeau: Yeah, so as I mentioned in the introduction, I, that most of the people that I coach are what I call ambitious perfectionists. So there are folks who are in higher education who in some way relate to perfectionism. And so the really the common themes can be boiled down to I’m dissatisfied, and I want to change. Right. I mean, really, that’s very, very global. And that can probably describe like every single client of coaching, but more specifically is either that they’re feeling stuck in their current role and are not quite sure what to do, or they feel like they’ve got a number of decisions in front of them and don’t know how to make a decision. They feel like there’s a right choice and a wrong choice. Some people are wanting to exit out of academia. Other people are starting in their role and wanting to setting to set themselves up well and then kind of a final, yeah. So those are sort of some of the themes and have specific variations of that. And I would say the other one is around leadership. Leadership coaching. I coach as part of an academic leadership development program. So these are folks who really appreciate being able to think through problems with someone who isn’t right in their context. Yeah.

Leva: Yeah, I can see that that would be really helpful. More of an objective stance there. So this made me think, as you’re speaking there, of maybe some of the approaches that you might suggest that people would find helpful to address as they’re navigating their career in higher ed.

Isabeau: Yeah. I have found that starting with connecting with your values is a really powerful starting place, and I think that we would all agree we have some sense of what our values are. We might be able to put some words to these, but maybe we haven’t really spent the time to think about what those are specifically or how we would define them. So working with the values and first that, you know, is the foundation, we come back to that because when things feel out of alignment, it’s often because we’ve chosen a course of action, or we’ve made a decision that isn’t in tune with our values. So that’s one. The other approach is really looking at strengths. And I find that higher ed folks are it’s interesting, either they really want to dismiss it, or they feel like, well, yeah, I mean, I know I should be doing this, but I really want to look at my areas of improvement and other people are really like hungry to know their strengths.

And I can never quite predict where somebody is at with that. And I find it so interesting because, you know, we live with ourselves and obviously our entire life and yet it’s so hard to name our strengths, often so, so difficult. And so an exploration of strengths and acknowledging the strengths that we have and that we bring it tends to be really powerful for people like really moving to do that. So values, strengths. And then the other piece is in terms of I don’t I think this is very much COVID related, but also higher education related is we tend to drive ourselves very hard. And with COVID, it seems that the exhaustion and the feeling of being unsettled has just amplified. And, like sometimes just receiving permission, giving yourself permission to rest and to care for yourself. Like it makes for a really profound shift also in terms of people’s ability to will to take care of themselves clearly. So those are kind of three approaches that I find are fairly universal.

And then of course, everything is then tailored to the individual situation.

Leva: Yeah, that is, that is the thing that, that we’re feeling as everyone is, is tired and we can’t emphasize that enough is to be careful to take care of yourself or to take attention, to know where you’re at and pay attention to where you’re at and to take care of yourself. How about yourself? How do you keep your work life balance then, Isabeau?

Isabeau: Well. I love the outdoors. So for me, that is a place that I really go to for resetting. I find that if I have a hike planned. So for me, it’s hiking, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing right now in the summer, obviously it’s hiking. And when I have something to look forward to on the weekend, it it carries me throughout the week and then it also helps me with the with the following week. So that has been huge for me. And sometimes it’s with other people and sometimes it’s alone and it seems to have a positive effect either way. Being with my family, I find very, very grounding. And there have been so many times I feel in my own life where I’ve been overly stressed, overly busy. Feel crummy about the way that I show up as a mother. Not that I’m like, it’s the presence piece is really, really key for me. Sort of be present for my family members, for whatever is going on for them. Those are two really, really big ones. So then I try to have fun. though it’s super challenging to have fun.

Leva: It is.

Isabeau: It is challenging.

Helena: (CROSSTALK) You want to have fun this year and we want to provide fun for others too, because it’s been a bit of a challenging time.

Isabeau: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that looks like different things for me. I like to sing and that’s something I do weekly. I have an absolutely fabulous singing teacher and that is something that I’ve really stayed consistent about.

Helena: That’s so fabulous. Really. So, Isabeau, we did ask you to prepare a challenge for our listeners, and we’re very curious. What’s the challenge that you picked for them?

Isabeau: Yeah, I think I you know, I listened to your last episode also with, Oh, my gosh oh, my goodness, I’m forgetting her name.

Helena: Sarah.

Isabeau: Yes. Sarah. Thank you. Sarah So I think it’s similar. So this this is really a practice of whenever you are feeling a moment of stress, however you define that and is to put your hand on your heart and simply take some big breaths from your diaphragm. And you can do this when other people around, you can do this when you’re alone. It’s such an easy practice to do. And just like the, you know, the warmth of your hand against your heart and then that that expansion that comes from just taking a breath. So this is my challenge to the listeners is to try it out. If you remember, try it out multiple times so that you can try it out once.

[Theme music]

Helena: Thank you for joining us today. If you like this content, let us know. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn under @BCcampus and on Instagram @bccampus.ca.

Leva: Subscribe to our newsletter at BCcampus.ca for the latest information and details on our offerings. You can also find more information about our podcast at bcccampusmixtape.com and tune in next week for the next episode of BCcampus mixtape.

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—End of Episode—

[Theme Music]

Leva Lee: Welcome to BCcampus Mixtape. This podcast is a remix of previous live recordings from BCcampus offerings such as the Lunchable Learning Radio Show, Open Knowledge Spectrums and more. My name is Leva Lee.

Helena Prins: and my name is Helena Prins. We’re both on the Learning + Teaching team at BCcampus. If you love to learn, you’ve come to the right place. I am joining you from the beautiful homeland of the Lək̓ʷəŋən speaking people, which include the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.

Leva: And I’m joining you from where I live on the ancestral and unceded homelands of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples. Today’s episode features an insightful conversation with Sarah Lefebure, a counselor in the post-secondary system about health and wellness.

Helena: Let’s listen in.

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Helena: So Leva, did you have a nice time off?

Leva: I did! I have to admit though, I was not motivated to do much but I was resting, reading, eating a lot. I did finish a few books though which is huge for me as I’m not intentional about it. It doesn’t happen. Too busy, too tired, but I think I’m getting my reading mojo back. So good news for me!

Helena: Yes. Any particular book that stand out?

Leva: Well, I read a few things. Non-fiction mostly. A meditative book called, “The Things You See Only When You Slow Down by Haemin Sunim, but I would say Atomic Habits by James Clear stands out for me.

Helena: Why is that so?

Leva: It’s very practical and helpful to frame things you want to do in doable chunks thinking about systems that you can put in place to support you, to create a new habit or two. Maybe break a bad one or an old habit that you want to stop and they do that by suggesting four things that you can do to support you by making, doing that habit or creating a new habit: obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying.

Helena: Oh, interesting. I don’t want to put you on the spot here live on air but have you applied any of that learning yet?

Leva: Well, Helena I have to say that I have. And it’s quite gratifying. So, when I was looking at those four things. I was thinking oh that’s kind of like when chefs talk about mise en place. And that concept of having everything in its place. And ready to go before you know start an activity or you know begin your work. So, I know that I want to get. And I guess I’m sharing this work with a lot of people. So, I better stick to it, is I want to get more fit. So, a practical example is that to make it obvious. So, visually I have, you know, my yoga mats kind of in a place where I can see it. I have an exercise ball that I roll to warm up my muscles. So, that’s kind of hanging on a bag on the doorknob. So, it’s not like I have to waste any time looking for it. Thinking where is it but it’s always there. To make it attractive by doubling up. Listening some tunes maybe finding tunes for our radio show. So, let’s listen to a little bit at Spotify. It’s always kind of enjoyable to listen to some music for fun and then making it easy.

I get up in the morning I put on something that I can exercise in, so when I do set the time for my exercise. I’m already kind of half, already dressed. Like if I put on my tights or something like that and then making it easy and then making it satisfying would be giving myself a little bit of a reward so I intentionally think about what would that be and I have a little bit of aromatherapy thing that you can spritz on kind of it’s like a cool down after a workout that a friend gave me and so I would say, “OK, I can spritz myself with that nice lavender mist after I do my workout,” so those things, I mean those are things probably many of us do but I just feel it having an assist just feels like you’re very supported in what you endeavour to do and I find that these tips from Atomic Habits were very helpful for me.

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Helena: Here with me, I have someone that I consider quite brave too. The lovely Sarah Lefebure. And she’s a counsellor at Okanagan College. Welcome Sarah.

Sarah Lefebure: Thank you, Helena.

Helena: We’re so happy to have you here. We want to start by just hearing your story how did you get into counseling and why and how did you end up at Okanagan college?

Sarah: That’s a great question and it could be a very long story. But I’ll try and keep it brief. It took me quite a while to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. But I always loved stories and I always loved helping people. And actually, when I was doing my English undergrad at UBC. I often daydreamed of being an English professor. But what I really liked the idea of was having office hours. So, fast forward a number of years when I figured out that I wanted to be a counselor. And it all made sense because now I get to have office hours all the time. And I don’t have to mark papers. So, when I figured out that I wanted to be a counselor I was really excited about supporting youth. Especially in their process of figuring out what they wanted to do with their lives. And who they wanted to be. The whole process of developing their identity was really important to me. And I was lucky enough to land a practicum at a college in Quebec city. Where I was doing my Master’s degree. And I was just hooked on working in colleges from that point on. So then I sort of leap frogged across the country. I had a job at a College in Montreal and then at Camosun college, I was very lucky to have some temporary work there for a number of years and then when a permanent position opened at Okanagan College in Penticton. My family and I embraced the opportunity to come and live on the beautiful traditional territory of the silk Okanagan and we’ve been here for five years now and it’s just it’s my dream job. I love love love working with students.

Helena: The year didn’t quite start as we were hoping for it to start right? We’re not on the other side of COVID yet. What we see is our peers, our family, our systems seem to be really tired. So, Sarah what do we do? Give us some advice.

Sarah: Oh, absolutely Helena. It’s so natural, for us to be feeling tired and frustrated and disappointed right now because there was such a rapid change right towards the end of 2021 with the ways that we’ve had to adapt again with this new variant. My first piece of advice is to be honest with ourselves about what we’re feeling. I notice that the Canadian Mental Health Association’s theme for 2022 is “Name It Don’t Numb It” and I think that that is really really important advice right now. We’ve been going through this experience for such a long time, you know, in March 2020. I think a lot of us approached the initial COVID restrictions as a sprint and it turned out to be, you know, more than an ultra-marathon and that has been draining for a lot of us and say the urge to numb whether that’s through, you know, typical things like substance use, Netflix, overworking, scrolling social media, the list goes on. That urge is really strong and it can be very counterproductive for our mental health so when CMHA talks about naming it, you know, giving yourself an opportunity to check in with yourself. So this could be in your own thoughts, could be in a journal, or could be with someone that you trust, whether that’s a colleague or a loved one, just to say, “hey, you know what? I’m feeling really deflated by where we’re at right now and this is all feeling really tiring having to continue to adapt and follow these restrictions.” It doesn’t take it all away but sometimes in my experience. It can make the feelings a little bit better.

Leva: Hi, Sarah. Yeah, that’s really good advice and the naming it instead of numbing I think that’s a good way to kind of remember that and remind ourselves that, yeah, lot of us kind of do sort of want to push it a little bit under the surface and it’s hard and yeah we’re always so busy too, like as educators taking care of others and thinking about our students and then we have our own families to look after so thinking about self-care then maybe you might also have a few suggestions and what is it that you do yourself for self-care and maybe that might be helpful for listeners?

Sarah: Absolutely, great question. Self-care is probably the thing that I feel most passionately about Leva because you know especially as educators and like you said with family responsibilities and other commitments in our lives things can feel so overwhelming and busy and I think what I found really worked for me, when things kind of clicked to really build in a steady self-care routine. Well, there were two things one is to build those elements of self-care in first. You cannot fit them in afterwards into a really busy schedule they need to be prioritized so like kind of the building blocks of your week and the second part really is attached to that for me having routine helps me to maintain my self-care. So for instance I need to get into bed before 10:00 o’clock did I do that last night on a school night? No, but I can keep aiming for it. And because then I give myself 8 hours in bed to hopefully sleep for most of that time and then my alarm goes off at 6 so that I have about half an hour or 45 minutes before the rest of my family gets up and we start our day and that’s my time. I’ll do a little bit of meditation little bit of journaling and a little bit of mindful movement whether it’s yoga stretches or sometimes even just putting on my favorite song and dancing to it. Another example of routine is that I always go for a walk on my lunch break and that is a non-negotiable for me even if it’s snowy even if it’s raining I just put my hood on and sometimes it’s a very short walk but I get outside and get a little bit of fresh air and a little bit of movement.

Helena: You sound very disciplined, Sarah.

Sarah: Thank you, Helena.

Helena: I thought Netflix was my self-care strategy, but now I’m thinking I’m using that for numbing so I will have to revisit my strategies. Leva, do you have an effective one?

Sarah: I’m sorry Helena, everything in moderation.

Helena: Yes, that’s…

Leva: Well the movement part is good for me that I do admire if you can be disciplined and I think maybe one of the things I can do to support myself is to have good rain gear ’cause right now I don’t really have a proper..

Sarah: OK

Leva: Yeah, especially in footwear.

Sarah: Yeah and absolutely we often there can be those barriers to say well I can’t go for a walk because I might fall so looking at is there anything that’s getting in the way of something that you think would be helpful or beneficial for your wellness and trying to reduce or eliminate those barriers can be really helpful.
Leva: I’ve tried queuing up like walking buddies and things but it is also very difficult ’cause everybody schedules are different but those are really good tips that you put in especially about proactiveness, a routine ’cause I think that sometimes we flip feel like we’re floating ’cause we don’t have a routine. So wellness routine is a great idea and then your movement is a true part of that.

Sarah: And bearing in mind that we often think oh I need lots of time for self-care but a lot of the things that I’m talking about can be done in 5 minutes chunks so even when you’re busy you know your goal might be a 20 minute walk but if you can stick to a 5 minute one, if you don’t have time for 20 or it’s really rainy for instance. That can still have a really big boost.

Helena: I really like that I think we can be more creative around our self-care strategies and I’m wondering if you have any other strategies that you think we should have in our toolkit to weather the ups and downs of 2022 that’s going ahead of us.

Sarah: OK I have yes they do have a couple of other ideas. I think one thing that I want to say is don’t wait to be feeling like doing these things. A good tagline is to follow the plan, not your mood. So again if you set a schedule or routine for yourself and I guess that’s why I’m successful at walking every day is that that’s just what I do. My lunch break feels kind of incomplete if I don’t vote for a walk I don’t always feel like it when I set out but I would say I always feel better when I come back in. So follow the plan not your mood and then I also would recommend building in a mindful self-check in for yourself. and I think this too is a really good thing to fit into your routine in some way so it might be you know if you drive to work or if you’re still working from home before you sit down at your computer take a moment to just check in with yourself and you can close your eyes take three deep breaths and just ask yourself, “what’s true for me right now?”, “what am I noticing?” You might scan for sensations, emotions, any tension, no judgment, no need to buy into stories about why you’re feeling what you’re feeling. Just acknowledge, name it, like we were saying earlier and be kind to yourself and just be like oh I’m feeling some stress or this is suffering or this is frustration whatever it is you can meet it with kindness and then just take one more breath and set an intention to do something kind that might be supportive of what you’re feeling or help it to shift a little bit so maybe if your neck is stiff some stretches or if you have a headache perhaps you need a big glass of water, could be as simple as those little adjustments. I like to do this when I’m washing my hands because let’s face it we’re washing our hands a lot these days so as you’re washing for 20 seconds you can take those three deep breaths and just check in with yourself.

Leva: OK, be kind to yourself. We have to have that as a mantra for sure.

Sarah: As a post-secondary counsellor, I guess I really love the feeling of a fresh semester whether it’s September or January and the beginning of the year always feels like a great opportunity to look at what’s been working and what hasn’t been in my life rather than setting your resolution, I prefer to choose a word that captures how I want to feel in the year ahead.

Helena: It’s such a great idea and you know I sometimes take that word and make it part of my password for work. Because then every time that you type your password, you are reminded of this intention that you bring into the year and that’s kind of uplifting if you choose a positive word, right. But then I have had words like persevere which types very cumbersome with all the E’s so pick your word carefully.

Helena: So Sarah, we’re near the end now of a wonderful conversation with you but we don’t want to leave without challenging our listener. So do you have a nice challenge that we could put out there for them?

Sarah: Yeah and I read that you were hoping that this could be something for kind of for the week ahead especially. So, my challenge is that for this week, please set aside at least 10 minutes a day for self-care. Schedule it in. So think about whether it would work better for you in the morning or on your lunch break or before bed. I set at least 10 minutes. If you have half an hour, go for it and think about what will work best for you. Do you want to do the same activity every time or would you like to mix it up a bit? Work with what feels good and nourishing for you. And yeah allow yourself to brainstorm. If there are a variety of things that you might like to do. Then you could have a list and each day you can choose OK I’m going to have a 10 minute dance party my favorite playlist. Or I’m going to go for a walk with my friend or snuggle with my cat. Whatever fills you up, please do it.

Helena: Thank you for joining us today. If you like this content, let us know! You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn under @BCcampus and on Instagram @bccampus.ca.

Leva: Subscribe to our newsletter at BCcampus.ca where the latest information and details on our offerings. You can also find more information about our podcast bccampusmixtape.com and tune in next week for the next episode of BCcampus Mixtape.

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