Steam 5

In this context of post-Covid and shrinking resources, the large introduction courses are becoming more challenging for both students and instructors: students have been used to different modes of instruction and evaluation online, there are higher needs for accommodations and to implement more inclusive ways of teaching. These can quickly become burdensome for the instructor, so this panel is proposing to discuss more effective strategies to teach, support, and evaluate.

How do we approach citation instruction? What preconceived notions do we have in regard to students’ understanding of citation? Do we overemphasize the punitive measures associated with failing to cite at the expense of providing students with the space to develop their understanding of information having value? And what role do we each of us in the institution have when it comes to teaching citation?

In this session, we will invite scholars from different disciplines to share the issues they have observed with citation. With conversation led by Romany Craig & Emma Scott (Library), Rebekah Eckert (Academic Writing), and Kaylan Schwarz (Liberal Education), we aim to discuss techniques for changing the rhetoric around citation from a punitive or secondary aspect of research to a collaborative conversation that all researchers, both novice and experienced, can engage in. Our objective is to collaboratively explore and gain insight from innovative practices attendees are already implementing.

Three times throughout the semester, groups of students met to unpack key elements of the case studies, share their own disciplinary knowledge, and propose possible solutions.

In 2023, Asselin, Schwarz, and Young trialed a partnership between ANTH 3010 Methods, Knowledge, and Ethics, LBED 3350 Themes in Innovation, and GEOG 3255 Qualitative Research Methods. Through collaborative course elements, we grounded students’ learning in community-engaged activities and focused students’ projects on the neighbourhoods surrounding 13th Street North in Lethbridge.

This presentation welcomes rich discussion amongst audience members who might be considering course collaboration across disciplines.

While we taught separate courses, we shared the same group of students who experienced a tragedy which put us on an unexpected, deeply emotional roller coaster. During the semester, one of us received the shocking news from a class member that a classmate had been murdered by her boyfriend. We were immediately thrown into a role we were not prepared for. We struggled with many questions – do we blur the boundaries between being instructors and being therapists? How do we honour this student’s absence and for how long? Do we contact the family? How do we prioritize finishing the course over helping our students through this difficult time? These taxing questions, and many more, were compounded by teaching amid a pandemic and having just come out of a strike. This sense of isolation was compounded by not knowing what, if any, protocols existed at the university for this tragedy. In our presentation we shall process the impact this experience had on us as two teaching psychologists as well as offer an assessment of what we found valuable and not so valuable as well as our mistakes as we cared for each other, interacted with our grieving students, and dealt with both our department and the institution itself (we came to deeply appreciate the role of the university’s counselling services). Ultimately, we wish to give meaning to our student’s death by sharing specific strategies we hope to depend upon if we have to deal with another student’s death.