Thoughts on teaching, learning, and transitioning into the professional world of pedagogy.

Today, Earth & Ocean Sciences Graduate Student Council hosted the first ever EOS Graduate Student Research Roundup from 2-4 PM in our main building’s lobby. As one of three Coordinators (the presidential role) for EOS Grad Council, I oversaw the planning of this event – I felt like it was my “baby”. This event was advertised for 3 weeks or so, and had a great response from student and faculty, who replied to the advertising emails with “Great Idea!”. It was a good start.

Yet here I sit, writing this blog before 4PM. I had 2 posters of my own on display and oversaw the event, so I would be there ’til the bitter end – and I was. What happened?

It is one of Grad Council’s goals to make connections with faculty and fellow students. As a Department, we are fairly segregated – the oceanographers in one building a 5-10 minute walk to the main Department building, geophysics in another, and so on. So you can go about your grad-studently life without having to connect with other groups – hence the reason we have this goal.

There’s an “urban legend” among some Grads that emphasize the disconnect:
Once upon a time in the early 2000’s, a graduate scholar was to give a scientific presentation for a the Department-wide seminar series but feared the wrath of faculty and their intelligent questions! And so the scholar decreed that no faculty were permitted to attend! And ever since, the decree has hung over the heads of faculty, who have not attended grad student initiatives ever since, and this way it will be forevermore!
While I believe that this event took place, I’m going to go ahead and quash the idea that there is some Disney-like evil charm preventing faculty going to events.

However, this evil charm may as well exist because we had low faculty attendance today. We had an excellent amount of grads at the beginning, we had some undergrads who wanted poster tips (and were very eager nice ladies if I do say so myself!), and we had a couple faculty smiling faces come by which was incredibly appreciated. But literally – just a couple. 2 or 3. Those who wrote “Great idea!” emails did not attend.

The lack of faculty became quite noticeable after the initial rush for free coffee and donuts. In response, even poster presenters began to leave the event to go do other things since faculty weren’t there. By 3PM there was a very small group of committed students waiting for the odd faculty to come see the event. By 3:30 or so the group gave up. Gave up and packed up.

I was disappointed in the low faculty numbers but the packing up was what really bummed me out. The low point was when a student even turned away a very enthusiastic professor who came in the 2nd hour on his own. He was really engaged and talking to a student (me) when others started packing up around us, I suppose because he was the only attendee at the time. When he turned around to talk to the next student about their research – whatever it may be – he was turned away!

I’m not intending to separate myself from this group, because I sat to write this before 4PM. I’m part of the problem. That’s the thing, we can’t truly be upset faculty didn’t come b/c we didn’t last the event either. What about faculty who came after 3:30PM? We’ll never know.

And what about the faculty who did? We would hope that the enthusiastic faculty members who came this time can encourage their colleagues to go next year. Except this one enthusiastic professor will most likely remember that he was gently told to leave. Now what kind of review do we expect from that?

Despite this narrative of disappointment, the grad student attendance was so satisfying, and the faculty that came were so pleased, that I believe this event will indeed become annual, as it was intended. Thus it is imperative we work on the model so that it will become better attended next year.

Lessons learned:
-The main thing is that I should give a voice to what I care about. Even if I’m on my own in my opinion. I could have made the choice to stay at the poster event to ensure it lasted until 4PM. When our faculty was “rejected” I should have said something like “well it’s not 4PM yet, who wants to tell _ about their research?” indicating that I would not participate in packing up.
-Clarify the commitment expected from participants – mainly that if you present your poster, you commit to be there until the (potentially bitter) end.
-Toy with the idea of shortening the event to 1 or 1.5 hours. If it is 1 hour, it should overlap for a 1/2 hour with 2 classes so that we can increase accessibility to teaching profs and students in classes.

On to the next, I suppose? How do you deal with group-effort disappointments?

What better way to re-introduce myself after a month-long blogging hiatus then with this video.

I swear, I may listen to this song every day between now and when I defend. My office mate was singing this tune Friday and this morning…and while it was fun to sing to on Friday, it really resonates on a Monday Morning.

This week I am home alone, and so my goal is to make myself miserable with working hard. Thus, I have resolved I will make each day infinitely better by listening to this song each morning to pump myself up! I suspect however, that if I work as hard as I hope to, “miserable” will shortly transform into “awesomeness” as it normally does when I see the fruits of my labour take shape (or is it get juicy?).

Moving on…or rather, backwards. Since the last post, I feel that quite a bit has happened:

I was lucky enough to go to Whistler for a week with my dad, and despite your *holiday* alarm bells ringing, I will have you know that I used the opportunity to work very hard, cross-train for the 5K (“cross” because I wasn’t allowed to run – thus the rower, bike, and elliptical were my poisons) and snowshoe every couple days. The result of that week? My Teaching Portfolio – it’s alive! This is a project I began in the fall and resolved to have “finished” by the spring and ta da! Nothing beats the motivation of future prospects. I say “finished” as a portfolio is always a work-in-progress, so what I really mean is a version that is complete enough to be published online. If any of you readers want to take a look and provide comments or feedback (as a reply to this blog post) I would happily welcome it!

Also completed: the St. Patrick’s Day 5k! I can’t believe I did it. And yes – I did it! I ran the whole thing, minus the forced walking bottleneck about 5 minutes in, which conveniently coincided with when my physiotherapist told me to take a walking break. My time was 36:18 and I am very, very proud. Last Monday morning I went to my physiotherapist to treat my exhausted ankle. It was swollen and sore, and ended up getting taped for 4 days. It made me feel like a REAL athlete. I’m so athletic I get my muscles taped. Bitchin’!

I recommend the St. Patrick’s Day 5k to anyone who is interested in starting to run. It’s not very competitive and instead is focused on having a good time. There are indeed prizes for fastest times, but there are also costume contests, and an irish-themed party afterwards. We had irish stew, cupcakes, lucky charms cereal, and more. It was amazing how much food they provided, especially since this is one of the cheapest races to sign up for! We were also given Granville Island pint glasses with the race logo and year printed on one side. You can pay to fill it up and have a true St. Pats celebration if you choose. The tag line is “Come for the race, stay for the party” – and boy is this true – a group of strangers challenging themselves and then celebrating together (community, anyone? One of my favourite things).

I definitely want to keep going with the running since I’ve come so far, and have picked out my ideal next race. The only snag is that this race coincides with the time I plan to defend, but conveniently I can register up to 2 days in advance of the race! So I plan to train as if I have signed up, but if the race ends up adding stress rather than relieving it during a very important time, I simply will not go ahead with it.

So those are my two very exciting developments. I’ll admit, I’m glad I can disappear for a month and come back with accomplishments under my belt. I will not let another month go by until my next update, but hopefully I can keep this pattern of achievements going. I believe I will – just last week I actually started writing. I’ve been in the “writing phase” for a while as I put it, but that included making an extensive outline for my supervisor, analyzing samples and planning. Now I’m actually writing the darned thing.

Hopefully by the next time I post I will have a significant portion of 1 chapter done (as per usual I will no jinx myself by saying what exactly) and be finished on the microscope. Oh, to be finished microscoping! My neck and general sanity dream for this day!

Until then…dreams of massages and running and general tomfoolery. Have a good few days, all.

I am currently working on my Teaching Philosophy for my Teaching (e-) Portfolio, which I am preparing for opportunities on the horizon – both during and after I graduate.

I have been working on my portfolio since the fall, and I have found it so rewarding. Yes, I intend to use it as a tool to obtain employment, but in my organizational work, drafting, and writing up some of the smaller sections of this document, I have identified the major pillars of what I believe in, and how this is reflected in my teaching. Coming to recognize the pillars of my teaching practice has basically written my Teaching Philosophy for me, short of my actually sitting down to write it out.

The main two pillars are Community and Connections.

I believe so strongly in forging a tight knit community. One of the major vehicles in doing so is volunteering, something I am also very passionate about. I just googled “volunteerism” and found this wonderful sentence:

Volunteering is the most fundamental act of citizenship and philanthropy in our society. -Volunteer Canada

That’s so beautifully said. One may not give impressive checks to an organization, but their time is just as, if not more, valuable. Spending time for a cause is a wonderful act of citizenship!

While Community is a word I use to illustrate what I value, Connections is a word I use to illustrate my primary goal as a teacher. If I foster a connection between students, between myself and a student, or between students and course content, I should feel like I’ve done well. This is how I aim to honour what I value in the classroom, as I envision a community as a beautiful web of connections.

Wow…thanks, blog, for facilitating a really easy Teaching Philosophy drafting session.

Ten days after my anxious last post, and I’m still feeling good. In fact, I think I’m feeling even better.

I feel this great because I’m still in the positive feedback cycle of awesomeness! I was even forced out of it for a few days – as I was skilled enough to re-sprain my ankle – and happily climbed back in my hamster wheel once my physiotherapist-determined healing time had passed.

Things I have learned in the last ten days:

-Don’t clean the shower from within the shower. You will re-injure your injuries.

-Working hard on weekends feels amazing; is worth it

-Working hard all the time feels even better

-The recumbent bike feels like a cop out work out.

Well, those are the hamster-wheel-related things I’ve learned. The middle two points refer to a major success that came together just this past weekend. Nearly two weeks ago now, I had a really motivating Skype date with my supervisor, after which I recovered from here. We decided during that meeting that I would create a shortish (~6 pages) thesis outline containing all the meat – i.e. my data results and discussion points for each of my chapters. At the time, I said something along the lines of ‘will have it done in a matter of days’, which wasn’t what happened exactly. One week passed and I had only started working on the Intro Chapter by that point, so I decided to determine a deadline.

Now, I give myself deadlines all the time but then I let time fly by and deal with feeling guilty after. This time, I decided to experiment by telling my supervisor that I was going to send her my outline by Sunday. Now that lit a fire under my butt. And it worked really well.

Today I feel great. I achieved this (albeit, second attempt) deadline and worked hard at it. I hadn’t worked quite so hard on a weekend for a while and it actually felt really good, when usually the thought of doing so leads to feeling overwhelmed. What’s better is that a sizeable chunk of the time I spent sitting in my wee office was devoted to my data/graphs – I actually furthered my analysis of some data. I wasn’t just passively writing it up. Scientific [good] times had by all!

Anyway, the purpose of this tale is to say: I tried something new, a little more ridged, and it worked. Well! Now I sit here and wait for her read through and response…and by sit here I mean continue to work hard so that I can continue this positive feedback cycle. I’ll let myself do some fun tasks for today as a reward, though. Teaching Dossier here I come!

I’m sitting at my desk, sipping my morning latte, reflecting on how I generally “do” at living.

I’ve realized that I’m an all or nothing person. If I feel good, I work harder, I’m excellent at planning and thinking ahead, I’m more motivated, I’m more active, I care more about my and others’ well-being. It’s really the most worthwhile positive feedback cycle to try to break into – but getting in there is the hardest part.

Just over two weeks ago, I sprained my ankle fairly well. It was a level 2 sprain on a scale of 1-3 (according to my physiotherapist), somewhere in-between healing in a matter of days and not being able to walk. This sprain came at a really, really irritating time as I had just signed up for my first ever 5K race the day before and am still “training” for it. Despite this, it ended up being a huge blessing as I’ve found myself in numerous situations when I thought “man, I wish I could run today” but hadn’t seen my doctor yet and was limping, so I didn’t. Until these moments, I didn’t quite know that I VALUED running! I’ve only started exercising again this past Sunday, and I’m glad I waited until I felt confident that I wouldn’t injure myself further. Actually, Sunday was one of the best runs I’ve had because I put absolutely no pressure on myself to “finish it”. I felt no hesitation to get outside as I knew that I had a free pass to stop after just 5 steps if I felt actual pain. I felt no pain, and completed the whole run. Yesterday I went on another run and while it went well, it was a lot harder to get myself out there b/c I felt that internal pressure to complete the whole run.

Anyway, I apparently enjoy exercise. Who knew. I, at least, did not know this for the last 25.5 years. Since I’ve been exercising again post-injury, I’ve felt so much more calm, more motivated (which my skyping date helped with tremendously), and I do something for my body – cardio or push ups or whatever’s on the schedule on my fridge – every day. Probably the best part is that I’m excited to go into hiding with books, papers, and my laptop and start writing. Academic reading is not something I’ve ever felt excited to do.

Back to the shadow I cast on this upbeat post – it is so hard to maintain this positive cycle. I have always fought with this, and it’s so easy to slip out of. As soon as I slack on one of the aspects, the whole thing seems to fall apart. Activity seems to have a slightly more influential piece in this puzzle, however.

I imagine it as a game of kerplunk – during which you dump a pile of marbles on top of a randomly stacked pile of sticks. Like Jenga, you pull out the sticks one by one, and if you pull out a stick that makes all the marbles fall through, you “lose”. All these things I “do” for my life and well-being are the sticks, but it seems that as soon as I pull just one stick out, it seems to cause a cascade in which I ultimately lose my marbles. Sad!

Does anybody else experience this? I assume a lot of people feel similarly, but I don’t think I’ve actually asked anybody this specific question before.

Hey…so…

I’m suffering from an intense overload of grad student-ly emotions: stress, relief, shame, motivation, confidence, vulnerability, bitchin’-ness.

That’s right: I just Skyped with my supervisor. And now I’m losing my mind.

Well, that’s not quite accurate, though I am feeling post-conversation nervousness. And to compliment the cocktail of emotions listed above, lets add overwhelmed and avoidance-y, considering I have made my next move a blog post whilst I turn on “Say Yes to the Dress”. Seriously people, I need to unwind for 30 minutes.

To begin explaining/working through the emoti-cocktail, let me just say that I may have unique feelings about my supervisor: I feel that I have won the supervisor lottery. She’s been very supportive throughout various roadblocks I’ve encountered, can usually motivate me, and give me confidence. On top of that, I just love her! I actually consider her a friend, or as “friend”-ly as we can be given our professional relationship.

Despite my adoration for this woman, I can be rather terrified of her at times. After all, she is my supervisor and as dictated by the universal laws of graduate study, I feel totally inadequate on average. Today we had a skype date for the first time of the new year. It had been a while, and I felt like I had to say something impressive.

What occurred was a gentle tread into what I really wanted to talk about: graduation! [Please read the g-word as if it is sung by angels whilst heavenly light breaks through the Vancouver clouds]. Weee! I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, though the light is about the size of a pinprick. I have definitely enjoyed my time here and am grateful for all the challenges and opportunities it has brought me, but I am ready to finish this up and ask “what’s next?”.

Well, we did indeed tread into this topic and I was slightly disappointed by what I heard…a graduation date was suggested that was a few critical months beyond the time I dream of it happening. And because I think my meetings with her must [presumably] resemble confession, I brought it up. I not only brought it up, but I laid out my best laid plans, what I hope my next step to be.

Here’s what I heard in return: “………Rebecca, I KNEW you were going to do that. I KNEW it!” and then she proceeded to say lovely things which boosted my confidence and kiboshed the disappointment I felt just moments before. So apparently she is either the equivalent of my high school girlfriends that can predict my every move, or my aptitudes and interests indiscreetly scream at those who know me. I’ll take either.

Okay, I’m feeling better now. I needed to process the chain of events during this meeting, and this blog is such an excellent tool for doing so. Moreover, Say Yes to the Dress just ended and now it’s time to tackle my day on campus.

Thanks for reading a pretty candid look into my emoti-cocktailed MSc. journey.

I obtained my undergraduate degree, a B.Sc. in Environmental Science, at the University of Guelph.

I love Guelph. I say “Guelph” meaning the University, mostly, but the city itself and it’s people are wonderful too. There are a lot of people with really big hearts in that city. Back when I lived in Guelph, I volunteered/worked for an organization called Guelph Environmental Leadership (GEL). A good portion of my job was spent with a portable GEL booth set up at public events or outside local stores. I met so many environmentally-conscious citizens – really thoughtful people who thought locally. A lot of my peers and the professors I met during my studies were equally as awesome.

Anyway, I was just researching some things on the internet and stumbled across this article, linked from the UoG webpage. I had to shake my head in a kind of motherly satisfaction: of course Guelph is the only city in its region with a student volunteer centre. Of course UoG is having a free one-day conference aimed to connect students with volunteer opportunities and inspire the general public to take positive social action. Of course this is something Guelph does, because positivity and outreach suit Guelph naturally.

I am so happy to have stumbled across this article. I have now discovered that one of my great true loves, Guelph, is intersected in a beautiful Venn-diagram-like way with one of my other great true loves, Volunteerism.

Ugh. Perfection!

Here is a link to the Student Volunteer Connections website, in case anyone out there is interested. I just signed up for their weekly newsletter. Inspiration does not have to be found locally.

Over the holidays, I visited home in Ontario and visited my partner’s family in England. Both visits were absolutely wonderful! Being home definitely let me daydream about the future (consult previous post). Though I love my hometown and that marvelous feeling of home in my core, I was very happy to get back to my current home in Vancouver. It’s nice to have my clothes hanging up and fresh laundry when I want it, use my own fridge and kitchen, and bake bread! Yum yum.

While in Ontario, I had the opportunity to give a short re-read to one of the more inspiring books I’ve read in the past couple years, Me to We by Craig and Marc Kielburger. I didn’t go through it all, but in the short bit I covered, I came across a line that really struck me, which goes something like this:

It doesn’t matter as much whether you reach your goals, as long as you have the right ones.

Let’s emphasize less the first part of the sentence, because what resonated with me is having the right goals. This sentence can justify countless graduating class’ yearbook goals to “save the world”, “help the environment” and so on. It’s so true that having a positive attitude and having positive goals can be the driving force in motivating what you do.

Ignoring now my previous post about thinking too far ahead, I have imagined a combined To Do + Goals list detailing the direction I wish my life to take in the next 5 years (justified by the excerpt above). Really it’s a wish list, and I would be so lucky to acheive or touch any of these goals. I realize that life can change in a split second, but it’s fun to plan. Potentially the “funnest” part of this list? I have recently added a goal which is to be on the television show PICK A PUPPY in the next few years. I honestly don’t care about being on television, in fact I know that I would start speaking gibberish as soon as there were any cameras, the goal is that I want to play with various puppies in order to pick the perfect on to fit in my family!

….I caught 10 minutes of that show the other day and I think it would be the best fun. I’m aiming high, people!

Happy New Year everyone!

I am currently sitting at my desk which is covered in plants, a family pictures calendar, countless paper(s) to my right, and wet socks on my left. Oh, and one stress “ball” that looks like a brown bear, which I have just named Beary (for the sake of this blog). I’m also bopping my head around to the sound of the ska tunes that defined my high school years.

In the past few weeks, I’ve identified an academic focusing problem. What I do is put a lot of time and energy into planning what’s next and how to get there and thinking all too often about what I really really really want to do next! Then I look around and realize my thesis is yet to be completed and my plants need watering. I am thinking about the future and planning for it, but have not been as passionate about the present for a while now.

As I said, I recognized this in the past month or so, but as I sit at this lively desk, I have just realized that I also have this problem in the personal aspect of my life.

This morning, I read a friend’s blog in which she discussed how she does not believe in New Year’s Resolutions because any time is a good time to change your life. I totally agree. However, she wrote something right after this that totally struck me. She asked why do people plan to do things on January first and ignore their lives in the present until the next January first rolls around? Do it now. Live your life!

After reading this wise statement, guilt crept in: I have recently been daydreaming about the next steps in my relationships (and I’ll admit it, I bookmarked a baby blanket knitting pattern or two), figuring out where I will live when I live in the “real house of my adult life” and how fun it will be etc., etc.

Wait a second – I live in a wonderful apartment. With my partner. In an amazing city. Let’s pull the daydream reigns in…what’s wrong with right now?

Nothing. It is now my goal, my “new year’s resolution” if you will, to not make “new year’s resolutions”. Live in the present, not in the future. I’ll keep planning, but I’ll focus and enjoy right now to the fullest instead.

There are a lot of things I think of as I say/write/type “pushing forward”. It stimulates reflection on the past, and visions of the (immediate) future.

I spent this past Wednesday at the Aquarium, volunteering for the school program I am involved with. Due  to a busy semester and a bit of re-prioritization (I gotta graduate sometime!) it was only my 3rd time doing the program in about 10-12 weeks of programming. All day I was very aware of the stark contrast between my experiences on Wednesday and this time last year. One year ago (1-2 months into this weekly volunteering job) I was terrified to take a small group of students and lead them on my own. Each week I would hope to team-teach or shadow someone because I just didn’t feel comfortable. On Wednesday I was team-teaching, and found it very challenging. It’s interesting how your attitude can completely change once experience or “expertliness” is added to the equation. Now that I feel comfortable teaching the program, it’s more challenging to share the dissemination of knowledge with a partner.

Could it be that I’m already an old curmudgeon at this program? If that’s true, I think my fellow volunteers are guilty of this as well. More likely, I felt uncomfortable because I’ve rarely been around this term or because we didn’t discuss our approach very much before jumping in. My approach was to let the newer volunteers do their thing and hold out on the urge to add or (on one or two occasions) correct. I found that sometimes, when I would chime in with a new idea or comment, I would meet some resistance from my partner. It was very interesting. I remember well being nervous of leading, and now it seems I wanted more talk time. At some point in the last year, I pushed through the comfort zone of fading into the background.

Beyond my volunteering experiences, “pushing forward” also makes me think of my recent teaching opportunity – the one in which I gave a 50-minute lecture to 200 undergraduates. I had discussed the possibility of teaching with one of the Instructors a month before, and we had decided to revisit the idea next semester. Lo and behold, an opportunity arose out of the blue, and I had only a week and a half to prepare (though really, what would I have done with more time?). I decided I simply had to dive in and just get ‘er done. It was scary, but it was time to take the next step. And I received such positive feedback as a reward.

Finally, I think of “pushing forward” through the next thesis hump which is to: start writing and continue?/finish up experimenting and analyzing. I’m currently frustrated with an important data set I feel like I can’t resolve without another huge push, and I want to start writing but get overwhelmed. I feel like in order to write more than I’ve got, I have to read, and I am afraid of reading.

So all in all, I this thesis data/writing push is what’s next/now on my agenda; hopefully I can draw from my previous push-throughs as inspiration. I’ll let you know how it goes….