Another year, another ACIFA conference. ACIFA stands for the
Alberta Colleges & Institutes Faculties Association. The theme of the
conference was creativity is contagious.
A few of us were lucky enough to attend and met some new friends and old
friends.
A highlight of the conference was Brain Keating who reminded
us that nature is creative! If you have never seen Brian speak, I highly recommend
it. Brian told us about elephants and there purposeful habit of working
together in a herd to protect themselves from predators. Elephants will go out
of their way to scare lions away from the watering hole and make sure everyone
gets a drink. We as educators are also like elephants. We are here to protect
the weak and give everyone a chance to strive.
As the day continued, June Parham from Norquest taught us
that we must be aware of our lizard brain and our learners' lizard brains.
Lizard brain stops us from thinking and learning. As we continue to learn about
mental health, it’s important we practice our deep breathing exercises when our
bodies get tense. We need to take breaks and create safe learning environments.
A safe environment isn’t difficult to create. As an instructor or manger,
simply make sure the outcomes you wish to achieve are expected and the process to
meet those outcomes is familiar. For example, tell your learners what to expect
on assessments, how they will be conducted, and what the process will look
like. If you will walk around the class during a test, tell your learners that.
From Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, Clare Mulcaby spoke about gender dynamics in the
classroom. In her technical college, the male students outnumber the female
students perhaps 10:1. This might not be the case in the School of Foundational Learning, but her tips
resonated with me. We all have learners in our classes who do not participate. We
know some of our learners are riddled with fears, fears that are real! Many of
our learners were not allowed to learn in their home country, ask questions, or
even benefit from basic human rights like they do here in Canada. Some of our
learners are introverts. It’s important to give all our students the
opportunity to participate in class, and that might mean posting discussion
questions one day ahead, letting students share ideas in smaller groups, and
create a rotating leader role in your groups
.
Again Universal Design for Learning (my passion, if you
didn’t know) was a reoccurring theme at the conference. There are many things we
can do to make the classroom accessible to every learner. Jenny Olsen and Nola
Vorra from Norquest addressed the topic, as did I in my session on rotating
note taking. Implementing UDL might feel like an overwhelming task, but UDL can
be applied in a variety of ways. Read to your learners in class, provide audio
books or recordings of texts, provide learners with assignment options,
eliminate time on tests, provide a video with your lesson, and /or use graphic
organizers. What you choose should help your learners. We do many of these
things already. For more ideas, research how to help students with anxiety,
post-traumatic stress, autism, or learners learning English as a second
language.
In 2019, many colleges in Alberta have adopted “Paws for
Learning” which is a program that uses dogs in post-secondary to reduce anxiety
in students. These professional dogs and handlers are trained by St. John’s
Ambulance and come with their own liability agreement. Usually found in learning spaces, these working pairs help identify students that need extra help and
walk them to the appropriate services. They also make everyone happy!
In the end, I learned that in times of change, we must build
relationships with others. We must build relationships with our co-workers we
find difficult, with governments we don’t like, and with our provocative
learners. We will do better if we create partnerships, and the opportunity is
all around us.
We can do it! We are
elephants!
Thank you ACIFA- I had a great time!
