ACIFA Conference 2019 - Jennefer Rousseau

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!