This year from September 2023 to June 2024 I’ve had the chance to leap into the role of a Faculty Developer at my college’s Centre for Teaching and Learning Innovation. It was a really unique, special and privileged opportunity to enter into this work as a novice and have a lot of support and time to learn about the role and the work of a teaching and learning centre.
At my last meeting with my supervisor we were discussing what analogies might be helpful when looking back on this year and she asked what kind of landscape I might see if I looked back. A few weeks later a post from Indigenous chef, thinker, and community worker Jared Qwustenuxun Williams came across my Facebook newsfeed. I will quote it in its entirety below.
Jared Qwustenuxun Williams, June 5, 2024
Life is not a mountain,
When I married my wife it was the happiest day of my life. When my first son was born it was the happiest day of my life. When my second son was born it was the happiest day of my life. But one day my son’s will get married and have children and those will be the happiest days of my life.
When I was executive Chef for the 42nd annual elders gathering, where we cooked 27,000 meals over 3 days, it was the height of my career. When I gave my TedX talk on the red dot it was the height of my career. When I went to speak at the United Nations in Rome it was the height of my career. Now I’ve been invited to speak to the Inter Tribal Agriculture Association and the US department of Agriculture at the residence of the consular general, this might be the height of my career.
What I am trying to say is life is not one mountain, you don’t get to the top and start trudging your way down. You get to the top and see all the peaks around you and pick which one you’ll ascend next. Take life by the horns and make it what you want. No need to feel like your best years are behind you because the only years we get to experience are those that are ahead of us. So make them your best, and don’t settle for one mountain when there is a whole world of mountains out there waiting for you.
#ChooseLife #EmpowerYourself #DoTheThing
#WeAreTheNewAncestors #IndigenousForestPunk #YOLO
Reading Qwustenuxun’s post had me thinking about my last year as a Faculty Developer and the many mountain peaks I’ve climbed, as well as the ones ahead of me that I’m lacing up my hiking boots for as I write. The fall was really time to get my feet on the ground. At the same time I climbed the peak of building my own online teaching and faculty developer portfolio and blog (that you are reading now). It was such an incredible experience and gift to have the dedicated time to play with technology and build a beautiful online space where I can continue to add my thoughts and learnings as I climb more peaks.
In the winter and spring I climbed two more separate peaks. One was the GenAI peak, where I read blog posts, attended webinars, and learned about GenAI in post-secondary education and then delivered two separate workshops for faculty on the topic. The second peak was the “faculty course design, development and delivery” peak. This one was the biggest peak of all. I worked with two colleagues and we built an entire course for faculty from scratch called Essentials for Teaching and Learning in Post-Secondary Education. The course is based on 6 modules and is largely asynchronous with 5 live sessions. We had countless meetings and about a zillion Teams chats, and built up beautiful modules in Brightspace with three main areas – preparation activities, engagement activities, and assessment activities. Working on this course has provided a massive learning opportunity for me in terms of playing an active role in course development; understanding the components and participating in the processes to build a fantastic course for adult learners. Those are my three main peaks of this year (online portfolio, GenAI workshops, course for faculty), but I have climbed many small peaks in between. These have included building relationships in the Centre for Teaching and Learning Innovation and in the college more broadly, understanding how colleges and quality assurance processes works, understanding the role of a faculty developer, building resources (like a faculty handbook chapter), and reading works from the canon of teaching and learning literature.
As I descend from these peaks and sit by the river to rest before climbing again, I’m looking out at a massive landscape of unclimbed peaks that I’m excited to tackle. This coming year I’ll be stepping back from the Centre for Teaching and Learning Innovation, but there are still so many peaks I want to climb. I want to learn more about inclusive teaching and critical pedagogy, dive deep into what it means to Indigenize or decolonize classes, courses and the curriculum, build more relationships across the campus, engage in scholarly teaching and scholarship of teaching and learning, participate in writing program learning outcomes and curriculum mapping, and take a microscope to the specifics of teaching and learning in social work. Writing these words I can actually feel the excitement pumping through me. My body is getting ready to climb.
I’m really still at the very beginning of my time in this brand new landscape of teaching and learning. Looking out over the mountains I want to see it all! I want to dash around from peak to peak, be able to come back down quickly when there’s too much snow or the weather is bad, and move around freely to find my favourite spots. Once I know this landscape I think I will find a few mountain peaks where I really want to spend my time, but for now I’m still exploring and loving it.
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