Where learning deeply matters: Reflections on the past, present, and future of teaching at McMaster University

Foreword

David Farrar — 2022-12-07

Foreword for the book, Where learning deeply matters: Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future of Teaching at McMaster University, by McMaster senior leadership.

Editors' introduction to Where learning deeply matters

Alise de Bie — 2022-12-07

2022 marks the 50th anniversary of McMaster University’s teaching and learning centre, presently known as the Paul R. MacPherson Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Excellence in Teaching (MacPherson Institute or MI), one of the first established in Canada. In alignment with the institute’s vision of “cultivating an environment where learning deeply matters and teaching is valued and recognized by the collective McMaster community” (Paul R. MacPherson Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Excellence in Teaching, 2019, p. 3), we wondered how we might leverage this milestone to further value and recognize teaching and learning at McMaster. This edited volume emerged in response. Composed of 24 chapters written by 86 authors—including undergraduate and graduate students, alumni, current and former staff, teaching assistants, sessional instructors, faculty, and retired faculty—and supported by 46 research participants and 31 peer reviewers, this collection responds to the following questions:

How has teaching and learning evolved and changed at McMaster University over time?
What have been defining moments of teaching and learning development at McMaster?
What must we remember and learn from this history?
What critical challenges do we face in teaching and learning today and into the future? How have these emerged, and how might we address them?
What are our visions for the future of teaching and learning at McMaster?

In this editors' introduction, we review the organization of the book and reflect on intentions, themes, and limitations of the work as a whole.

The first 80 years of teaching and learning at McMaster University, 1890-1970

Alise de Bie — 2022-12-07

The anthology opens with an overview of significant themes from McMaster’s earliest 80 years of education starting from the enrollment of the first student cohort in 1890. This contextual introduction also highlights inter/national trends in teaching philosophies and educational development that informed McMaster’s creation of its teaching and learning centre (TLC) in 1972.

This chapter is undergoing copyediting and will be published shortly.

Taking teaching seriously

Dale Roy — 2022-12-07

Most universities claim their role as educators is taken seriously. But what observable activities occur in these institutions to substantiate the value of teaching? This reflective piece is based on our combined 75 years of experience at McMaster University, the University of Windsor, and the Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University). We consider approaches employed in the past to take teaching seriously and propose strategies all universities can use to increase the degree to which teaching is valued: (1) preparing potential university teachers; (2) investigating teaching abilities during hiring; (3) providing teaching resources; (4) ensuring the best teachers are known, celebrated, and rewarded; and (5) encouraging teachers to talk about the relationship between teaching and student learning. This chapter contributes to the anthology’s goal of grappling with the ongoing challenges and opportunities universities have in valuing teaching and learning, situated within the past 50 years of McMaster’s own journey.

Change and continuity in a teaching and learning centre over 50 years

Alise de Bie — 2022-12-07

McMaster University’s teaching and learning centre, known today as the Paul R. MacPherson Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Excellence in Teaching, opened its doors in 1972 and marked its 50th anniversary in 2022. Based on a review of textual records and guidance from two institute directors, the chapter illustrates how the institute has enacted four strategies for encouraging culture change in teaching and learning: (a) rational planning, (b) social interaction, (c) human problem-solving, and (d) use of political power. We also track how debate about the appropriate role and focus of the teaching and learning centre has caused a pendulum to swing between several poles: (a) between a micro focus on the expressed needs of individual educators and a macro focus on systemic institutional change, (b) between prioritization of local service delivery and an international reputation for innovative research into teaching and learning and (c) between facilitation of change behind the scenes and pursuit of greater recognition. We reflect on why it might be important to know our history, particularly the problematic capitalist and settler colonial interests that initially funded the institute, and what this history teaches us. We end by amplifying the importance of vision, focus, and acting on areas of historical neglect as the institute plans for the future.

“I hate to be cynical about technology, but I've seen too much of it not driven by pedagogy”

Will Teal — 2022-12-07

This chapter recovers and reflects on nearly 65 years of instructional uses of technology at McMaster University, from the launch of McMaster’s remote television learning experiment in the 1960s, to the rapid mass-migration onto virtual environments during the COVID-19 pandemic. We draw on archival material, literature on educational technologies (edtech) published by McMaster educators, oral history interviews, and some of our own experiences with edtech to review four eras of evolution: Initial Experimentation (1958-1969), Early Adoption (1970-1989), Centralized Infrastructure (1990-2009), and Ubiquity of Online Learning Technologies (2010-2020). Rather than a comprehensive listing of changing tech, we focus on themes that have repeated over time in the human and social context surrounding educational technology development and use. We end by discussing how we might carry lessons from the pandemic into the university’s strategy for digital learning.

Problem-based learning at McMaster’s Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine

Jonathan Sherbino — 2022-12-07

This chapter describes how problem-based learning (PBL) was developed and implemented at the McMaster Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine. Key leaders in its development, the basic educational design and philosophy of PBL, the dissemination and adoption of PBL outside of McMaster, and the four curricular models of PBL over the ensuing 5 decades at McMaster are explored. The chapter ends by considering the evidence of effectiveness of PBL, which is mixed. Despite several program evaluations, the impact of PBL on clinical performance is equivocal. While self-assessment of the utility of PBL suggests a benefit, this finding is not supported by supervisor assessments or objective assessments such as licensing examinations. The complexity of PBL, as an educational intervention, requires program evaluations that measure what works, where, and how.

Program for Faculty Development in the Faculty of Health Sciences

Teresa Chan — 2022-12-07

The Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) has long believed in the power of faculty development. Arising originally in the 1970s to serve the need of upskilling physician teachers within the new medical school, the McMaster University FHS Program for Faculty Development (PFD) has helped to translate the latest and greatest health professions education (HPE) innovations into faculty action for decades. This chapter offers a written account of the PFD based on an oral history generated by the living directors and assistant deans that have served to develop, foster, and maintain the FHS PFD to date. Key themes from PFD evolution include faculty development as a vehicle for curricular change, the application of evidence, a mechanism for supporting faculty leaders, and an organizational mandate. The chapter ends with a review of present-day shifts in the PFD brought about by amalgamation and the global pandemic and concludes with a synthesis of five key tenets to guide the PFD’s future.

Ivy-covered professors seek greener pastures for students

E. E. Daniel — 2022-12-07

N/A

From Molière to global justice

Gary Warner — 2022-12-07

This chapter traces the transformative exploration of new horizons in the author’s pedagogical journey that opened pathways to students for independent critical thinking, engaged learning, and ethical engagement for the common good. From dispenser of knowledge to undergraduate students as a new French professor at McMaster University to subsequently teaching at the graduate level in his specialization with smaller classes and more student engagement, the author developed a more interactive pedagogical perspective. A rekindled prior interest in francophone African and Caribbean literature led to the pioneering launch of courses in this new field, with the graduate course later becoming a pillar of the department’s doctoral program. A series of international experiences seeded a further pivot to international development and new courses using problem- and inquiry-based approaches. Persistent themes in the evolution of the author’s pedagogical practice are the interplay of academic and community-based experience, critical student engagement, and a moral vision of global citizenship.

40+ years enhancing disabled student learning experiences at McMaster University

Alise de Bie — 2022-12-07

People at McMaster University have been engaging in access work—the labour of proactively enhancing accessibility for persons with disabilities—for decades. In this chapter, we contribute to the recognition and preservation of these efforts by documenting forms of often invisible “behind-the-scenes” accessibility work that support disabled student learning experiences. We do so by sharing interconnected reflective snapshots from nine disabled and nondisabled students, alumni, staff, and educators. We argue that enhancing accessibility in teaching and learning is not just about physical accessibility, legislative compliance, or the domains of the classroom, course content, or the student-instructor relationship. Accessible education also requires the creation of a campus environment where everyone is embedded in relations that make access work possible and sustainable: community, paid employment, colleagueship, friendship, and mentorship. Several themes echo across our interconnected web of accessibility histories, including different change strategies adopted based on diverse positions, timing within the university, and individual needs, skills, and motivations for involvement. Overall, this chapter sheds light on several dimensions and evolutions of access work over the last 40+ years at McMaster University.

“I guess I’m not alone in this”

Madison Brockbank — 2022-12-07

This chapter details the findings of our critical race theory-informed study, which explored how pedagogy can adapt to create, foster, prioritize, and sustain safety for racialized students in the classroom. We invited racialized students to participate in a focus group which researchers designed to be a safe space, unpack their experiences of tokenization, harm, and exclusion in the classroom. Participants described the (a) systemic issues within white-streamed pedagogy, (b) the significance of uncompensated and unrecognized labour in the classroom, (c) classroom experiences of harm, and (d) long-term emotional and academic impacts of racial trauma. Drawing from their recommendations, we emphasize the production of counter-stories that centre the need for safer and more inclusive classrooms within post-secondary institutions. Recommendations offered from participants include ways the administration can materially invest in the safety and well-being of students of colour; implications oriented to instructors, staff, and white- identified students in making classroom spaces more equitable; and reflexive-learning and educational opportunities to change language, curriculum, discourse, and interactions across the institution.

Strengthening community-campus partnerships to address planetary health challenges

Owen Luo — 2022-12-07

Universities do not adequately prepare learners to tackle planetary health challenges, including the intersecting crises of wealth inequality, racism, and climate change. Community-engaged education represents an opportunity to strengthen the critical consciousness of students and their sense of civic and planetary responsibility. In this chapter, the authors draw upon their learning experiences at McMaster University and beyond to develop a set of evidence-informed suggestions to embed planetary health-promoting, community-engaged learning opportunities in higher education institutions.

Social, equitable, collaborative

Andrea Zeffiro — 2022-08-30

In the 10 years since its founding in 2012, the Lewis and Ruth Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship has become a hub through which expertise and resources are shared with the campus community and anyone seeking to do more with digital scholarship. In this chapter, we explore how the centre has leveraged its involvement in teaching and learning to build a community to support the needs of researchers, mentor and develop the talents of emerging scholars, and produce unique programming to make learning about digital scholarship accessible. We share the core values of teaching and learning that guide programming, services, and activities at the centre, prioritizing the social before the technological, striving for equitability of access, and being collaborative by design. The goal of our chapter is to demonstrate how approaching teaching and learning in a way that prioritizes social connections and relationships, a critical engagement with digital technologies, and relational accountability has enabled the centre to iteratively build a reciprocal model of engagement that continues to adapt to the evolving role of digital scholarship in the McMaster community.

Gathering

Jee Su Suh — 2022-12-07

In this chapter, we gathered and synthesized deeply personal stories from established scholars at McMaster University and beyond on conducting scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). In the spirit of learning from one another’s individual experiences and motivations, we utilized collaborative autoethnography to connect the individual to the collective and knit together testimonials representing all six faculties. Specifically, we highlight how the concept of “gathering” can be accessed in several different ways to illustrate (a) how conversations drive curiosity and innovation, (b) how individuals from diverse backgrounds and expertise come together to collaborate and create new and emergent knowledge, and (c) how instructors can support one another to experiment, play, and take risks in a safe environment. We shine a light on how McMaster’s newly released teaching and learning strategy, “Partnered in Teaching and Learning: McMaster’s Teaching and Learning Strategy 2021–2026,” recognizes and promotes several principles and practices that SoTL practitioners at McMaster have been quietly undertaking for some time. Finally, these stories highlight recommendations and paths forward that will get us closer to our goal of achieving teaching excellence.

Teaching excellently

Rebecca Taylor — 2022-12-07

For decades, the notion of teaching excellence has had a place in both informal and formal discourses about the quality of teaching at McMaster University. But what does teaching excellently entail, exactly? How is this defined, measured, and rewarded? This chapter seeks to explore how teaching excellence is defined and evaluated at McMaster University, particularly in the context of the evaluation of faculty teaching. First, a review of several historical and contemporary examples of how teaching excellence has shown up in McMaster documents will be presented. Then, interviews conducted in 2021 with McMaster students, staff, faculty, and senior administrators about their current perceptions of teaching excellence and assessment of teaching excellence—which speak to change over time, current considerations, and future directions—will be presented. Finally, the implications surrounding the understanding and assessment of teaching excellence at McMaster will be explored.

Supporting student success beyond the classroom

Sean Beaudette — 2022-12-07

The McMaster Student Success Centre celebrated its 10-year anniversary in 2020. Drawing upon student development theory (Chickering, 1969; Strayhorn, 2018), this chapter reflects upon the centre’s years of supporting student success and belonging at McMaster University, as well as the ways in which learning beyond the classroom helps facilitate student exploration of identity, values, skills, confidence, resilience, and potential. Discussed from the lens of student affairs professionals, topics within this chapter include the following: orientation and transition support, academic skills development, international student support and global opportunities, leadership development, and career planning and experiential learning.

Student voices from the classroom

Bre-Anna Owusu — 2022-12-07

The voices in this anthology thus far have largely omitted student stories about teaching and learning at McMaster. In response, this chapter is authored by current undergraduate and graduate students including recent alumni and teaching assistants who contributed to the student peer review team for the anthology, Where Learning Deeply Matters: Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future of Teaching at McMaster University. Our reflections in this concluding chapter—spanning issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion; student-instructor collaboration in online learning; accessibility; differential opportunities afforded to those in large enrolment programs; and integrating experiential learning into curriculum and program design—arise from personal student experiences but also amplify connections we felt with the themes discussed throughout the anthology. The urgency of our reflections, particularly as they come from underrepresented learners and teaching assistants, points towards the importance of respecting and listening to student voices. If taken into consideration, these perspectives, coupled with McMaster’s ongoing work to advance equity, diversity, and inclusion and to create an enriched culture to reflect its community, will undoubtedly guide the university towards cultivating an environment where “learning deeply matters.”

The people behind the process

Amy Gullage — 2022-12-07

This chapter offers a brief history of the first 10 years of the Institutional Quality Assurance Process (IQAP) at McMaster University. Interviews with two senior administrators and six staff were conducted. These interviews highlight how the participants began their involvement with the Institutional Quality Assurance Process and what changes they have observed over time. The participants’ reflections demonstrate the importance of a reflective and improvement-based approach to quality assurance that focuses on student learning experiences. The interviews also provide insight into the possibilities and challenges that have arisen as IQAP supports have become increasingly embedded within the MacPherson Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Excellence in Teaching. Lastly, the value of rapport in multi-unit partnerships on campus and how quality assurance work centres on enhancing student learning at McMaster is also discussed.

Education for education workers

Brad Walchuk — 2022-12-07

This chapter focuses on training for academic workers from an employment-centric lens and examines the role that trade unions, such as the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 3906 Unit 1 (representing primarily teaching assistants), play in advocating for training for academic workers at McMaster University. While many other contributions in this volume approach training from a pedagogical lens and examine the role that training plays in cultivating an environment where innovative approaches are developed and teaching and learning are properly valued, this discussion examines training primarily in the context of an employer-employee relationship though a lens of collective bargaining. In recent rounds of collective bargaining, most notably for teaching assistants in 2019, CUPE tabled and secured language to implement a comprehensive, mandatory, and paid training program. This represents the most meaningful inclusion of pedagogical training in collective agreements bargained by Local 3906 since teaching assistants at McMaster first unionized in 1979. This article seeks to contextualize and explain how collective bargaining has facilitated increased awareness of, and access to, pedagogical training for thousands of academic workers.

Beyond combining two cultures

Elizabeth Marquis — 2022-12-07

The Arts & Science Program, an interdisciplinary undergraduate program that emphasizes inquiry-based learning, social engagement, and the development of essential scholarly skills, celebrated its 40^th anniversary in 2021–22. Following the example of Combining Two Cultures (Jenkins, Ferrier, & Ross, 2004), and informed by published reflections and our own experiences in the program, this chapter describes key developments in Arts & Science’s recent history and reflects critically on some of its successes as well as on tensions and challenges it continues to navigate. While the chapter focuses on the particular trajectory of this unique program, which has been an important part of McMaster’s teaching and learning community for four decades, its broader relevance emerges as we attend to significant questions of interdisciplinary education and imagine possibilities and priorities for the future.

Innovating, integrating, and influencing

Sarah L. Symons — 2022-12-07

McMaster University’s Honours Integrated Science Program (iSci) was the first 4-year integrated science degree program in Canada. It is research-based, both in its pedagogical design as well as in how the students learn in program. This chapter will describe the development, delivery, refinement, and achievements of iSci since before the first cohort were accepted (2009) up to the present. We approach this through the lens of influence—the influences on the program and the program’s influence on external programs and approaches, highlighting the program as a pedagogically innovative and ground-breaking undergraduate science degree. We will concentrate upon four main areas that are indicative of iSci’s innovative structure and approach: (a) the way we achieve and embody integration and interdisciplinarity with our custom pedagogical model; (b) our focus on communication and collaboration—between students and across cohorts, between instructors through active co-teaching, as well as openly among students and instructors; (c) the role and results of science literacy (in its broadest definition) being at the core of the program; and (d) the expected and emergent results of our decade-long, longitudinal pedagogical research study. The development of the iSci Program is iterative and on-going; it integrates influences and innovations, both internal and external, responding to the changing interests and needs of students, instructors, and the global landscape of higher education.

Teaching and learning for new futures and better lives

Lorraine Carter — 2022-12-07

The purpose of McMaster Continuing Education (MCE) is to serve non-traditional learners—often called adult learners—as they seek ways to advance their careers and pursue their love of lifelong learning. Like others who attend university, these learners deserve the best we have to offer. Recognizing this goal, the reader is invited to learn about themes that characterize continuing education in Canada and the earliest days of continuing education at McMaster University. The reader is also invited to reflect on how MCE has advanced learning for adults since 2016 when new leadership and a new strategic plan guided its development. Last, this chapter positions MCE as a leader in the use of innovative learning strategies and explores how it was well equipped when the global pandemic of 2020 challenged educational institutions around the world. How MCE navigated its transition to remote learning for students and educators prior to the pandemic and its plans for teaching and learning in post-pandemic times may be helpful to other units wanting to nurture some of the practices MCE discovered during the pandemic.

The evolution of online course development at McMaster Continuing Education

Michael Clemens — 2022-12-07

This reflective piece charts the evolution of McMaster’s Continuing Education online course development team, with the aim of drawing out a series of broader lessons about the changing nature of teaching and learning in the digital domain. The first lesson is the importance of a professed commitment to teaching and learning innovation and attendant instructor development and support with a dedicated staff of digital learning experts. Second is the necessity of remaining nimbly responsive in the face of a rapidly evolving higher education (and wider societal) landscape, to ensure that the full potential of both instructors and learners can be continually realized in an environment where change is the only constant. The third lesson addresses the value of leveraging this institutional capacity to tap into and establish an active presence of collaboration around innovation in post-secondary teaching and learning. In short, the following account of McMaster Continuing Education’s ongoing journey through the challenging terrain of online learning yields productive insights for committed educators across all branches of post-secondary teaching and learning.

The evolution of the Finite Element Analysis course

Seshasai Srinivasan — 2022-12-07

In this work, I, the chair of the Software Engineering program at the W Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology at McMaster University, reflect on the evolution that has happened through an undergraduate engineering course, Finite Element Analysis, over the past 10 years at the W Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology at McMaster University. I present a chronological sequence of transformations in this course based on internal and external influences. First, I outline the initial focus of the course on applied software skills training, which was advocated by industry partners and aligned with a college partnership, to ensure that students were employable in the automotive and aerospace industry almost immediately upon graduation. I then describe and reflect on two periods of significant change: (a) the enhancement of theoretical content to meet the accreditation and licensing requirements of Professional Engineers Ontario and to prepare students for graduate studies and (b) a recent push to graduate human-centric engineers capable of undertaking engineering work that considers technical, as well as social, human, and environmental issues. I also share my vision for future improvements to ensure that graduates have all the desired competencies. This reflection would serve as a good reference for anyone who wants to undertake such transformations in their course.

The evolution of experiential learning in the Faculty of Engineering

Robert Vladimir Fleisig — 2022-12-07

Experiential-based learning in engineering education is nearly synonymous with student-centred, hands-on learning using design projects. The pedagogical model adopted by pioneers of this kind of learning in engineering is one step removed from lecture-based classes. That is, the pencil and paper assignment is simply replaced with a hands-on experience with little or no change in the learning outcomes, methods of assessment, and learner-support strategies. This paper argues that this pedagogical model has outlived its usefulness. Experiential learning ought to be employed as a means to train students in durable mindsets, behaviours, and ways of thinking. Just offering students a hands-on experience is not sufficient. In short, there is a need for a new way to think about experiential education in engineering. This reflective essay maps out the journey of one engineering educator’s rogue experiment with experiential education to new ways of thinking about it.