Dr. David Philpott, professor in the Faculty of Education, is a recognized expert in special education and is leading the project along with Elizabeth Chaulk, associate vice-president, learner services, at CNA. The process to date has included a literature review and environmental scan. As well, a series of consultations with more than 260 members of the Memorial community and organizations and individuals throughout the province has just been completed.

“What we’ve heard throughout the consultations is there’s a real interest in looking at how we respond to these students, and in becoming more proactive,” explained Dr. Philpott. “We need to create an ecology of well-being so that we have an environment in which these students can identify their needs and get effective support without fear of stigma or repercussion – creating a more inclusive and healthy campus.”

Now that the information gathering process is complete, Dr. Philpott and Ms. Chaulk will complete a report for Memorial’s associate vice-president academic and CNA’s president that will outline recommendations and a road map toward healthy post-secondary campuses across our province.

“This project is the second of three specific initiatives developed in response to the recommendation of the Teaching and Learning Framework to provide support to academically vulnerable students,” said Dr. Doreen Neville, associate vice-president academic and co-lead on the Teaching and Learning Framework. “An effective institutional response to students with individual learning needs associated with disability(s) and/or mental health will position Memorial University as a leader in the development of inclusive and effective learning environments for all students.”

Memorial presently has services that do support vulnerable students, including the Counseling Centre, Glenn Roy Blundon Centre and the Student Health Centre. The issue, according to Dr. Philpott, is that people aren’t always aware of the services or the referral process.

“Also, the services may not be appropriately scaled,” added Dr. Philpott. “When conducting the environmental scan we included a needs assessment on our campuses, and we’ve discovered that the need for support of vulnerable students has increased. So there are more students with more complex needs than ever before.”

But Dr. Philpott says this is a good thing.

“It means that more students with individual learning needs are graduating the K-12 system with the marks, skills and, more importantly, the confidence to continue on with a post-secondary education.”

However, he cautions that without the appropriate support services in place, drop out rates within the vulnerable student population will remain high.

In order to create a healthy campus for students, Dr. Philpott emphasized the inclusion of staff and faculty and the importance of the role they will play.

“They’re the ones interacting with students,” he said, “so the need to provide training for our staff and faculty is profound. While students with disabilities are the largest population of students seeking supports, mental health is the number one concern not only regionally, but also globally.”

“As mental wellness is one of the most important and challenging issues on university campuses and workplaces in Canada, Memorial is committed to further supporting a culture of psychological safety to enhance the well-being of our employees,” said Stephen Dodge, director of Memorial’s Department of Human Resources. “In fact, on April 29 our department is hosting a leadership forum titled Mental Wellness in the Workplace. This will increase awareness and provide education on the complexities of mental health and wellness in the workplace, in particular from a psychological health and safety, human rights and human resources, and business best practices point of view. This forum is one of many initiatives to be introduced over the coming months.”

Dr. Philpott and Ms. Chaulk plan to have a report submitted by fall 2013. The report will contain recommendations on processes and guidelines that will better ensure an accessible and inclusive post-secondary learning community for all students, faculty and staff.

Over the past year Ms. Westera, together with Distance Education, Learning and Teaching Support (DELTS), created 13 videos for Memorial’s online Nursing 2990 course, Spiritual Dimensions of Nursing Practice. Word soon spread about the videos as distributing companies in Canada, the United States, Australia and Hong Kong are now carrying them. Several of her videos have also been translated into Mandarin for use in China.

“There are very few resources on spirituality and nursing, which is why these videos are in demand,” she explained. “I didn’t set out for it to happen that way, but people heard about them and wanted to purchase them for use in their own courses and curriculum.”

Early in 2012, Ms. Westera embarked on a journey to develop (and redevelop) videos to better engage nursing students on the subject of spirituality in nursing, and to facilitate nurses’ competence in the subject matter when dealing with their patients. Adverse events, such as illness, often stimulate spiritual searching yet, according to Ms. Westera, there is ample evidence in nursing literature that the spiritual element is often ignored in nursing curriculum and practice.

“My goal is for students to feel they have the skills, know what questions to ask and how to respond when asked the “why” question by patients, and to know what spiritual needs are,” she said. “Sometimes nurses are the best people to provide spiritual care as they are with patients 24/7. But nurses are missing this all over the place because they aren’t adequately prepared.”

In teaching spirituality in nursing it was important to Ms. Westera that her students hear the voices of real clients, and video was the medium to do that. By hearing real human stories she felt it would help students connect theory to practice.

“Real patient stories help students to realize that the definition of spirituality is different for each person. And they hear from real patients what they read in the research — it makes the theory come to life. I don’t tell people what to say, and yet both the professionals and patients interviewed reinforce the theories in the literature and research.

“And personally, being able to interview real patients and interact with them on such an intimate level is both inspiring and humbling in many ways. It’s a privilege as nurses to be involved with people as they journey through their experiences.”

The series of videos, which was used during the winter 2013 semester, includes three core videos that address general aspects of spiritual care and assessment, as well as 10 videos that focus on spirituality in relation to specific groups. Some videos focus on spirituality in the context of specific illnesses such as Parkinson’s, addictions, HIV/AIDS and mental health. Others focus on spiritual care in patient groups including children and adolescents, palliative care and life-threatening illness.

This isn’t the first time Ms. Westera has used videos in a course. Since 1999 she has worked with DELTS to create 31 videos.

“I don’t know anything about technology, but as I did more videos I got more ideas,” she said. “I would do lots of research, decide who to interview, arrange interviews and put together the narrations. DELTS would do the video shooting and editing, and use their creativity to help me convey what I wanted to convey in an effective way.”

In addition to spirituality in nursing, Ms. Westera has completed videos for community health nursing, counselling and communication skills, and one video on resilience in health crises, which she co-developed with Doreen Dawe, associate professor in the School of Nursing.

To view Ms. Westera’s nursing video resources, visit www.ucs.mun.ca/~dwestera.

Monday marked the launch of a new video profiling Memorial University’s Teaching and Learning Community (TLC). The video is intended to showcase the diversity within the TLC, which includes all students, educators, staff, and alumni. In September, TLC launched a new website featuring videos of 6 of the 7 concepts captured during MUN’s Teaching and Learning Framework consultative process: engagement, support, inclusive, committed to discovery, outcomes-oriented, and responsive. The new video features groups from across MUN’s varied community, prompting viewers to “join the conversation” about teaching and learning. The new video is available on the TLC site. MUN News Release | TLC website

In September 2012, a new teaching and learning community website was launched which featured videos about six of the seven concepts captured in the teaching and learning community lens – engagement, support, inclusive, committed to discovery, outcomes-oriented, and responsive.

“It was always our intention to do a larger video at the end to tie all of those concepts together and provide a picture of what the teaching and learning community represents,” said Dr. Doreen Neville (co lead for the development of the Teaching and Learning Framework, with Mr. Albert Johnson).

“The sense of community is so pervasive here in Newfoundland and Labrador – building community is what we do,” she continued. “This theme was echoed throughout the consultation sessions that helped inform the university’s Teaching and Learning Framework – it became very evident that the university is a community within a community”.

Mr. Johnson noted that throughout the consultations he was also impressed by how eager the participants were to join the conversation. “We started each session by asking the group to pair off and share their most inspirational teaching and/or learning moment, and the enthusiastic engagement that followed was always inspiring in itself,” he said.

To keep the momentum of those consultations going, all members of the TLC are being encouraged to join the conversation online, through the website, Facebook page, and YouTube channel.

The new video features various groups from across the university’s varied community, prompting viewers to “Join the Conversation” about teaching and learning. Each group conveys the invitation in a different way. For example, the Cheerleaders for the Memorial University Seahawks Varsity teams use a cheer to urge community members to join the conversation while the MUN Festival Choir sings the invitation.

The video will be shared on the TLC Facebook page and other Memorial University group pages and websites. A large number of community members are featured in the videos, and will be encouraged to tag themselves and share the video on their own Facebook pages.

In addition to spreading awareness, the video is part of a larger campaign to increase online engagement through social media tools.

Last fall, a Facebook photo contest prompted community members to submit their photos of their favourite learning spaces and rituals. They were encouraged to tag themselves and share the link on their personal pages. The two photos with the most ‘likes’ received an iPad mini.

“Social media allows us to reach a broader audience and makes it quick and easy for people to share their own experiences and inspirational teaching and learning stories,” Dr. Neville added. These stories remind us all about how important it is to incorporate the concepts captured within the TLC lens to teaching and learning activities at Memorial University.”

To view the new video and join the conversation, visit www.mun.ca/teachingandlearning, www.youtube.com/munteachinglearning, or www.facebook.com/MemorialTLC.

The MUN cheerleaders take part in the TLC video with Sammy Sea Hawk.

The Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) invites proposals for presentations at its 33rd Annual International Conference under the theme “Sustainability: Learning to Live, Learning for Life.” The call for proposals has been extended to Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013 at 11:59 AST.

The conference will feature plenary speakers, workshops, interactive sessions, posters, discussions and research presentations on a wide range of teaching and learning topics.

Conference dates and locations:

June 19, 2013
Preconference workshops at Canadian Coast Guard College – Sydney, NS

June 20-22, 2013
Concurrent sessions at Cape Breton University – Sydney, NS

For additional information about the call, or to submit your proposal online visit the STLHE 2013 conference website.

About STLHE

The Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) is a unique, national organization whose primary focus is to promote the quality of learning at all levels of post-secondary educational institutions.

The annual conference provides a forum for the exchange of ideas and information on post-secondary teaching and learning, and celebrates teaching excellence and educational leadership.

The goal of the contest was to increase online engagement through comments, likes, and shares on the Facebook page. The number of likes before the contest was 64, and when the contest wrapped up the tally was 308.

All members of the TLC are encouraged to “Join the Conversation” about teaching and learning at Memorial; a conversation that was very vibrant during the creation of the university’s Teaching and Learning Framework and continues today.

The two winners were Stephanie Jarvis and Aisha Bakhtia-Hayashida. Ms. Jarvis, a distance education student studying pre-education, submitted a photo of herself studying next to her grandparents’ wood stove in Lawn. Her first-place photo earned a total of 681 ‘likes’, 134 shares, and 62 comments.

Ms. Bakhtia-Hayashida’s photo depicted her favourite study outfit and setting – in her PJs with her laptop on her bed. Her photo earned 581 ‘likes’, 20 shares, and 26 comments.

The winners were selected based on the number of ‘likes’ each photo earned.

Other submissions also featured unique and inspiring locations – from the QEII Library, to cuddling up with a puppy during a service-learning placement, to a root cellar as part of a co-op education field placement.

The two lucky winners walked away with a new iPad mini to enjoy over the holidays.

Check the TLC website (www.mun.ca/teachingandlearning), Facebook page (www.facebook.com/MemorialTLC) and YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/munteachinglearning) for frequent updates and news on teaching and learning at Memorial.

Other online engagement activities for the TLC are planned for 2013, including a video that showcases the diversity of the TLC community at Memorial University and highlights various forms of teaching and learning that occur  at Memorial. The video will be launched in January 2013.

If Memorial’s Teaching and Learning Community lens encourages students and educators to be engaged, responsive and outcomes-oriented, then Dr. Alex Marland, Faculty of Arts, and his students are model citizens.

A new website, Political Science eTips, was developed as a response to complaints from students and instructors, according to Dr. Marland.

Designed by political science students, for political science students at Memorial, visitors can browse through categories titled Research and Writing, In the Classroom, Undergraduate Planning and more to discover what other students have to say about how to succeed in various courses and ways to get involved in student life at Memorial, as well as other beneficial courses, initiatives, programs and services.

As an undergraduate adviser, Dr. Marland has heard from students that they didn’t understand instructors’ expectations and needed customized supports that the university doesn’t offer.

“Senior students would often lament that if only they had known in first year what they know now about studying and navigating Memorial, their experience would have been improved,” he said. “Comments were often made about how RateMyProfessors.com was a useful resource, which is a bit alarming yet understandable.”

A student accesses eTips in The Commons.

Stephanie Roy is now a graduate student at the University of Manitoba and was involved in the creation of Political Science eTips.

From the learner perspective, Ms. Roy felt that the project enhanced her learning experience, as she was able to lead a group of students as they developed content for the site.

“I met a lot of challenges considering we were the first group, it was one of my supervisory experiences and there was little in terms of other examples or other similar projects to view for inspiration,” she said. “What was most enriching was the feedback that Dr. Marland requested about my experience as project lead. I had to identify what worked and what didn’t, and offer possible solutions to the problems I encountered. I was forced to look at and acknowledge my shortcomings but also to actively consider how I would do it in the future.”

Ms. Roy added that her work on the project inspired her to actively seek out all sorts of resources in terms of improving her learning experience, and that the project has increased her expectation in the resources she feels universities and individual departments ought to offer.

From the educator perspective, Dr. Marland feels he grew more aware that even the most enthusiastic undergraduate students need to be guided by someone with more experience.

“It was interesting to see how easy it was for political science students to identify tips such as how to use the library or write a research paper, but they often struggled with the creative and technological side of expressing themselves,” he said.

He added that the website has been a fabulous resource and support tool when students seek help.

“An instructor can simply say, ‘Go check out this website and then let me know if you still have questions.’”

Political Science eTips can be viewed at www.arts.mun.ca/etips.