Humber NEXT Magazine Issue 4

Spring/Summer 2015

ONLINE AND ON THE ROAD Humber’s new mobile Usability Lab revolutionizes research into web design

MASTERS OF DISASTERS International Development students learn how to handle worst-case scenarios

Ask Next Our new advice column tackles some tricky teaching issues

“This is a great time to be at Humber because there’s so much growth going on.”

– Heidi Marsh, Director, Scholarship of Teaching & Learning

Contents 3

Letter from Eileen

4

The Lakeshore Newsroom

8

Humber Shines at the Junos

10

Meet Heidi Marsh

12

The New Usability Lab

14

Using YouTube to Get Students Hired

16

International Development’s Disaster Simulations

18

Improvisation in the Classroom

20

Teaching Difficult Concepts with Google Glass

22

The Annual Student Photo Exhibition

31

Award-Winning Humber Students and Faculty

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Ask NEXT

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10

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14

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A special thank you for your creative contributions:

Editor:

Luke Alexander Journalism student

Nathan Whitlock Managing Editor, Humber Press

Melissa Krikke Journalism student

Graphic Designer:

Erik McLaren Journalism student

Cover Photo courtesy of David Scott

Dekel Chui Graphics Designer, The Centre for Teaching & Learning Web and Media: Darren Richards Manager, Creative Productions, The Centre for Teaching & Learning

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Letter from Eileen

The 2014/15 academic year has been an exciting one.

Reflecting upon the accomplishments of this past year, I continue to be amazed at the capacity of Humber’s faculty to push the boundaries of excellence and innovation. As of late, it has become obvious that more and more faculty are embracing the values espoused in an innovative culture. By engaging in experimentation and play, we have seen a resurgence of creativity in teaching and learning. Stories of faculty using Lego in their teaching, or experimenting with 3D printers and Google Glass, are becoming commonplace. Faculty’s use of non-traditional teaching methods extend beyond the classroom and include methods and techniques such as the use of mobile units and full-scale, multi-day, immersive simulations that prepare our students for the world of work.

In their pursuit of excellence, faculty have become skilled at the art of inquiry, questioning their techniques while looking for evidence and cues that the chosen method is having an impact on learning. Collaborating in Communities of Practice (CoPs), faculty are sharing and pooling new ideas, exploring high-impact practices and experimenting in their living labs (classrooms). It is an exciting time to be an educator – but don’t take my word for it: just look inside this edition of NEXT to see what I am talking about.

I am extremely proud to be in the company of such a committed and progressive group of educators. As we close off this academic year, I am filled with excitement and anticipation and look forward to celebrating the many accomplishments of our faculty and students in the coming year.

Eileen de Courcy Associate Vice President, Teaching & Learning | 3

Room with a View

The Newsroom is a dynamic teaching and learning space created for, and by, journalism students

By NEXT Staff

The journalism department’s Newsroom is a perfect example of this: occupying a large, sunlit area at the top of the Lakeshore campus’s L building, the space is dynamic and ever-changing. It is filled with tables and chairs, whiteboards, computer terminals, television screens, broadcast spaces and equipment. Most of the space is open, though there is an enclosed room for more intensive seminars. (Even that room, however, has glass walls.)

Different classes use the space simultaneously, allowing a group to prepare and edit stories on one side of the room while other students listen to a teacher. Scattered around are areas for smaller groups to work and collaborate. The Newsroom often hosts guest speakers – recent visitors include author Chris Turner and journalists Robyn Doolittle and Melissa Fung. All this activity means the room can get a little noisy – just like a real newsroom. (And some real new organizations have noticed: representatives from Huffington Post Canada came to check the space out as they planned their own open-concept newsroom.)

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Dan Rowe, the program coordinator for Humber’s Journalism degree, says the current layout is the result of an organic process. Originally, all the room had were chairs and tables that could be moved around. Rowe and other faculty watched how students used the space, and slowly began to introduce more permanent fixtures. Rowe notes that the openness of the space creates a sense of community. “We’ve had first- and second-year students say they like to be in here and see what the third-year students are working on,” he says. “It prepares them, and connects them to other students in the program.”

Matt Stevens, the broadcast technologist who oversees the room’s complex day-to-day functioning, says that, even if the desision is made to make some of the layout more permanent, the space will retain its sense of dynamism.

“There’s always something going on in here,” he says.

Photos by Dekel Chui

Traditional classrooms may still work for certain programs and academic disciplines, but more and more, institutions and teachers are looking to create learning spaces that are flexible and organic.

“It prepares them, and connects them to other students in the program.�

- Dan Rowe on The Newsroom

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More than Money

The Business School’s “Beyond GDP” symposium tackles some of the most pressing questions facing the global economic environment

By NEXT Staff

For more than half a century, we have most commonly assessed a country or region’s economic performance through the lens of its Gross Domestic Product, or GDP. The GDP, an aggregate of many different financial factors and resources, can function as a useful snapshot, but it can also be a blunt instrument. GDP measurements leave out a lot of important information, such as: is a country’s economic performance environmentally sustainable? Is it socially responsible? On much simpler (but perhaps more critical) level, are its people happy?

Attendees spent the day listening to remarkably candid speeches and onstage interviews on the issue of national happiness and economic justice, and sat in on intensive sessions that drilled deep into the limits of the GDP paradigm, as well as possible alternatives to it. The day’s proceedings were filmed, and Schroeder is currently working with Humber Press to develop a short documentary about the groundbreaking event.

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Photo courtesy of Steve Bellamy

These were the questions that inspired Kent Schroeder, working with his colleagues in the Business School, to put together “Beyond GDP: Development Alternative to Growth” this past May. The ambitious one-day symposium, held on the Lakeshore campus, welcomed dozens of VIP guests such as the Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell (Ontario’s Lieutenant Governor), the Honourable Jigmi Y. Thinley, (the first democratically elected prime minister of Bhutan), and David Miller (President and CEO of WWF-Canada).

The crowd

David Miller

The Honourable Jigme Y. Thinley

Humber’s Kent Schroeder

Thinley in conversation with the University of Ottawa’s Lauchlan Munro

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Juno What? We’ve Got Real Talent Here Humber faculty and alumni win big at the annual Canadian music awards gala

Humber professor Kirk MacDonald, who’s album Vista Obscura took home the award for Jazz Album of the Year: Solo

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Photo courtesy of Steve Bellamy

By Luke Alexander

It’s nothing new for Humber people to be well represented at awards galas. [See page 31, for example.] But when the gala is the annual Juno Awards presentation, and there are no less than six award-winning albums that feature Humber faculty and alumni, we’re talking about another level of success altogether.

Among the winners this year is jazz saxophonist and Humber professor Kirk MacDonald, whose album Vista Obscura took home the award for Jazz Album of the Year: Solo. Macdonald isn’t a Juno newbie: he won one in 1999, and has been nominated four times since. He claims he wasn’t worried about the award not coming back his way, because with so many great musicians being nominated year after year, it’s an honour just to be in consideration.

Humber faculty members Pat LaBarbera and Neil Swainson also played on Vista Obscura. The album was released by the music label Addo Records, which was founded by Steve Ballamy, the associate dean for Humber’s School of Creative & Performing Arts. Other Humber faculty members involved in Juno award-winning albums were Hilario Duran, Drew Jurecka, and Rosendo ‘Chendy’ Leon, along with Humber grads Ben Spivak and Chris Butcher.

“You’ve got five nominees in one category, and everyone is deserving,” Macdonald says. “It’s a matter of whoever is making these decisions and what are they hearing – in many ways the nomination is the best you could get.”

Macdonald teaches in Humber’s Community Music School as well as the Music degree program. His advice to aspiring musicians is to learn from good teachers, and to put themselves in a situation to create something. “You need to believe in process, you need to do the work, and you need to follow through with it,” he says. | 9

Getting It Right

Heidi Marsh, Humber’s new Director of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, is figuring out the best ways to innovate

Photos by Dekel Chui

By Luke Alexander

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So you’ve introduced a new teaching method in your classroom, and you are excited to see it improve student learning and comprehension. But how do you really know the method works? Innovation and experimentation are hallmarks of Humber’s approach to education, but measuring success can sometimes be a guessing game.

That’s where Dr. Heidi Marsh comes in. As the new Director of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, it’s her job to research what works in the classroom and what doesn’t.

For example: a redesigned classroom or innovative new seating layout could hinder student learning as much as it advances it, but you won’t know until the learning experiences of students can be documented and studied.

Marsh’s task is to investigate questions on how learning best occurs and how to enhance it.

“We want to encourage faculty to innovate, but we want to also know that it’s doing something,” Marsh says. “And if it’s not, then we need to know what could be done better.”

Marsh has a long history of researching learning and teaching across a range of different institutions in North America. She has worked with both primates and small children, studying cognitive and megacognitive behaviour.

And in addition to studying the learning environment at Humber College, she’ll be leading the creation of a new academic journal for which faculty can submit their own teaching and learning research for peer review, as well as organizing a conference to share discoveries with the teaching community.

“This is a great time to be at Humber because there’s so much growth going on,” Marsh says. “People are really embracing change and innovation.”

“People [at Humber] are really embracing change and innovation.”

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Online and On the Road

Humber’s cutting-edge Mobile Usability Lab could change the way we design for the web

By Luke Alexander

Usability testing is the unsung hero of design, ensuring that our interactions with technology are easy and effective. With Humber’s mobile usability lab, students in programs such as Multimedia Design & Development, Web Design & Interactive Media and Web Development will be given the chance to test their creations to ensure that they are not difficult or confusing for users.

The lab is housed within a trailer that can be moved to wherever it may be needed, and even between campuses.

When it is deployed, two sections tucked inside the main body of the trailer are pushed out to create the full lab.

Inside is everything students and faculty need to perform the kind on-site research that is crucial to effective web design and to shift their knowledge base from educated guess to real-world observation.

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“What we want to know, for example, is when someone comes onto the website, where are they looking first?” says Bernie Monette, program co-ordinator for the Web Development program.

The lab includes equipment that records how the user interacts with the screen. This is done with new eyetracking technology to allows testers to determine where users are looking when interacting with a device or website. This takes place within small observation rooms where users can interact with the devices without the testers looking over their shoulders. The testers themselves do the monitoring from a central room where they don’t have to worry about interfering with the results.

Keep an eye out for this trailer-sized innovation.

Photo courtesy of Bernie Monette

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Will Work for Views

Meena Dowlwani and Andrew Ainsworth’s student employment-themed YouTube series gets the job done

By Erik McLaren

Careers professor Meena Dowlwani’s students have a staggering 96% employment rate upon graduation. Once word about her skills got out, other students began to ask her for advice. This eventually became overwhelming, and so Meena began publishing articles on LinkedIn. When she did, Andrew Ainsworth, a Director of Professional and Continuing Education, took notice. Ainsworth, who has worked with the Centre for Teaching & Learning to help faculty use videos as a teaching tool, saw Dowlwani as a perfect fit for YouTube. “I thought her information and message would find an audience in the broader Humber community,” Ainsworth says.

And so they created the “It’s All About Jobs” video series. The series has only a few episodes so far, but it has already covered topics such as how to make a good impression with employers in 30 seconds and how to research and apply for jobs in a smarter way.

The videos themselves are recorded on a webcam. Meena and Andrew sit in the foreground while a group of students sit in the back. The show has the feel of a podcast being recorded, but with some visual flourishes. This has been the format so far, but Ainsworth and Dowlwani are looking to make changes moving forward.

“Part of the process is to discover what the show really is and how to make it better – YouTube affords you the opportunity to experiment,” says Ainsworth. Meena adds: “When we started it was just Andrew and I, then a group of three students, then four, and our next one will have a whole slew of students because we are doing a networking show.”

Though the show’s viewers currently number in the thousands, the eventual goal is to hit one million – on YouTube, it’s all about the views. Given Dowlwani’s success rate, that number is far from unrealistic.

Photos by Dekel Chui

“We’ve been getting amazing reviews from the students and the faculty saying it’s helpful, so I’m hoping we reach more students,” said Dowlwani

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Masters of Disasters

Thanks to Susan McGregor, International Development students learn the best ways to handle the worst situations

By Erik McLaren

In the office of Susan McGregor, coordinator for Humber’s International Development program, there are masks carved from wood and pictures of exotic locales – souvenirs from the years she spent travelling all over the world as a humanitarian aid worker. All of this is overshadowed by a world map speckled with arrows that show where students from the program are interning. Each arrow is labeled with a student’s name, and they cover the map, with students in Ottawa, California, Mexico, Europe, Africa and Asia. Even with so many students working in the field, Susan often gets calls from humanitarian agencies wondering when more will become available.

One major reason Humber student are in such high demand is the disaster simulation exercise McGregor designed as a teaching exercise, and in which each of them take part. The simulation lasts three days and nights, and students are assigned roles based on what real-world agencies would be doing in the field. The country for the simulation is Humbola, a fictional French-speaking island nation that has had a massive earthquake.

Each group in the simulation has only small snippets of information, which mirrors a disaster response in reality.

“The key to the simulation is they don’t have enough information to do their role on their own,” says McGregor.

“They must coordinate, they have to come together to find out how it all works.”

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Though the simulation only lasts three days, it weaves together all the foundations from other classes. The faculty in the simulation play the role of outside governments with money. In order for the students to retain funding for their efforts in Humbola, they have to write proposals, complete budgets and craft press releases. These are things the students would have done for a final project in one class – during the simulation they are doing these things several times in just 72 hours. To top it off, the students occasionally have to rework all of their requests: the fictional external governments in the simulation sometimes fail to produce all the funding that has been asked for, as often happens in the real world.

The simulation is incredibly fast-paced and very intense: tears are not uncommon, but this adds to the reality of the situation for the students. “We want to give them not only the skills, but the emotional stress that’s involved in having to do these tasks when people’s lives are on the line,” McGregor says. “That’s the case in the real world, and that’s what we’re preparing them for.”

In the International Development program, fake disasters are a tool for real success.

“We want to give them not only the skills, but the emotional stress that’s involved in having to do these tasks when people’s lives are on the line.”

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Making It

Up ON The spot

Quick-thinking Humber professors use improvisation techniques in the classroom

By Melissa Krikke

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Students can often be found staring at computer screens and smart phones, but Humber professors are pushing back against technologically assisted detachment, and are finding new ways to engage students through the art of improvisation.

Improvisation is “freedom within a set of rules,” says radiobroadcasting professor Neil Marthur. It offers an opportunity for every student to step away from their laptops and computer screens to communicate with one another. Regardless of the subject matter being taught, improvisation activities, exercises and games can be incredibly helpful in the classroom. “Debate,” for example, is an improvisation game where two groups speak to one another in different ways. Games like “Debate” teach listening skills, and encourage students to be engaged and focused.

Improvisation has been a foundational tool for Marthur.

“If you’re not reading a newscast on the radio,” he says, “you’re improvising behind the microphone every single time. The very nature of improvisation is beneficial in the classroom because with it, you do anything. From learning each other’s names to helping a bunch of disconnected students work together in a group, improvisation can do a variety of things.”

After discussing the potential teaching benefits of improvisation, Marthur and Dan Eng, a fellow faculty

member, spoke to Robin Duke about putting something together to teach faculty about improvisation. Duke is not only a Humber comedy professor at Humber, but an acclaimed comedian and performer who was a cast member on SCTV and Saturday Night Live, and has her own sketch comedy troupe, Women Fully Clothed.

Duke, along with other faculty members (such as Allan Guttmann), has been hosting workshops at the North and Lakeshore campuses to teach professors how to effectively use improvisation in the classroom.

“Improvisation engages a group because everyone is actively listening, thinking and working, recognizing that at any moment you might take a leadership role,” says fundraising management professor Denny Young, who has been successfully employing the technique.

After attending the workshops, professors have been able to get their students to close their laptops and participate more. “One of my computer programming students would come to every class and sit in the corner regardless of my efforts to invite his engagement,” says Eng. After Eng introduced some improv games, things changed for the better: all of a sudden, his quiet student “was smiling and having a lot of fun.”

Despite all the things vying for a student’s attention, a few Humber professors have figured out a way to make even the most reluctant learner an active member of the class.

All they had to do was throw away the script.

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Seeing Things in a New Way

George Paravantes uses Google Glass to help students understand difficult concepts

By Melissa Krikke

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Google Glass is a wearable, hands-free technology that displays information right in front of your eyes. The device is primarily voice-commanded and can take photos as well as record videos.

Though marketed as a device for individual use, Google Glass has a number of classroom uses, especially as a tool to help illustrate and demonstrate tricky concepts to students. Perhaps the most multi-functional element of the device is the first-person recording function: professors can record and post hands-on tutorials and scenarios for students to watch later.

George Paravantes, a professor and the program coordinator for multimedia design & development is one of a few Humber educators who have started introducing Google Glass into their curriculum. Paravantes first used the device in a web design interactive program in which the students were taught about basic electronics and making physical computer prototypes. The instructor wore Google glass and put together a demo, walking students through how to use the computer prototype and how to wire it. “They guided the students along in a practical instruction, showing them their perspective while working with the object,” said Paravantes.

Google Glass’s virtual reality function can also help make abstract concepts more real for students. “It’s really helpful for students to have a visceral experience with certain concepts,” says Paravantes.

As technology, Google Glass is still emerging; its full-scale adoption is way out on the horizon. In the meantime, Humber professors like Paraventes are finding ways to make the reality of wearable tech in the classroom a little less virtual.

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Giving Students the Exposure They Deserve Cathy Bidini showcases a generation of emerging photographers at a downtown gallery

By Melissa Krikke

In April, Humber College’s graduating creative photography class displayed their most impressive work at the Twist Gallery on Queen Street West – right in the heart of Toronto’s Gallery District. More than 2,000 students, friends, family, alumni and photography industry representatives attended the opening reception, lingering over the photos on the wall and the student portfolio displayed on the tables, having a few drinks and snacks, and being entertained by a live jazz band.

“The showcase is something we, as faculty, can do for our students,” says Cathy Bidini, a creative photography professor at Humber. “It’s another way to get their foot in the door in terms of the working world and to give them the exposure they deserve.”

Bidini’s students agree. “In my opinion, there’s no other school that would do this, because no one has the same connections as Humber,” says Stan Jankowski, a graduating student whose piece “Timeless” sold even before the opening reception began. “Being part of Humber’s team, and being part of the portfolio show has been the biggest thing in my photography career so far.”

The annual event, which moved from Humber’s North campus to Twist three years ago, was designed to showcase a generation of emerging photographers in a professionally creative environment, and was located at the downtown gallery for easy access to potential employers, says Bidini. All 76 students of the creative photography program participated. A number of pieces were sold, and some students picked up freelance photography jobs, making the event the perfect mix of art exhibition and real-world industry engagement.

On the next few pages, some of the amazing work created

by Humber students.

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Photo courtesy of David Scott

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Photo courtesy of David Scott

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Photo courtesy of David Scott

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Photo courtesy of David Scott

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Humber For the Win

Humber faculty, students and staff continue to bring home awards. Here are some recent winners.

Bernie Monette (Media Studies and Information Technology) was honoured with the John and Suanne Roueche Excellence Award.

Linda Hill (Social and Community Services) and Richard Mitchell (Liberal Arts and Sciences) both received Awards of Excellence from NISOD.

Paralegal student Fallon Burns was the bronze winner of the Colleges and Institutes Canada (CICan) Student Leadership Award.

Humber was the gold winner of the CICan Internationalization Award.

Humber was also the bronze winner of the CICan Indigenous Award, with much of the credit going to the Shelley Charles and the Aboriginal Resource Centre.

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Ask Next

We tackle some of your trickiest teaching issues

Q

“I am constantly having to compete with my students’ smartphones for their attention – and more often than not, the phones win. I’m no technophobe, but seeing all those eyes and minds focused more on Twitter, Facebook and dozens of incoming texts has me tempted to go medieval on my classes and enforce a no-phone zone. Short of that, what will give me the competitive edge against an army of Androids?”

A

Don’t get mad – get smart. There is a Japanese proverb that goes: “In the struggle between stone and water, in time, the water wins.” I hate to say it, but in this particular scenario, smartphone technology is the water, and you are the stone. You can try and dam the river, but pretty soon the leaks will start, and before you know it you’ll be washed away.

Here’s the good news: smartphones, like water, are very useful, and can become an effective teaching tool. Use the tech instead of banning it. Incorporate them into classroom activities: encourage students to search for information, or have them complete online quizzes and surveys that expand their understanding and engages them with the subject matter.

There are also ways to lessen the distracting power of phones. Establish a few rules of the road in the first week of classes: for example, you can structure the classes so that your traditional lectures are done in shorter chunks, during which all tech must be put away.

And be mobile yourself: move through the room as you teach so as to discourage digital disengagement.

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Q

“I am used to teaching a smallish group of students, but this year, I have a few classes that seem big enough to fill the Air Canada Centre. (I also have a tendency to exaggerate….) I’ve always prided myself on learning all of my students’ names and on engaging with each of them one-on-one as much as I can. How do I do that in an upsized classroom?”

A

The days of the one-room schoolhouse are (mercifully) long gone; with so many young people eager to learn, study and train here, big classrooms are an occasional sight at Humber.

Going big doesn’t have to mean going dumb, however, and there are lots of ways to keep your students engaged and to promote active learning even in a large class. First off, don’t think of them as one big group: as much you can, divide them into smaller groups.

This will make the experience more engaging for both of you. Whenever you can, use technology to enhance that engagement – having learners connecting with you online will give you a better sense of who is who.

And don’t be so hard on yourself: unless you are blessed with a photographic memory, you probably won’t nail down everyone’s name in the first couple of weeks, and the students won’t expect you to. Give yourself some extra time, and always keep a seating plan nearby. Most importantly, stay cool and calm: as every comedian knows, you can own a crowd with nothing more than confidence and a microphone.

Got a question for NEXT? Send a message to HumberPress@Humber.ca | 33

Tell us your story Humber NEXT is an amalgamation of the dynamic work that staff, faculty, and students are producing. This is your magazine. You help define Humber, so let us produce your story.

Share with us your exciting classroom experiences and innovating teaching techniques, and get a chance to be featured in NEXT. We want to fill pages with your vibrant content – with other interviews, events and new initiatives at Humber.

Promote what you’re working on. Speak about your passion for teaching. Share your teaching methodologies.

Illustrate your experiences. Express what motivates you.

Tell us what’s NEXT on the horizon at Humber. Submit your ideas to humberpress@humber.ca

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