Teaching Strides is back!

Politics, socio-cultural climates, oppression, and anti-racism are all disciplines that come into play in a women's and gender studies course. But Maki Motapanyane, an associate professor in Mount Royal's department of women's and gender studies, takes the conversation beyond readings and lectures and asks her students to position themselves within the context of the issues.

How much do we rely on Google Maps to get around? How do we track the way viruses spread? Can Twitter be used to address local issues? These are all questions Dr. Lynn Moorman, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and in the Department of General Education, says can be answered by thinking spatially — a concept you don't need a background in science to get behind!

Libraries may be a space for keeping knowledge, but how often do we think about who is creating it? Jessie Loyer is the anthropology and Indigenous studies relations liaison at the Riddel Library and Learning Centre. She's worked with students to help them develop their research skills but goes beyond that and asks them to think ethically about their sources. In this episode, we explore truth and reconciliation, interconnectedness and how libraries have played into both.

For more information, visit teachingstrides.caYou can follow Dr. Olsen on Twitter @KennaOlsenSHOW TRANSCRIPT:Meg Wilcox: (00:00)I'm Meg Wilcox and this is Teaching Strides, MRU faculty daring greatly. In this episode, how Twitter can better help students understand medieval literature. What do popular culture and old English literature have in common? Well, an MRU classroom. Dr Kenna Olsen is a professor in the department of English Languages and Culture. She teaches Old and Middle English Literature, but that doesn't just mean reading the texts. Dr. Olsen brings popular TV shows and social media into the classroom to keep students engaged and that's what we'll be talking about today. Thank you so much for joining me. Kenna Olsen: (00:37)It's amazing to be here, thank you. What a nice introduction!Meg Wilcox: (00:40)So your students have often commented on how enthusiastic you are in the classroom. Do you have a tactic or a reason behind your enthusiasm or is it just there? Kenna Olsen: (00:52)It's just there, it's just there. I can even just think of yesterday I was teaching literature in the age of Chaucer and on the docket was the Friar's tale. And I just get a lot of energy. I think just feeding off of the students, you know, when I can illuminate it for them, something that's in the text that maybe they didn't know was there or weren't quite comfortable with those things. And then just to have that conversation, I don't know, it's so energizing that to me it's just so wonderful when you can say, yes, these are how the pieces fit together. And by the end of a class...it takes me hours to come down after class teaching. So I think it's just my interest in the material and when I can see that the students are generating that same kind of interest, it's just, it's so, it's so wonderful and it just, you know, sparks this energy. So how can you not be enthusiastic about it? Meg Wilcox: (01:42)Well, and you mentioned your enthusiasm for the topic itself and then the students are really into it. Do you think that's rubbing off of you or do you think that it's a chicken and egg thing? Kenna Olsen: (01:52)It's kind of hard to tell. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know where the origin is for that. And maybe you've noticed my egg that there seems to be like a lot of medieval tropes in popular culture. And so I think students come with sometimes like an expectation or an anticipation of what a class might be like. And I really like to turn those expectations upside down and we do a lot of that. And that I think has some, you know, fulfilling conversations. Meg Wilcox: (

For more information, visit teachingstrides.caYou can follow Dr. Rahilly on Twitter @TimRahillySHOW TRANSCRIPT:Meg Wilcox: I'm Meg Wilcox and this is Teaching Strides—MRU faculty daring greatly. In this episode, what exactly is good teaching and how can we support it?It's Dr. Tim Rahilly's first year at school—here at Mount Royal at least. But our new president and vice chancellor has worked across the country from his days studying in Montreal at McGill and Concordia to teaching in Manitoba and BC. He started in administration at Simon Fraser University in 2003 but that doesn't necessarily mean he's given up on teaching. That's what we'll be talking about today. Thank you so much for joining me, Tim.Dr. Tim Rahilly: I'm happy to be here.MW: So first off to you, how would you define good teaching?TR: Wow.MW: I'm just getting to the big stuff.TR: Yeah, nothing's been written about that! I guess in two ways. One, I guess we know that good teaching is that which engages our learners. But I think there's always been a tension between the art and science of, of teaching, especially I think in the postsecondary world. So I think for me I know it's good teaching when I feel that strong sense of engagement and I can see that gleam in students' eyes. And so I think that when done well and we continually challenge each other—students and faculty alike. It's learning for all involved.MW: And when it comes to good teaching at MRU, where do you see it? How do you define it? How do you seek it out?TR: Well, I think for me, I came to Mount Royal University because of its reputation as an undergraduate intensive university and being student-centered. And I have been so impressed with the faculty members and contractors that I have spoken with, in terms of their commitment to teaching. I have not had the opportunity since being here to visit Mount Royal classrooms—to witness this.Although the other day I did have the opportunity to, I guess have a little bit of teaching in the Riddell Library and Learning Center. I watched one of our colleagues kind of give a little mini intervention there for a visiting minister. And it was fantastic and I could see the passion in her eyes. So I think one of the challenges for me is going to be to be able to connect in that manner. And I don't know that every faculty member is going to necessarily want to invite the president into their classroom.MW: Yeah. Let me get a bit more classes under my belt and then I can invite you. But I guess you're already sort of hinting at that idea by being an administrator. You support teaching. You obviously have been a teacher, you've done that work, but now you're, you're sort of looking at the business and on other end of teaching, but not getting a chance to necessarily engage with it yourself. So what are some of the challenges that come with that in your role and things that you were sort of trying to address?TR: Well, I think maybe one of the first challenges for me is that I didn't come up the ranks at Mount Royal university. So I have to draw on my experience from other institutions. Obviously, other institutions do have classes and they do have professors and they do good work. I think for me one of the challenges in representing Mount Royal is to be able to have real experiences to draw on. So that will be something I'll have to work on.I think part of that is for me to make it very evident to all involved in this is that universities are places of collegial governance and, with respect to the good and honest hard work that faculty do, I see myself as their peer. I don't see myself set apart and they tell that story of good instruction and, and I'll have to learn...

For more information, visit teachingstrides.caTo learn more about Otahpiaaki, check out their website.SHOW TRANSCRIPT:Meg Wilcox: I'm Meg Wilcox and this is Teaching Strides—MRU faculty daring greatly. In this episode: how fashion can fuel resistance reconciliation and entrepreneurship.The word “Otapiaaki” is a Blackfoot term for the moment the vamp and moccasin are sewn together, and it's this togetherness that the project hopes to promote. When Spirit River Striped Wolf and Patti Derbeyshire first got started with the project, it was in a Mount Royal classroom. But today we'll talk about how Otapiaaki fashionweek has expanded beyond a club at the Bissett School of Business and is now a space for talented Indigenous creators to show off their work and what reconciliation really means.MW: Patti, Spirit, thank you so much for joining me.Patti Derbyshire: Great to be here.Spirit River Striped Wolf: Yeah, thanks for having us.MW: So Otahpiaaki is coming up very shortly, for someone who maybe has never heard of it before, how would you describe the program?PD: So Otahpiaaki began as a classroom project and really quickly became a social innovation movement. Most folks know us for Indigenous beauty, fashion and design week, which happens every fall. So, this year we go November 5th through 9th. And during that week, we invite Indigenous designers and creatives to Mokinstis. And we put up a series of workshops and they can, be on everything from traditional beading and embroidery through to, we're doing digital sash making this, this year with John Corvette. And then our showcases—so this year on Friday night, um, our fashion showcases and we put up our first four designers and that'll be with the Calgary Philharmonic orchestra and Jeremy Dutcher. And so it's so exciting for us because this is the year of Indigenous language. So to be co-presenting with Jeremy Dutcher who essentially revived his language and he is a celebrated Polaris-winning and Juno-winning musician around that language project. And so what we've done is curate the designers with that project. And then on Saturday night we've got a dozen more designers from treaty seven, treaty eight, treaty six. We've got a couple of special guests coming in from nations the U.S., and that's down at our new central library. So we're looking at about 500 people that night. And if you think of a runway in or New York or France or anything like that Otapiaaki puts on that kind of showcase and these designers come with that caliber of work.MW: So you mentioned that this started as a classroom project obviously what you've described is much bigger. What was the original classroom project?PD: Well, Justin Lewis, who is you know, kind of a long-time friend to this project runs a label called Section 35, so he's based in Vancouver, but he came from [unknown] so kind of mid province here, Cree community. And he came in and did a social innovation presentation. And it's actually become a piece of research that I've gone deep on now, but I'll talk a bit more about that later. But Justin really, really inspired this group of students, by helping them understand that Indigenous design and fashion and producing street wear, which is what he does, is so important to indigenous youth at this point in time, that they can see themselves in their own clothing. They can see themselves in their own language and that design elements really reflect who they are.And this era that we're in right now around truth and reconciliation. So fashion in the context of Section 35 is about seeking truth and literally about young people wearing those truths.MW: And so Spirit, when did y...

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Dr. Trevor DayDr. Trevor Day holds a B.Sc. and a Ph.D. from the University of Calgary. He is an Associate Professor of Physiology at Mount Royal University, where he teaches courses in basic and applied human physiology. His research interests include the integration and interactions between the heart, lungs, brain and kidneys in response to stressors. Professor Day is a recipient of the MRU "Distinguished Faculty Award" and the Faculty of Science and Technology "Excellence in Research and Scholarship Award", the American Physiological Society "ADInstruments Macknight Early Career Innovative Educator Award", the Canadian Science Writers Association "Science in Society Communication Award.”

Dr. Catherine PearlDr. Catherine Pearl teaches in the Department of Marketing, Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation at Mount Royal University. She spent nearly twenty years in industry and ran a registered charity that operated as a social enterprise. She holds a PhD in Social Work from the University of Calgary. Professor Pearl designs teaching and learning experiences that are interactive and experiential. Over the past two years Professor Pearl has designed and piloted 3 of the 9 courses that comprise MRU’s minor in Social Innovation: Facilitating Social Innovation, Social Enterprising, and Civic Innovation. Her recent research explores social entrepreneurship among millennials, case studies on social enterprise, and inter-professional practice and perceptions between social work and business students.