Photo by Luke Porter on Unsplash

It doesn’t matter how old I get, or how long I live away from England, every November 5th my mind floats back to the childhood rhyme, “Remember, remember, the 5th November, gunpowder, treason and plot.” A testament to the power of story, a theme I keep returning to in these posts. Next week we have our November Story Circle and although we don’t have a visiting story teller available, we will be encouraging everyone to share ‘their stories,’ whether it’s tales of this term, or tales growing up. This week we also had another planning meeting for the Human Library Event. I’m seeing the ‘value in action’ of having a diverse group of people come together to plan for this (faculty, admin, students, technical staff). Lots to do still but we’re on track to deliver this 1-week event in February.

Much of this week has been spent exploring existing resources to support Student Success. Every institution I’ve researched (15 so far), takes a different approach, however there are some commonalities and I’m honing in on those. It’s interesting to me that only one institution of those 15 has anything on developing intercultural fluency, (‘Developing Intercultural Skills for A Diverse Campus’). For students to be successful both at college and in the workplace, they need to have the communication skills that support engaging confidently and openly across diversity. I’m looking forward to chatting with someone from that college next week to find out more about their Intercultural skills course.

We’re all set for International Education Week beginning November 16th. It’s helped this time around, having several of us collaborating on the calendar of events. We have a bunch of engaged students helping and fingers crossed for a good turnout to our various sessions.

On Thursday I attended a webinar on Rethinking EdTech: The New Standards of Online Learning. Most of what I heard wasn’t new, more that it confirmed what most of us have experienced the past 18 months. There were a couple of points of note. One was the idea of moving away from the labels ‘traditional’ and ‘non-traditional’ student and using ‘NEW’ student – ‘Numerous Educational Ways.’ As our students’ experiences change, I agree that it’s important to continue to find meaningful language that reflects those experiences. Another point was the need for some kind of benchmark / baseline for online education. The presenters identified 3 areas: consistency, engagement and interest. That’s what we’re working on at the College – something that could not have happened the days before we had a Centre for Teaching and Learning Innovation.

This was my last week for my professional development course Leadership in Intercultural Contexts. It’s been a fascinating course and I’ve learnt a lot of new stuff, along with learning more about myself. To finish up, we were asked to reflect on our learning. Apart from realizing I do have a leadership role in what I do, I’ve identified some skills I want to work on (e.g., networking, coalition building) that I’ll incorporate into the revisions of my PD plan.

Next week, it’s all about Student Success.