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Karen Belfer - 2015-01-13 - Skype: SFU Surrey/Toronto
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Karen Belfer - 2015-01-13 - Skype: SFU Surrey/Toronto
Simon Fraser University Library
Holly Hendrigan, Interviewer |
SFU Library Oral Histories |
Tech BC Memory Project
Holly Hendrigan, Interviewer |
SFU Library Oral Histories | Tech BC Memory Project
Holly Hendrigan: This is Holly Hendrigan of the TechBC Memory Project. Today is
January 13, 2015 and I am interviewing Karen Belfer, who is the Executive Director of the Ontario College Quality Assurance Service. We are having a conversation via Skype. I am at SFU Surrey and Karen is in Toronto. Hi Karen.Karen Belfer: Hi!
Hendrigan: I'm here to ask you some questions about your experience at the
Technical University of British Columbia which offered classes in Surrey between 1999 and 2002. So first of all, what year did you begin working at TechBC?Karen Belfer: I started working at TechBC in August 1998.
Hendrigan: Ok. Where had you worked before?
Karen Belfer: I had worked before in Mexico, I had just moved to British
Columbia, with my family, and my previous experience was in the Anahuac University in Mexico City where I did my Bachelor’s Degree and my Master's 1:00Degree and my PhD.Hendrigan: Ok, and how did you come to work at TechBC?
Karen Belfer: Well I had just landed in British Columbia and I was looking for
a job. My experience was always in higher education universities. Before I left Mexico, I was the Academic Coordinator of the unit that was responsible for introducing technology into the classroom. And I was looking for a job in the university and I saw the advertisement for TechBC as a Learning Support Associate, teaching business courses, and my Bachelor Degree is in informatics and I thought, Oh that’s a great way of getting into the university system, and I applied for the job.Hendrigan: Ok, and did you have one of those famous or infamous group interviews?
Karen Belfer: Yes, definitely. My first interview for Learning Support
Associate was with two people, but it was just a part-time position. But after a 2:00year I was interviewed for the full-time position and that was a seven-person panel for a Learning Support Associate.Hendrigan: Right and, but were there also other candidates in the room as well?
That were--Karen Belfer: No, there were no candidates in the room for the Learning Support
Associate position.Hendrigan: Ok, alright. And which campus locations did you work in?
Karen Belfer: So I started at the Guildford office. I was employee number 30 so
I started at the very beginning, and then moved to the Surrey Central office--Hendrigan: Right--
Karen Belfer: Later on, and that was the only two offices I worked at.
Hendrigan: Ok. What was it like working in the temporary spaces because they
were--these were still temporary spaces at the time?Karen Belfer: Well, it was very interesting, but because we were all building a
new university, we didn't care that much about the temporary spaces: we were 3:00just happy to be there and collaborating with all interesting people that were there working at TechBC at the time.Hendrigan: Mm-hmm.
Karen Belfer: So for me it was, it was not an issue right? I was just happy to
have a job.Hendrigan: Right. And you're working in North Surrey, did you know much about
Surrey when you had applied for the job?Karen Belfer: No I had no idea [laughs]. Not at all.
Hendrigan: Ok. And--and what did you think about North Surrey and where were
commuting from?Karen Belfer: I was commuting from North Vancouver.
Hendrigan: Mm-hmm.
Karen Belfer: And I didn't think much about it; at the beginning I was just
temporary and I spent a lot of time in the office building and helping faculty organize themselves and then, we did have students in 1998 but they weren't our students; I think they were from a university in Waterloo. I was supporting the delivery of Business and Information Technology courses. And I was just so happy 4:00to have a job and be part of a university that the environment I was working in didn’t matter as much as the work I was doing.Hendrigan: Right, right. So in the early days, you began working at TechBC in
'98. To whom did you report?Karen Belfer: Oh very good question, who did I report to? I don’t remember, I
think I reported to, oh! I reported to Graham [Rodwell.] He was the Director of the Educational ETL, which was Educational Teaching and Learning Unit.Hendrigan: Right.
Karen Belfer: Can't even remember his last name.
Hendrigan: [Laughs].
Karen Belfer: So bad. Sorry Graham.
Hendrigan: [Laughs] That's ok. And what was your first kind of big project you
were working on?Karen Belfer: Well as Learning Support Associate the first
5:00project that I did was develop the TechOne courses, and I was responsible to work with Bert in developing the Probability and Statistics course. It was the only course that was going to be fully online.Hendrigan: Ok.
Karen Belfer: And we developed that course.
Hendrigan: Ok. And, at that time what was TechBC doing differently than what
– what you were doing in Mexico?Karen Belfer: Wow. Well, the first thing that was very different is the whole
educational philosophy, right? The approaches were going to be collaborative, that everything was going to be online available to the students, that it was going to be a very high technology oriented institution, and the idea of this delivery models: the idea that you could create and implement instructional approaches using technology and support them with the creation of templates in the Learning Management System that would support a particular instructional 6:00approach. It was very different. When I left Mexico, we were trying to intro-introduce "Minitab" into Probability and Statistics, right? And the only thing we thought about was, How can students use technology to support their learning? No, this was totally different--this was really changing, using technology to change the way students learn and how faculty teach, and using the most updated instructional approaches that we knew were working at that point in time.Hendrigan: Right. And how easy was it to get faculty involved and on board with
this, these new approaches?Karen Belfer: It was not that easy from the perspective of really getting a
full understanding of what the approach meant, but it was easy because everybody was very open and very willing to learn. I think the challenge was to really 7:00implement the approach the way it was intended and not just implement it because, "Oh they're saying we have to do this and yeah I buy into it, but how does it really work?" But people were very open and they did everything that we suggested they should do and they came to training and they tried. And it was definitely, a very open group of people that really wanted to do very well--Hendrigan: Mm-hmm.
Karen Belfer: And that's why it was very interesting working there.
Hendrigan: Yeah. Have, have you seen this level of cooperation and coordination since?
Karen Belfer: Now that's a very good question. I did work in a unit in UBC,
the Distance Education and Technology Unit before it got amalgamated with TAG, and yes I saw the level of collaboration and cooperation amongst the people that were working there. And a very involved group of faculty that were trying to 8:00introduce technology into their courses so I have seen it before, with a little bit less, say, chaotic timelines attached to it that TechBC had [laughs].Hendrigan: Right. Right. And, and then you, you became an Educational Analyst,
and, what can you tell us what your duties as an Educational Analyst were?Karen Belfer: Well as a Learning Support Associate I really was developing
courses and teaching courses; helping students or the faculty teach courses, or support the faculty in teaching courses. When I became an Educational Analyst the role was to support faculty in implementing the new: the technology and new instructional approaches. So we developed guidelines and frameworks of how to implement the delivery models. We also developed a whole course for training 9:00faculty in the use of new approaches--project management--so it was more a unit responsible for helping faculty become better teachers and better implementers of the ideas of TechBC. The technology; the collaboration; the online learning; electronic use of--electronic collaboration; CMS: that was, at that point in time, very new for most people. We're talking 1998 so.Hendrigan: Yeah. And from the faculty and the students' perspective, what did
those courses look like? How did they, how did you actually implement them when, when you were enrolled in a course as student or if you were teaching the course as a faculty: how did they work?Karen Belfer: Well I can't tell you about all the courses because I didn't see
them, that directly all of them. I can just tell you about the Probability and 10:00Statistics course.Hendrigan: Sure.
Karen Belfer: And, it was the only course that was fully online and it was a
very theoretical course. So the students were really craving some kind of face to face, lab work that they could come to, a classroom and get better support with some of the methodologies and formulas that they were struggling with. We did that about once every two weeks. We did an hour lab, but really it was very interesting: the students, did strong study groups to help each other, and the way I saw it, my responsibility was really to support the students online so if they had a question at 8:00 in the morning or if they had a question at 10:00 at night, I would try to respond and explain something that was very mathematically or very difficult, through an online medium. Email or the CMS. And it was 11:00difficult, but also the students were new; they were trying this, and they really, tried to work with the system as much as we were trying to work with the system. I think I had one of the hardest courses because it was fully online, but overall I think some of the courses worked really well, when there was more of a balance, more of a blended model as you can call it, between face to face and online. I think those courses worked well. The only challenge that we faced was this heavy expectation of collaboration that I think was well taken at the beginning but at some point in time it became a little bit hard for the students to manage so much collaboration in their courses. Because I don't think we truly integrated the time management necessary for collaboration into all the courses and that became a little bit of extra work and extra time that the 12:00students needed to do on their courses, and therefore required more time than a normal workload that they would take in any other institution.Hendrigan: Right. Yeah, the student workloads have come up a few times in the--
Karen Belfer: Yeah [laughs]--
Hendrigan: These interviews, yeah. That's pretty intense. Is, is there
anything else you want to say about your work as an Educational Analyst?Karen Belfer: Well I think it was, very interesting work, I really enjoyed it.
I worked with very, amazing people, Stephanie Chu, Chris Groeneboer, John Nesbit. The IT team was amazing, the people that were developing, Trevor [Bradley] and Paul [Irvine], and I just have very good memories about that time and the work that we were doing and really pushing the educational technology envelope in terms of implementing new approaches and implementing educational technologies. 13:00Hendrigan: Right. And, and then you moved on to Assessment--
Karen Belfer: Yes--
Hendrigan: Is that right? Ok. And what were your main duties as an Assessment Coordinator?
Karen Belfer: [Laughs] Very interesting! One of the main duties that I was
responsible for was: we realized that when you’re creating online courses, the courses become more visible, before you even implement them. So we developed a system called Quality Circles where we would assess the development of a course before it got released. And we would provide feedback to the developers early on in the development to reduce all the challenges that we were seeing about workload and implementation of the computer-mediated communication. Or the collaboration, the collaborative learning amongst the students, and tried to 14:00reduce the challenges that we saw in the first year of the implementation of the TechOne courses. So that was the intent: to evaluate the courses in their origins and try to reduce the challenges that we were seeing later on. That was my main responsibility. I also was responsible for developing the first course evaluation templates, how courses would be evaluated at TechBC, and, develop the-- we were planning for the last year to develop a portfolio strategy that would be the assessment of all the student outcomes for the program. I was responsible for developing that approach. How would portfolios be used for demonstrating accomplishing the outcomes at year four.Hendrigan: Right. And so you were assessing; you were working on both the
assessment of the students-- 15:00Karen Belfer: Yes--
Hendrigan: And also the assessment, the students’ assessment of the courses?
Karen Belfer: Mm-hmm.
Hendrigan: Right.
Karen Belfer: And we were assessing the courses too.
Hendrigan: Mm-hmm.
Karen Belfer: So it was a 365 degree approach to assessment.
Hendrigan: Right.
Karen Belfer: Assessing everything you can assess [laughs].
Hendrigan: Yeah.
Karen Belfer: [Laughs].
Hendrigan: And, I’ve also heard how difficult it was to assess students given
the compressed timeframes of the modular approach, just that the courses were about five weeks long?Karen Belfer: Yes. It was a big challenge and that was part of the Quality
Circles right : to help faculty find the best assessment of learning approaches that would ensure there was fairness to students so there wouldn’t be only one assessment in the term, because that would be unfair: that one test would, or one project would give a final grade for a module, but at the same time to not over assess the students every week just to have five assessment strategies that 16:00would give you an average grade. So helping faculty moderate the level of assessment of learning and the strategies they were using.Hendrigan: Right. And, and I’m also interested in your thoughts about
assessing work in online courses. From what I’ve heard, the students were given marks for online participation in the forums, and the feedback I’ve gotten on that is, is, that it was, it was difficult both for the faculty to be able to assess participation but also difficult for the students to be assessed in that realm as well. Can you comment on that?Karen Belfer: Yeah, when we started there was not much written about assessing
online communication, right? So we were trying to develop something that wouldn’t be too overwhelming for the students, but it would help faculty 17:00measure interaction, discussion and leadership and all the things that we were expecting to see in those courses. We got very creative: we developed a few rubrics; we had rubrics for Business, and rubrics for Interactive Arts of how to assess communication. Nevertheless it was very challenging both for faculty, and for the students, using and knowing how they were going to be assessed, and for faculty using the rubrics to assess students, participation in those forums.Hendrigan: Yeah.
Karen Belfer: It was not easy.
Hendrigan: No, I mean there’s quality, and quantity right?
Karen Belfer: Yes.
Hendrigan: [Laughs] Yeah, yeah. And, you have to to moderate both I suppose.
Karen Belfer: Yeah, and then it becomes a big workload right, for all the
faculty trying to count how many postings a student has, and then the quality of the postings, and then measure. It’s complicated. Very complicated. 18:00Hendrigan: In online learning today has anybody, in Canada or elsewhere,
figured it out? And how has it changed since, since you were doing the work in the late ‘90s?Karen Belfer: I think at that point in time because there was so much
attention to that way of teaching and learning, we were trying to get everything right and, we developed systems that maybe were a little bit too complex for, what they were intended to do. I do believe that there are still faculty that use rubrics to assess discussion and they’re very complex and very elaborate rubrics, but I also see faculty getting a sense of how people participate and giving overall mark instead of a very well developed rubric that includes both quality and quantity and leadership and collaboration. And so you see a little 19:00bit of both but I think it’s moving more towards the overall participation instead of, well developed, all-encompassing comprehensive rubrics that looks at everything that you’re doing at any point in time when you connect to your computer right?Hendrigan: Yeah, yeah. That’s interesting. Is there anything else you’d
like to say about your work in Assessment at TechBC?Karen Belfer: No, again I think it was, it was great I got to work with Ron
Wakkary whom I reported to at that point in time: we developed an assessment website that helped faculty understand everything that we were doing in the committee. And, it was just--TechBC as an experience--it was a whirlwind, right? It was full of very positive and very innovative and very creative types.Hendrigan: Mm-hmm. Move on a bit to the culture. Can you describe your
20:00experience of the TechBC culture? That you kind of mentioned a bit already but--Karen Belfer: Well, I think there’s kind of a joke about--I think everybody
was hire had a Type A personality, right; we were all doers and we were all trying to do our best and we were all working towards building an institution that we all believed in. So the culture was one of, of excitement and creativity, and also with that personality comes sometimes strong conflict right, because we all want to do our best but we don’t always agree on how to get there. But even those conflicts were, I think, overall very positive and for me at least in my role, again, where I was standing and the work that I was 21:00doing: it always informed my work and it always made it better and helped me better serve the faculty that I was working with and better serve the students and the institution as a whole I think, or I hope.Hendrigan: Right.
Karen Belfer: I hoped.
Hendrigan: Mm-hmm. We’re going to move on to the transition now. What were
the early signs that the university’s days as a stand-alone institution were numbered?Karen Belfer: Very good question. I think it was clear on, for me when they
made the announcement really. I think, when there was this conversation about: "we’re spending too much money and they’re considering merging or, closing and what would that look like?" And, in my role I didn’t hear much earlier than that at all.Hendrigan: Ok. And so do you remember kind of what time, what the date of that
22:00was? Was it--Karen Belfer: I think it was very close to when John Watters came into being
the President. I think very, very close after he started. I think he started maybe August 2001?Hendrigan: Right.
Karen Belfer: And I think it was not much after that, I think two months after
is the first time that we heard about everything that was happening.Hendrigan: Ok. And, how did, did the news get communicated to staff?
Karen Belfer: Well what I recall is that, yeah this is what the government is
thinking, but it was always very optimistic and the, We’re going to, we’re going to reply to this, to this assumption about what’s happening here, and we think that what we have is good enough and we’ll survive; we’re optimistically, positive optimistic or something like that about--Hendrigan: Right--
Karen Belfer: How we’re going to survive and, --
Hendrigan: Mm-hmm.
Karen Belfer: Keep going the way we are.
23:00Hendrigan: Right. So were you involved in the, efforts to retain TechBC’s independence?
Karen Belfer: Not really, I did spend time with the students and listened to
them and maybe went to one or two rallies but, when it was time for the rallies I think for me I knew that the decision was made and there was very little to do. And at that point in time, I focused on: do the best with the time that I had and really focused on doing a good job of what I was doing for whoever it was. We’re going to amalgamate or not, just to keep everything well documented and to do the best that I could till the last day that I was there, that was my goal.Hendrigan: Right, right. And, and when did you leave TechBC?
Karen Belfer: I was part of the second wave so I left TechBC for vacation. I
think it was in June, but I was one of the few ones that got rehired by SFU. 24:00Hendrigan: Ok.
Karen Belfer: So I took vacation but I started my work at SFU.
Hendrigan: Ok, so when you started SFU, were you still at, at then SFU Surrey
then, or did you move to somewhere else?Karen Belfer: I was at SFU Surrey.
Hendrigan: Ok.
Karen Belfer: But I was not an Assessment Coordinator anymore. I think I became
an Instructional Designer or something like that, similar to my Educational Analyst job.Hendrigan: Ok. And you, so you were with the, I think it was called LIDC then?
Karen Belfer: I don’t remember us being attached to LIDC at that point in
time yet, I think we were still, I don’t remember I think we were still Educational Technology and Learning, in TechBC. Not TechBC but SFU Surrey--Hendrigan: Right.
Karen Belfer: And I think the merger with LIDC came a little bit after I left.
Or it, there were talks about the merger, I’m not 100% sure maybe we were LIDC 25:00but we were independent enough that I didn’t, really report to LIDC at that point in time or to David Kaufman I don’t think so.Hendrigan: Right. And how long did you spend at, at, how much time did you
spend at SFU Surrey then?Karen Belfer: I spent only four months.
Hendrigan: Ok. And what, what was that like, being an SFU employee as compared
to TechBC? Was it much different?Karen Belfer: For me it was not much who I reported to, it was the work. I was
the Assessment Coordinator; I was doing a lot of work with faculty in terms of [their] assessment portfolio and then, when it became back to being an instructional designer, it just felt that everything that I had signed off for was not there anymore. And that was mainly; I really wanted to keep focusing on online learning, and keep doing very interesting jobs. And that’s why I moved to UBC, because I knew at that point in time this unit in UBC was fully focused 26:00on online learning and that’s what I really wanted to do. So for me SFU was--it was difficult I have to admit. It was, it felt like I had lost the--I felt that everything that I had worked at TechBC for was in some way lost, and it was hard to make sense of the new environment, the way it was presented. Nothing bad with all the people that I worked with at all. It was just, it wasn’t the same, and, I didn’t buy into; I didn’t see a vision of what this unit was going to be like and what it would entail and I needed a vision and that’s why I needed to--Hendrigan: Right. So you applied for a job at UBC there was a posting-
Karen Belfer: Yes.
Hendrigan: Ok, and, and, can you talk a bit about, just, what the job posting
at UBC was, what you were doing there? 27:00Karen Belfer: I was a Course Developer Designer, and the, main responsibility
was help faculty move their courses online. So courses that have been offered in the university for many years in a face to face mode--our responsibility was to help faculty move them into an online delivery--Hendrigan: Ok.
Karen Belfer: In the Distance Education and Technology Unit.
Hendrigan: Alright. Is that for, was that for all faculties: Medicine, Social
Sciences, Science all that, everything?Karen Belfer: All faculty and we did about twenty to twenty five courses a year
plus maintaining the ones that were already developed. So, I was responsible for about thirty courses; most of the time I was developing an average of two to five a year and was maintaining about twenty.Hendrigan: Mm-hmm. Now this doesn’t actually have a lot to do with, TechBC
and I’m just kinda--Karen Belfer: Yeah.
Hendrigan: Curious and I’ve, I’ve got you on the line so--
Karen Belfer: Yeah.
Hendrigan: Is it different delivering a Humanities course online than it is
28:00delivering say a Probability and Statistics class or a Science class or, can, can you comment on, the, discipline-specific aspects of online course delivery?Karen Belfer: Well, I, I do believe that sometimes it’s, the content is
important, especially the difference between Humanities and Mathematics right. When we were in TechBC in 1997 creating mathematical functions online was almost impossible, you had to convert everything, go to Word, use the equation, and then convert it into a, a graphic and then put in online. And that include an immense amount of time. So delivering a course on online or putting formulas online was very difficult and you had to be very committed. Even to explain how to analyze a formula for a student and plug in numbers would take, half an hour 29:00or an hour answering an email, or much more. So yeah, Arts and Math were very different. But I think, the other thing that I learned when I was at TechBC and UBC is that : as important the content, it's as important to understand the teaching perspective. Because, some approaches worked better with some teachers, and you can’t sometimes convert a teacher from very, being very, content oriented or very traditional in their approach to presentations, to being fully collaborative. So sometimes what you have to do is scaffold that transition to a fully collaborative approach to online learning or to a, or a more collaborative approach to online learning. And therefore it’s, as much about the content as it is about, the faculty that is creating this course and what works with their 30:00teaching philosophy and how to use the technology to better support that teaching philosophy in a way that’s going to help her or him be a good teacher online. But also help the students accomplish the learning outcomes the way they were intended. Or, modify them if we agree that that’s the way the faculty wants to go, and how much to modify them. So there are differences but there are certain approaches that worked for all fields: like I could tell you that, You can definitely do a project-based learning with any field: doesn’t matter if it’s Arts or Sciences: it’s what you ask the students to do with that project. Maybe the end result of that might change, but for me it has become as much as the approach. An approach that measures with the teaching philosophy of that faculty, that at least is developing that course originally. Then you might 31:00modify it for whoever teaches it after.Hendrigan: Thank you. That’s very interesting. We’ll, we’ll talk a bit,
about, legacy and is there any way you can provide a synopsis of what you learned from your time at TechBC that you brought to other institutions?Karen Belfer: Well I definitely learned a lot about online learning, and about
new instructional approaches and how to integrate those and, I learned a lot about, multiple roles and multitasking in a good sense, right, about being humble. About : it doesn’t matter what role you’re playing, you can help and influence and work, in many other roles. And anything I learned from TechBC was: 32:00there was a strong collaboration approach. So it was not one person doing this on the side of their, their tables or desk, it was: everybody had input into how to make things better and I really appreciated that. I was originally just a Learning Support Associate, but I was always called in to give my input into other things that, had more or less to do with my role. And I really appreciated that.Hendrigan: Yeah. Yeah. What are you most proud of as a TechBC pioneer?
Karen Belfer: What am I most proud of? Oh that’s, that’s very interesting,
well I think we accomplished a lot in a very short period of time and, I met amazing people, in the way there, and I created very strong friendships that 33:00have lasted for a long, long time. And everything that I learned there I still use every day. There’s nothing that I learned at TechBC that I don’t use in my current life, either in working with faculty or working with my peers, in assessment. I talk about Quality Circles, that’s what I’m doing right now. I do Quality Circles for the Province of Ontario [laughs].Hendrigan: Oh really.
Karen Belfer: Yeah so, I think TechBC gave me the framework and the basis to do
and to be where I am right now and, all the steps that I took to get here.Hendrigan: Mm-hmm. Do you have any final thoughts or parting words on
TechBC’s legacy?Karen Belfer: Well for me I think it was, it was fun while I lasted. I learned
a lot, and I don’t know what would have happened with TechBC if it continued 34:00to exist. I think we had a very interesting model; at the same time there was things in the model that could have worked better that, because we were so into developing it so fast that maybe we didn’t have the time to implement as much feedback as we could. But I don’t take anything back. I just love what we had and really enjoyed what I learned and the people that I worked with, and if there was an opportunity to engage in a new, new opportunity like that of building something from scratch I would jump into the position. I would jump right in : it was great.Hendrigan: Mm-hmm. Do you know of anybody, any other institution that, is, is
doing anything close to what TechBC was doing?Karen Belfer: Well, I think, and maybe I’m mistaken about this and, I get
35:00very involved in my work and, not get too much involved into other institutions, but I think when Royal Roads started I think that they had some similar ideas about online learning and, reducing the commute for their students and, doing much more of an informed blended learning approach that was worked very well for them. So I do believe that there’s other institutions that, have: I think Royal Roads started right about that time or--Hendrigan: Mm-hmm--
Karen Belfer: Or maybe a little bit earlier, that have done, or taken some of
the, same ideals but have been able to effectively work and put them in place before somebody in the government thought that it was not such a good idea to keep it the way it was.Hendrigan: Right. Right. Is there anything you’d like to say about TechBC
that, that hasn’t come out yet?Karen Belfer: No I don’t think so. I think your questions were very thorough.
36:00Hendrigan: Thank you. Well Karen this has been a great conversation and I truly
appreciate you taking the time to speak with me about your time at TechBC.Karen Belfer: Thank you Holly and good luck with your research.
Hendrigan: Thank you.
Karen Belfer: Have a good one.
Hendrigan: Thanks, you too.
0:00 - Hiring at TechBC / Temporary office space / Surrey at the time
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: So first of all, what year did you begin working at TechBC?
Segment Synopsis: Describes her previous work experience, which was all related to higher education. Talks about why she wanted to work at TechBC and what the hiring process was like. Reflects on how staff did not mind working in the temporary spaces - there were just happy to be part of TechBC.
Keywords: Employment Experience, Employment Interviews, School Location
Subjects:
4:21 - Learning Support Associate position
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: In the early days, you began working at TechBC in '98. To whom did you report?
Segment Synopsis: Describes the work that she was doing as a Learning Support Associate at TechBC, and the reason why TechBC’s approach to online learning was a departure from the norm.
Keywords: Online Courses, Integrated Learning Systems, Educational Technology, Instructional Design
Subjects:
6:36 - Faculty support for innovative pedagogical approaches
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: And how easy was it to get faculty involved and on board with this, these new approaches?
Segment Synopsis: TechBC faculty were very open to trying new things, very co-operative; describes it as similar to an experience working with a unit at UBC.
Keywords: Mandatory Continuing Education, Positive Attitudes, Cooperative Planning
Subjects:
8:17 - Education Analyst position
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: Then you became an Educational Analyst, and, what can you tell us what your duties as an Educational Analyst were?
Segment Synopsis: Describes her position as an Educational Analyst at TechBC: she helped with course development, delivery, training for online courseware, Notes that the online courses relied heavily on collaboration, and incorporated feedback from students.
Keywords:
Subjects:
13:08 - Assessment Coordinator position
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: And what were your main duties as an Assessment Coordinator?
Segment Synopsis: Describes her duties as the Assessment Coordinator at TechBC: reviewed course materials before launching to eliminate potential trouble areas, and developed a strategy to evaluate student portfolios. Speaks to the challenges of developing assessment tools for modular courses, and online courses.
Keywords: Educational Assessment, Minicourses, Educational Assessment
Subjects:
20:06 - TechBC culture
Direct segment link:
21:24 - Rumours of closure / Response
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: We’re going to move on to the transition now. What were the early signs that the university’s days as a stand-alone institution were numbered?
Segment Synopsis: Describes when she knew that TechBC’s days were numbered, how it was communicated to staff - they were urged to remain positive - and how she was not involved in the lobbying that took place in an effort to keep TechBC open.
Keywords: Institutional Survival, Consolidated Schools, Activism
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23:46 - After TechBC
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Partial Transcript: And when did you leave TechBC?
Segment Synopsis: Describes the layoff and hiring process -- after being laid off she went on vacation; on return was rehired by SFU, but in a different role at SFU Surrey. Remained at SFU Surrey only 4 months before moving to UBC, so she could continue her work in assessment and online learning.
Keywords: Job Layoff, Labor Turnover
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27:52 - Online course development
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Partial Transcript: Is it different delivering a Humanities course online than it is delivering, say a Probability and Statistics class or a Science class?
Segment Synopsis: Describes the differences in developing online course materials for humanities and mathematics; reflects on the challenges of representing mathematical formulae online and the time commitment associated with that. Suggests that materials need to be presented using an approach that resonates with the instructor’s teaching style.
Keywords: Online Courses; Personality Traits
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31:17 - TechBC legacy / Closing
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Partial Transcript: Is there any way you can provide a synopsis of what you learned from your time at TechBC that you brought to other institutions?
Segment Synopsis: Reflects on what she learned at TechBC, and the lasting, positive impact of working there. Suggests that working at TechBC gave her the skills she needed to succeed in her current position. Reaffirms that it was an optimistic, fun, collegial place to work. Comments that of any institution, perhaps Royal Roads is adopting an online learning model that is similiar to TechBC’s.
Keywords: Cooperative Planning, Organizational Culture, Positive Attitudes
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