Tamara Baldwin Vladimir Chindea
UBC
Introduction to Practice Theories
A UBC Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund Project
About This Course
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Module Instructor
Dr. Alison Taylor
My beliefs about teaching and learning are informed by my own experiences as a student and teacher. As a student, I appreciate teachers who prompt me to critically examine my ideas. The benefits from these learning experiences are not always immediately evident; I think there’s some truth in the saying that “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” The more successful teachers are also those who follow their emotional instincts as well as their lesson plans. As a teacher, I believe that students value integrity and respect from instructors. Therefore, although a certain level of expertise and knowledge is critical, a trusting environment is also a necessary precondition for meaningful interaction. I agree with Stephen Brookfield (“The Skillful Teacher”) that learning is emotionally-filled, particularly when students are challenged to question their views. As Elizabeth Ellsworth suggests, teaching is “a messier and more inconclusive affair than the vast majority of our educational theories and practices make it out to be.” In my view, students’ prior learning and knowledge are important, teaching and learning is highly contextual, and classrooms are potential sites for the co-creation of knowledge.
Module Instructor
Dr. Hongxia Shan
I was born and raised in Mainland China and immigrated to Canada in my adult years. I am a mother, a daughter, a sister, and a wife, blessed with a warm, caring and extended family dispersed across three continents. My individual research activities have focused on (im)migrants’ work, life, and learning experiences. I am not only interested in professional (im)migrants’ changing practices in an increasingly globalized work and life world, but also the social policies, “cultural” discourses and material processes that order and organize peoples’ changing subjectivities, identities, and experiences. In the past seven years, I have presented and published in the fields of lifelong learning, workplace learning and change, emotion learning/work, community development, population health, digital divide, women and contingent work, and immigration and globalization
Design Team
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