If you attend Camosun’s upcoming convocation ceremony on June 20 and notice 11 college instructors decked out in Simon Fraser University (SFU) regalia, fear not; you didn’t eat the wrong kind of mushrooms during lunch.
In fact, the grads up on stage who look like instructors wearing the wrong school’s gowns are actually real grads, not hallucinogenic figments of your imagination: they are the first graduating class in SFU’s new Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction.
The new program, which takes place at Camosun College, is a new partnership between the college and the lower mainland university. Tom Roemer, Camosun’s vice president of strategic development, believes that with this kind of training graduates will be highly respected within their disciplines.
“It will create a cadre of highly qualified master vocational/practitioner instructors that have the skills to develop new methodology and infuse modern educational philosophies into vocational and practitioner training,” Roemer said in a press release.
The 11 students graduating from the inaugural year include instructors from the college’s trades, nursing, accounting, personal fitness, and sports management programs. They are set to graduate on June 13 with a Master of Education degree from SFU.
Al van Akker, chair of Camosun’s Architectural Trades Department and a Carpentry Apprenticeship instructor, is one of the students graduating. He says he learned a lot about the “philosophical underpinnings and cultures of curriculum that frame and define the educational context” in his position.
“I have a greater understanding of my students’ educational experiences to date, which helps me to relate to them and more effectively mediate the new material that they learn in my program,” said van Akker.
SFU’s Larry Johnson, assistant director of Community Graduate Programs, says the instructors who were studying in the program impressed him with their level of commitment and care for their students.
“What was surprising about this program was that all of our students are not only interested in learning how to teach their programs, but also how they can help make their own students better citizens in the world, socially, ethically and with respect to the diversity that these individuals bring to their classrooms daily,” says Johnson.
The program’s interdisciplinary approach to learning was one of its strongest aspects, according to students. The mix of different instructors striving towards the same educational goal of a Master’s degree brought them together, despite their respective educational backgrounds.
“I didn’t realize I was prejudiced against the trades and tech instructors,” says Tana Kristjanson, an instructor at Camosun’s School of Business and a student in the program. “I discovered that they are so wise and insightful, and really care about their students. I now realize that I’m basically a trades instructor as well, because I don’t teach a lot of theory at the introductory accounting level, it is rather a lot more skills.”
Other Camosun instructors who graduated this year include Plumbing and Pipe Trades chair and instructor John Gordon and Camosun Automotive instructor Patrick Jones.
The SFU Faculty of Education and Camosun will offer the program again at the college in the summer of 2015. An information session for the program is being held on June 19 from 5–6 pm in Paul 216, Lansdowne.