I am working on my 7th and 8th courses in the MEd program this term. I'm finishing the program this year (maybe even this spring).
I have always lived in Oshawa, and I've only worked at Durham College - I'm in my 25th academic year (8 years in support staff followed by 17 years teaching full-time). I earned my BA at York University in Administrative Studies (similar to a Business or Commerce program). I've also co-authored 3 textbooks and 2 workbooks for Nelson Publishing in the Office Administration discipline. I'm a lifer in the education business for sure!
For the last two years I've been teaching online, at Durham College this means fully asynchronous. I've been teaching two courses I developed from the ground up: Paranormal and Pseudoscience, and World Mysteries. The courses have a strong underlying theme: critical thinking, an essential employability skill our employers value highly, and one that many of our students need to improve.
Students select their General Education electives from a pool of around 70 courses (every full-time student is required to take Gen Ed). My courses "sell out" - I hook them with the cool content (who isn't interested in near-death experiences, ghosts, ESP, and the like)...and then I teach them science stuff, methodology, evidence evaluation, and how to apply critical thinking to topics they're totally engaged in. I've gotta be honest, I LOVE my job.
Developing courses online at Durham College has been a huge challenge, at the same time it's been really interesting. My MEd courses at UOIT have helped me a lot, in a practical way: learning cool digital tools and using them right away in my courses; developing content that is entirely UDL for our students; and being an online student has taught me what works and what doesn't (from a student perspective). EDUC5101G will no doubt give me lots of new ideas to incorporate.
If you're interested, here's a Snag It screencast video about how my Paranormal and Pseudoscience course works (kind of like a course commercial).
On a personal note, my husband Mark manages to put up with me, and we have two kids, Nick (16) and Rylee (13), and two dogs. Here's a couple pictures :)
I chose Blogger because I've used it in the past, and I like the functionality.
I'm looking forward to this course, and getting to know each of you!
Contact me...
michelle.rivers@durhamcollege.ca
Twitter:@profmichrivers
My replies for two other students for their week 1 posts:
ReplyDelete1: Shannon's post: http://sbrandejs.weebly.com/
My reply: Hi Shannon, I enjoyed reading your post. Stand up paddle boarding wow! :) My son was born July 31 - not sure when your due date is, but you may be having a Leo! I haven't worked in Weebly before other than viewing content, so I'll be interested to get your feedback on how you liked it. Looking forward to working with you.
2: Janet's post: http://janetyg.blogspot.ca/
My reply: Hi Janet, great post - I'm looking forward to working with you, and I'm interested in learning more about corporate training at BMO. It looks like you and I are on the same page with our program completion timelines, perhaps we will graduate together :)
Hi Michelle,
ReplyDeleteI thought I would check out your blog first as we will be working together in our small group. The course you offer looks very interesting! I watched your video and can see why your course 'sells out'!
You sound very busy so you must be a touch happy to be close to finishing your Masters. I'm just at the beginning, with no children and just a full time teaching job i'm finding even one course quite a bit.
Looking forward to working with you :)
Hi Michelle! Wow, you have a very interesting curriculum at Durham. I can see why your classes fill up quickly, you have me hooked! Would love to chat with you about your online teaching at Durham and I can see why this M.Ed program would provide ideas and best practices for you. You are correct in that employers are always looking for that critical thinking capability in their people - I know is is gaining popularity in my workplace.
ReplyDelete