Inside Con Hall

Innovations in teaching: Inside Con Hall with Kenneth Yip

lanthierj — Fri, 20 May 2016 21:43:25 +0000

Innovations in teaching: Inside Con Hall with Kenneth Yip lanthierj Fri, 05/20/2016 - 17:43

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Krisha Ravikantharaja

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Krisha Ravikantharaja

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Our Community

Inside Con Hall

In just a few weeks, Convocation Hall will begin hosting graduation ceremonies for an expected 13,500 University of Toronto students.

But during the school year Con Hall also serves as the largest classroom at the largest university in Canada.

So what’s it really like to learn in a room with 1,500 fellow students? And what’s it like to teach in that famous rotunda?

In this series, ��˾��ֱ�� News student reporter Krisha Ravikantharaja goes Inside Con Hall to see why some of ��˾��ֱ��’s most popular professors and classes can be found under the dome.

10:00am. Kenneth Yip stands behind the podium, reviewing lecture slides one last time.

10:05am. Yip tucks the wire of his mic into his shirt collar. He takes a quick drink of water.

10:10am. The lights dim and a hush falls over the class. It’s a class of 1,500 students which makes the hush kind of remarkable.

A few quick announcements about tutorial meetings, a brief explanation on his own research on drug discovery – which Yip is sure to clarify is not about “trying to find the new weed or crack, but drugs to treat diseases like cancer” – and it’s straight into the material.

This is Yip’s first lecture at Con Hall this semester, but he has been teaching Animal Physiology (BIO272) and Molecular and Cell Biology (BIO130) in large lecture halls, including Con Hall, since 2010.

Con Hall poses a unique set of challenges, Yip says, but there are strategies that can facilitate great teaching and learning alike. He finds that while his goals remain the same when teaching a class at Con Hall, the strategies he employs are largely different.

“The main goals are the same in terms of imparting new knowledge and trying to making com-plex concepts understandable – all while not putting everyone to sleep. My approach has to be significantly adjusted. It can be very difficult to get a good judgment of what proportion of the class understands the material or is lost. Should I lecture faster or slower? I have to plan to get feedback at specific points (e.g., using clicker questions), rather than just looking around throughout the lecture.”

Today, despite the amount of material that has to be covered, Yip slows his pace and repeats, “the lysosome functions in the degradation of cell parts that are no longer needed.”

Occasionally he makes time for humour: “If you don’t know what photosynthesis is, you can ask a kid in grade four. Actually, check your textbook.” And his efforts to engage them do not go unnoticed by his students.

“He welcomes and anticipates questions, disseminating science in a way that is comprehensible, thought-provoking, and exciting,” says Hilary Pang, a former student of Yip who is now a third-year laboratory medicine and pathobiology specialist and health and disease major. Yip is “approachable and accessible,” Pang says, even in the massive hall.

“Dr. Yip's passion for science combined with his interactive and engaging lectures influenced me to pursue research in order to solve scientific challenges,” she says. “He cares not only about the success of his students but also their well-being. He not only encourages his students to learn but teaches them how to learn in a way that is meaningful and memorable. He simplifies and synthe-sizes complex biological concepts, ensuring that the material he teaches is understandable as well as engaging.”

Yip’s advice to anyone planning to lecture at Con Hall?

“I would recommend that they go sit in on another lecturer, but you don’t want to go listen in on someone who’s too good. I sat in on one of Michelle French’s lectures and felt bad about myself for days.”

Innovations in teaching: Inside Con Hall with Christian Caron

lanthierj — Fri, 20 May 2016 20:12:43 +0000

Innovations in teaching: Inside Con Hall with Christian Caron lanthierj Fri, 05/20/2016 - 16:12

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Krisha Ravikantharaja

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Krisha Ravikantharaja

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Inside Con Hall

Teaching

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“I was scared, to be quite honest”

In just a few weeks, Convocation Hall will begin hosting graduation ceremonies for an expected 13,500 University of Toronto students.

But during the school year Con Hall also serves as the largest classroom at the largest university in Canada.

So what’s it really like to learn in a room with 1,500 fellow students? And what’s it like to teach in that famous rotunda?

“When you start out, it’s a room full of strangers,” Christian Caron says.

A really big room. Filled with about 1,500 strangers.

When Caron began teaching Introduction to Sociology (SOC101Y1) in Convocation Hall he says the prospect of such a large class and such a huge space was frightening.

“I had taught classes of 400 or 450 students before teaching in Con Hall, but there’s something different about the size,” Caron says. “I feel very comfortable with public speaking, but something about being in Con Hall brought back the nerves, the fright, the ‘oh my gosh, I’m not prepared,’ the butterflies that I used to have back in high school. I was scared, to be quite honest.”

An expert in sociology, Caron says his first line of attack was to look at the class as a bureaucracy.

“You’re trying to take advantage of all the best practices but knowing that at the end of the day you want the students to be able to connect. It’s about trying to create some energy in the two hours that we’re there, so it becomes interesting to come and it feels like you’re getting something different than reading the textbook or listening to a recording.”

Caron says he has learned to ask himself what is possible at Con Hall, rather than what isn’t.

“It’s important not to treat this like ‘well, I can’t do x, y and z, it’s too big. You see Con Hall with all of these limitations, and very few people think Con Hall is necessarily an ideal learning environment – especially if you could choose to only have classes with 30 or 40 students. But these limitations are not set.

“In fact, there are benefits sometimes to having that many students. If I open the floor up for 15 minutes of conversation, there’s such a diversity of students, you’ll get 15 or 20 hands of people who are willing to comment or make a reflection.”

Emily Kot is a second-year student who took SOC101 with Caron in her first year. She also worked with Caron as a research assistant through the Research Opportunity Program, examining the pedagogy of sociology.

When Caron talked about adapting his teaching style to the large introductory courses “he was very passionate about trying to make the course meaningful to every student in the class – regardless of whether they were hoping to pursue a sociology specialist or just taking it as a breadth requirement,” Kot says.

For students who, like Kot, found the idea of office hours “daunting”, Caron had alternative measures in place so students could approach him for help.

“What really helped within the large size context was his Twitter account, as strange as it sounds. I tweeted several questions at him very late the night before a major assignment was due because I’d left starting it far too late, and he responded almost immediately. It was great to have that kind of support.”

Fellow second-year student Nabi Dressler says Caron’s dedication to student engagement also shows in his use of iClickers and online discussion boards.

“This was my largest course but I felt more connected with the material and course topics in SOC101 than with courses with fewer students.”

But keeping students engaged doesn’t mean sacrificing academic rigour, Caron says.

“Part of what you’re doing up there on stage is a performance. We’re dealing with serious issues, a lot of complicated ideas, and talking about tough social problems, but it doesn’t mean I have to take myself too seriously.

“You’re hoping to get students to laugh a couple of times during the class, and you’re projecting your voice to try and captivate the audience, which means talking with a level of energy that wouldn’t make sense in a group of 20.”

The size of Con Hall, which initially worried Caron, is now precisely what he loves about teaching in it.

“My favourite parts are what makes Con Hall distinctive. It’s a lot of people. When things are going well, when the topic is interesting, when the students are really engaged, you can feel it during the moment and see it afterward.

“Sometimes 50 minutes afterward there will still be a line of people who are there to talk about why that topic spoke to them, and there’s something they want to share or ask a follow up question,” Caron says.

His nervousness sometimes resurfaces, Caron says – like when his parents are seated in the second-tier balcony.

“They came down for a visit from Montreal, and they were here on a Wednesday at the end of last year so a couple of students wrote me, and asked, ‘Was your dad here? Because there was a man that looked a lot like you but older, and he looked like he was nervous for you.”

But after three years of teaching at Con Hall, Caron says he’s no longer afraid.

“The fear that was there at the very beginning has now turned into an exhilarating energy. There’s something unique about being in that room that’s unlike any other class.”

Innovations in teaching: Inside Con Hall with Mike Reid

lanthierj — Fri, 20 May 2016 17:00:06 +0000

Innovations in teaching: Inside Con Hall with Mike Reid lanthierj Fri, 05/20/2016 - 13:00

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Krisha Ravikantharaja

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Krisha Ravikantharaja

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Faculty of Arts & Science

In just a few weeks, Convocation Hall will begin hosting graduation ceremonies for an expected 13,500 University of Toronto students.

But during the school year Con Hall also serves as the largest classroom at the largest university in Canada.

So what’s it really like to learn in a room with 1,500 fellow students? And what’s it like to teach in that famous rotunda?

“You just can’t be sure. Every day in that class, some student is on the verge of meowing. Or trying to film a Harlem Shake video.

“After a while, you learn to expect it.”

Mike Reid has taught introductory astronomy courses inside Con Hall, the neoclassical domed rotunda that dominates the University of Toronto’s downtown Toronto campus, for seven years. And he has seen it all.

“On the first day of one of my classes, there were two students meowing like cats. They were in the upper balcony, and they were meowing back and forth – and it would get louder and louder and louder.

“I finally just told them, ‘Please stop talking. You're irritating everybody,’ and they quieted down.”

Reid attributed the incident to “a bunch of students who had just had too much caffeine” or just “goofing off,” until a student came up to him after the lecture, and suggested the possibility that the student or students responsible might have had a disability.

“I felt so bad. I thought, ‘What if I had just humiliated a student in front of the entire class?’ So I sent out a note to the entire class, saying ‘if that was you and you have a disability, here’s what you can do.’”

A student posted the email on Reddit, which began a long thread (with comments, in the Reddit way, ranging from supportive and sincere to silly and profane). The attention the note received was embarrassing, Reid says, but he stands firmly behind his commitment to accessibility. The diversity of students in his Con Hall classes with respect to disabilities, age, and disciplinary backgrounds is something he says he needs to be aware of and accommodate.

Reid teaches two classes in Con Hall and says he has to ensure that every aspect of those courses – The Sun and Its Neighbours (AST101) and Stars and Galaxies (AST201) – is worked out carefully in advance.

“I’ve learned to be organized like I never was before. The amount of planning that’s required to do a Con Hall class is vastly, vastly more than smaller courses. We start thinking about our next year in Con Hall while we’re still doing the previous year. It’s a huge amount of work to make those courses run smoothly.”

All that careful planning ensures there is room for spontaneity: Reid always welcomes questions during his lectures. He teaches with a co-instructor, which allows for one person to be on stage, speaking, while the other can roam the hall, handing a wireless microphone to any student with a raised hand.

“We try to emphasize right from the first day that if you want to talk, you’re welcome to talk. What you have to say is important. We try to have a two way conversation.”

Reid disagrees with people who don’t believe that you can teach a large class well, but he says Con Hall does require an instructor to be open to changing teaching styles.

“The old way of doing things is being ‘the sage on the stage.’ You come in and you talk, and the students just absorb all of your wonderful wisdom. I’ve certainly learned that you just can’t do that in a class like Con Hall – not if you want the students to have a good, meaningful experience.”

Students will tune out if they don’t feel a personal connection with the professor in a large class, Reid says, and it’s crucial to make sure students don’t feel anonymous or lost in a crowd.

“If you feel like the experience has nothing to do with you personally, why would you engage?”, he asks.

“I want to create an environment where all of the students feel like they all want to personally engage. They’re paying a lot of money for this, and I want them to get a useful experience out of it.”

Like others who teach in Con Hall, Reid has found that there can be advantages to having such a large class.

“Every time I’m in there, there are always several people in the room who are having a good day. They’re energetic and they’re really there for that class. So if we start a discussion with that many students in the room you can be sure that there will be students that will engage and stimulate the other students.”

Over the years, Reid has learned a lot about what to expect at Con Hall, but he describes Halloween as a time he absolutely dreads. The last time his class fell on Halloween, Reid witnessed a group of Power Rangers run through the hall in their costumes, and had to compete with other students’ incredible make-up and costumes for the attention of the class.

Reid vividly recalls an incident involving a student dressed as Slender Man that day.

“In the middle of the class, he got up, walked up onto the stage, and just stood in the middle of it. I’m horrified because my co-instructor is teaching, and she’s never taught before in such a big room.”

Reid says his co-instructor handled the situation impeccably, however.

“She didn’t miss a beat. She just went up to him and leaned on him like he was a podium, and kept delivering her talk exactly as she had intended to as though he wasn’t there, and the class thought this was hilarious.”

For Reid, teaching such a large class is a way to get as many students as possible excited about his field. He’ll seize almost any opportunity to win students over to astronomy. That Reddit thread? Despite some initial embarrassment about the attention, Reid joined the thread himself to encourage more students to take the course.

“While we're on the topic of my course: if you're a student at UofT or thinking of becoming one, hey, why not take my course?” Reid wrote. “Clearly people like it enough to reproduce my e-mails on Reddit, so you can't go wrong.”

Innovations in teaching: Inside Con Hall with Ashley Waggoner Denton

lanthierj — Fri, 20 May 2016 13:48:05 +0000

Innovations in teaching: Inside Con Hall with Ashley Waggoner Denton lanthierj Fri, 05/20/2016 - 09:48

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All photos and video by Johnny Guatto

Krisha Ravikantharaja

Author legacy

Krisha Ravikantharaja

Topic

Our Community

Inside Con Hall

In just a few weeks, Convocation Hall will begin hosting graduation ceremonies for an expected 13,500 University of Toronto students.

But during the school year Con Hall also serves as the largest classroom at the largest university in Canada.

So what’s it really like to learn in a room with 1,500 fellow students? And what’s it like to teach in that famous rotunda?

“Sit. Stay. Roll Over.”

Con Hall has dominated the downtown Toronto campus of the University of Toronto for more than a hundred years. With its domed rotunda and neoclassical finishes, the 1,730-seat building has played host to everyone from graduating students at Convocation to the mathletes of Mean Girls.

But dogs?

The dog was the special guest recently of Ashley Waggoner Denton. A professor in the teaching stream, Waggoner Denton has been teaching Introduction to Psychology (PSY100) at Con Hall since 2012. She recently brought in a dog trainer and her dog to help explain operant conditioning during a lecture on learning.

When Waggoner Denton found herself teaching the very course she took at Con Hall during the first year of her own undergrad at ��˾��ֱ��, she wrote on her syllabus: “Welcome to PSY100! This is the course (and Con Hall is the place) where I fell in love with psychology, and I hope that you will too.”

But she knew for many students the size of the hall would be intimidating.

“It is possible to create a warm learning environment even if it is in this really big, seemingly daunting place,” she says. “It’s still possible to have those connections with your students and to create an environment where the students feel they’re a part of something, that they aren’t passive listeners.

“On the first day of class, I try to make it clear that I do care. I just try to be as welcoming as I can – the majority of the students are in first year so it can be an incredibly new, overwhelming experience.”

Waggoner Denton says her goal in a Con Hall class is to get students excited about the material so that they’ll be inspired to learn more about something she brought up in class, or go to tutorial to get the extra help that they need.

“This semester during our class on sensation and perception, we had a man who’s known as ‘Patient George’ come in. He has a very extreme form of multisensory synesthesia, and he developed it after having a thylamic stroke. He was very engaging, and he was mobbed by students at the end, wanting to talk with him and ask him questions. He gave a better appreciation for what goes on in our brains to give us these perceptual experiences.”

Chelsea Spagnolo, a fourth-year psychology specialist, has now taken four classes with Waggoner-Denton. She says she’s noticed the lengths Waggoner-Denton has gone to in order to make students feel welcome.

“She definitely made sure to wait around after class so students could ask questions. Sometimes students just lined up to make a quick comment about the course or to chat, but she didn't rush anyone and would stay well past the end of lecture to ensure all questions were answered.

Waggoner Denton’s “enthusiasm in lecture” is key, Spagnolo says, adding it “helps students to grasp the material more easily and enjoy the course experience more deeply.”

Waggoner Denton’s favourite moments at Con Hall: watching the reaction of her students to classroom demos.

“To hear 1500 students react is really cool, and that’s something you don’t get if that was a class of 30. It wouldn’t be the same experience. It can be really fun to try to blow the minds of 1500 students at the same time – not that I’m always blowing their minds, but I try!”

But teaching at Con Hall does not go without challenges, Waggoner Denton says.

“In a lot of my more typical classes, I like to have a lot of interaction or get discussions going, and that’s probably the most challenging part of Con Hall, having that physical distance between myself and the students. If I can’t speak with the students, I’ll pause and have them talk among themselves for a few minutes or to do something to get them thinking about things – having them at least talk to each other if they can’t talk to me.

“It’s also oddly exhausting. Everything just seems bigger: you’re trying to be bigger, the screen is bigger and your voice is louder. I come out of it, and I’m usually starving and exhausted and I feel like I’ve run a marathon. It’s fun and I love it, but it’s intense.”

Waggoner Denton’s top tip for anyone teaching a first class at Con Hall: Don’t be scared.

“Everything’s bigger, but it’s still just a classroom and you have a bunch of really motivated students who are there to learn. I don’t think it’s as scary as a lot of people who haven’t taught a class in there imagine it to be.

“It’s fun to look out and just see this sea of faces.”