Faculty Feature Archives - Quest University Canada

Academic Spotlight

On Rocking it Remotely: Dr. Natalie Burstzyn, Geology Faculty

Q: Your class did an amazing Google Earth project for Cornerstone, the first class all Quest students take. Tell us more!

My objective was to incorporate quantitative data, maps, the locations around the world our incoming students are in, and the Field Sciences (Agriculture, Forestry, Energy Production, and Mineral Extraction) that are also key global economic drivers.

I tasked our students to make these connections, and communicate their findings via data graphs, text explanations and video. The result was the Google Earth project, which conveys fascinating Field Science info about places around the world.

No student was assigned to a location they are in, so the outcome was this great interdisciplinary and global perspective on the value of a tiny snippet of Field Sciences from all the places our incoming class hail from. Along with building community through teamwork, students built community through learning about where they and their peers all are.

Q: What’s one benefit of digital learning that you want people to know about?

As a field-based educator, digital learning was a big slap to my identity! However, I am very keen on accessibility and inclusion, which has been a plague on Field Sciences for all time, so the benefit of digital learning has been to create a truly accessible field-oriented curriculum that still meets the learning objectives. Rebuilding teaching material from the ground up with the objective of inclusion and universal design for learning, rather than revising material in an ad hoc manner where inclusion feels like an afterthought, is a definite plus.

Q: How have you adjusted to remote learning? What was the main challenge, and what’s the best thing about it?

Being on in front of a computer constantly is hard for me. But the best thing has been the challenge of developing DIY labs and field trip templates for my students to do at home, wherever they are. With DIY kitchen labs and field trips my students can still engage in the active hands-on aspect of learning — literally embodying doing science — despite the remote/online classroom environment.

Q: Can you tell us about a cool moment you had in this class? Like a student, or you, having an ‘aha’ moment?

The Google Earth project was a team-based assignment with the added challenge of working remotely across time zones. I deliberately assigned teammates at random. The cool moment for me was reading the student reflection discussions about the activity. Their discussions highlighted that they learned the value of collaboration and compromise of teamwork, that they recognized both utilizing someone’s strengths in the group and the strength of group discussion in overcoming points of confusion, resulting in a better final product that all group members felt proud of.

I can’t ask for a better learning outcome for trying to teach the value of teamwork!

Faculty Feature

Q & A with Emma Davy on remote teaching

Q:  Which classes did you teach remotely this Spring?

I taught Biochemistry B: Metabolism in March and Chemistry 1: Atomic Structure and Bonding in April.

Q:  What was similar and what was different about teaching remotely?

I kept a lot of the same material for both courses and still did readings and teaching, even if it was through Zoom.  I still made sure a lot of the interesting and applied examples for chemistry were informed by the students in my class and what they were interested in.  The major difference for me is obviously not being able to run in-person labs.  I got around this by creating virtual lab programming that focussed on process – i.e. 90% of what would happen in lab spaces.  When students return to campus (someday), I’ll be sure to hold a couple work-shops on lab-based techniques to make sure they don’t feel like they missed out on something.

Q:  How do students take part in active and inquiry-based learning with remote classes?

There’s a few things students can do.  First, know how hard your tutors are working to adjust to this remote environment!  Do your best to be in class times, stay on top of things, and buy into what we’re planning.  Second, we’re all going to have to work at building community since this normally comes from being in a classroom together.  Make study groups, hold electronic discussion times, continue to be curious.  Lastly, be structured.  I think everyone is sick of their computer right now, but if you are really intentional about how you spend your time – class, homework, and then fresh air/exercise/creative projects with no distractions you’ll be more productive when you need to be.

Q:  What was the biggest challenge in teaching remotely?

Chemistry is so experiential!  I have always said that the classroom was a necessary place so that we can go to the lab!  And we can’t.  However, this is a fun challenge and I’m getting to be really creative and try new things that may even be better than what I had before.

Q: What were some of the benefits of remote learning?

Other than teaching classes in a dress shirt and sweatpants?  I find I’m getting to collaborate more with my colleagues.  I know that seems counterintuitive since we’re all at home, but we’re all feeling like we’re in this together and the faculty support network from other faculty has been amazing.  I work with brilliant and dedicated colleagues and I’m learning so much from everyone and I’m working in so much good stuff that I’m borrowing (taking, really) from these incredible faculty that I’m so lucky to work with.

Faculty Feature

Dr. Mai Yasué reflects on remote learning

Because of the pandemic, Quest switched to remote learning in March, and we’re going to start Fall 2020 the same way. Our faculty are exceptionally dedicated to teaching, and quickly adapted to deliver the same personalized, immersive classes for which Quest is known. We caught up with Dr. Mai Yasué, Geography Tutor, to reflect on her experience with remote classes this spring.

Q: Which classes did you teach remotely this Spring?

A: I taught Question Block in March, and because the pandemic hit in the middle, half the class was in-person and half was remote. I also taught Exploring the Ecological-self, an Experiential Field Course where we usually camp in a wilderness setting for 12 days. That course needed to be changed into a remote learning format.

Q: What was similar and what was different about teaching remotely?

A: Question Block is always fairly independent, so it was an easy switch. We would usually have met a couple more times as a class, however, and students had lots of phone calls with me and each other. They shared feedback on Question plans via Messenger on Teams and other modes of communication. They had to do their Question presentations online rather than face-to-face. These were impressive and Quest students took on the challenge of working with a new format.

The calls were similar to the face-to-face meetings we would usually have, except there was a greater emphasis in figuring out how each student was doing emotionally and logistically as they navigated the pandemic. I’d ask things like: “How are you feeling? How is your home environment? How is your wifi-connection? Do you have social support?”

From there we’d got to: “Last time we talked you were excited about that book you’d found. Where are you with that? What else have you read since then?” Professors in 100-student classes at large schools aren’t able to provide this level of support no matter how much they want to.

The Ecological-self course was a much greater change. That class teaches students to become more reflective about how their social and biophysical environments influence how they think and feel. We talked a lot about the context created by the coronavirus, and discussed topics such as screen-time and wellbeing, as well as how to explore and experience their local environment through walks in their neighbourhoods or just sitting in a natural place.

Instead of 3 hours of class a day, we typically had 2 hours and then sometimes a more relaxed meeting 7-8 pm where we talked online with guests or reflected on books or experiential exercises. I had a lot more activities — such as drawing — that did not involve the computer. The final assessment was a field journal that included reflections about the course (which they took photos of and sent to me).

Q: How do students take part in active and inquiry-based learning with remote classes?

A: It’s largely the same. In my in-person classes a significant portion of time is spent in “pair-share” or small group discussions, and we could still do that.

Q: What was the biggest challenge in teaching remotely?

A: For me, the biggest challenge was to manage the amount of time the students and I spent in front of our screens. I am thinking about strategies to limit how much reading and writing is done at the computer.

Q: What were some of the benefits of remote learning?

A: In my Ecological-self class, typically it’s just us in the wilderness talking about the papers we’re reading. In the remote version, I brought in an amazing range of guests, including a therapist who did part of his PhD on spending time in nature; an alum who had worked in nature therapy for troubled youth; an Indigenous scholar and professor of environmental justice; a professor of restorative justice and nature-based therapy in incarceration; and an alum who works in a support role for women escaping household violence.

Through these calls, the students could see the value of the lessons that they were learning and how they relate to the outside world. I was also able to bring a much broader set of perspectives than my own and ensure that the class had significant Indigenous perspectives and voices (a perspective I do not have). The online format can be awkward, but there are also benefits.

Faculty Feature

Einstein+Math+Princeton=Glen’s Sabbatical

I miss walking through the halls of Quest on the first couple of days of classes, catching up with the returning students. There’s such an energy and community there that I can’t wait to return to!

– Glen Van Brummelen

Quest’s Dr. Glen Van Brummelen is on sabbatical at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where Albert Einstein and legendary mathematician Kurt Gödel worked. Currently, Freeman Dyson (at age 95) and Robert Langlands are there too. Born and raised in British Columbia, Langlands is one of the most famous mathematicians alive today and founder of the Langlands program.

What are you working on right now?

I’m studying the work of 15th century astronomer Giovanni Bianchini, especially his theories on locating stars and planets in the celestial sphere. Bianchini has been mostly forgotten by historians in the last century, but was once famous enough to have a crater on the moon named after him. The work I’m studying corrected an error in stellar coordinate calculations that had gone unnoticed for 400 years. His solution contained a mathematical seed that grew eventually into the tangent function that we learn today in trigonometry. He also was using the decimal point, 150 years before the textbooks say it was invented!

Have you learned anything unexpected through your work?

It was rather jaw-dropping a couple of months ago, when I realized that Bianchini was using decimal fractional notation. I’m currently exploring what might have been his source of inspiration.

What’s next for you?

Wandering the hallways of the Institute for Advanced Study, dreaming of medieval celestial coordinates while trying not to notice that I just walked past Einstein’s office!

Quest misses you! When do you come back?

I’ll return to the classroom in September 2020, but I’ll return to Squamish in mid-April.

I miss walking through the halls of Quest on the first couple of days of classes, catching up with the returning students. There’s such an energy and community there that I can’t wait to return to!

Faculty Feature

Balance for Better with Dr. Jacy Young

The theme for International Women’s Day 2019 is #BalanceforBetter. A gender-balanced world is a better world. How do we achieve this? Celebrate women’s achievements. Raise awareness against bias. Take action for equality. Quest Social Sciences Tutor Dr. Jacy Young reflects on this and more.

Why do we celebrate International Women’s Day?

For more than a century, International Women’s Day has been an opportunity to reflect on both what has been achieved with respect to gender equality, and how much remains to be done. While much has been accomplished in terms of women’s rights, efforts to dismantle systemic patriarchy are ongoing. Doing so is of benefit to everyone!

You’re working on a cool digital archive project. Tell us about it!

As part of a feminist collective, I’ve been working on a project called Psychology’s Feminist Voices for 10 years now. Psychology’s Feminist Voices is a digital encyclopedia and multi-media archive that documents both the history of women in psychology and the ongoing work of feminist psychologists.

We’ve profiled nearly 300 psychologists and conducted 120 oral history interviews. We document how gender shapes the experiences of psychologists, as well how psychology serves as a site from which to contest often taken-for-granted ideas about gender.

We’ve been able to highlight the fascinating lives, work and activism of some remarkable individuals, including E. Kitch Childs (a feminist therapist and civil rights, lesbian rights, and sex workers rights activist) and Leta Stetter Hollingworth (who refuted the then-common idea that women’s mental faculties were incapacitated during menstruation).

That’s awesome, Jacy! What’s one of the best parts of this project?

One of the great joys of this project has been the opportunity to work with a really engaged group of colleagues, including undergraduate students. This is something I hope to continue here at Quest in the years ahead!

To learn more about International Women’s Day 2019 and how you can make a difference, check out the official website.

Faculty Feature

A Walk Down Memory Lane

Social Sciences Tutor Tanjeem Azad chats with us about her fascination with the psychological science of human memory and why we can’t depend on it 100%.

How did you get interested in the science of memory?

I would credit this to my undergraduate psychology professor. He had covered Cognitive Psychology and was beginning the memory section, in particular, about false memories and eyewitness testimony. It was my first time learning about wrongful convictions on the basis of faulty eyewitness memory. Not only was it an eye-opening experience, but it was fascinating to me that we could empirically approach the study of memory by designing rigorous experiments to better understand the situations that lead to false memories.

Knowing the conditions that can lead to memory errors provides us with an understanding about when memories are likely to be accurate; that was (and still is!) very important to me to pursue, especially in applied settings.

How does understanding memory help us on a day to day basis?

Understanding how prone we are to memory errors can help us to be more forgiving when we make mistakes in recollecting. That should lead us to not trust our memories 100%. It should also help us understand that our memories of the same event might be different from others’, since they can be influenced by a host of factors.

Are our memories of events actually accurate?

For the most part, yes! Our memories don’t operate like a video camera, where we can push a play button and recollect our experiences in pristine form. Rather, we construct our memories on the basis of actual experiences plus our goals, expectations, attitudes, beliefs, biases, etc. Most of our recollections of past events and experiences won’t be entirely accurate, but they’ll be pretty good.

We have to look at memory accuracy in light of a highly adaptive and flexible cognitive system that affords us the opportunity to engage in other, higher-order mental processes—such as decision-making, problem-solving, and creativity.

Memory accuracy becomes a problem in the context of eyewitness testimony. A witness’s memory is malleable because of potential influences of misinformation, or inaccurate information about the witnessed event, from the media, other witnesses, and even through biased interview questions from police officers. Once a witness is exposed to misinformation, it becomes very difficult to distinguish between accurate and inaccurate memories.

Tell us about some of the interesting research into memory you’ve done.

I have a few different lines of research on eyewitness memory and suggestibility. Currently, with collaborators at the University of Victoria and Kent State University, I am pursuing research examining the influence of misinformation that suggests that something didn’t happen, when it actually did. That is, the role of false denials on memory regarding an actual experience. You often hear about this in the media with cases about allegations of sexual harassment, in which an individual denies the occurrence of the allegation.

From a memory perspective, I’m interested in the role that such denials have on the victim’s memory. If you repeatedly hear from the accused that the abuse never happened, how does that affect your memory? The research that my team and I have conducted so far suggests repeated exposure to false denials about a witnessed event leads people to not report the event, relative to not being exposed to the denials. This is particularly problematic, as it suggests the possibility of individuals not reporting experiences of abuse.

What is it like to teach at Quest?

Energizing! I love my daily interactions with the students. They are so attentive, highly motivated, and show a deep level of appreciation for learning. All of this contributes to fun and engaging class discussions that inspire me with new ideas for teaching, as well as new research avenues to pursue.

Faculty Feature

Geology Rocks!

Natalie Bursztyn, Physical Sciences Tutor (Geology), explains what makes geology so fascinating and tells us how she found her way to Quest.

You’ve been here a year, and students rave about your classes! How did you end up at Quest?

I was teaching in California, when a friend of mine told me about Quest. I emailed Dr. Helfand immediately. Astoundingly, he replied! Unfortunately for me, my awesome colleague Dr. Steve Quane had just been hired, and I didn’t have a PhD yet. So I set about getting one. Eight years, a doctorate, and two job changes later…here I am!

Best teaching moment so far?

The rainiest and soggiest Cornerstone Adventure Pursuits ever, or the Scablands field trip in Geomorphology. The students recognized the enormity of the landscape, and I watched their minds get blown. Or the lightbulb moment in Earth-Oceans-Space, when students realized the Incas could predict El Nino using the stars… There have been great moments in all my classes! How can I choose?

What’s the best thing about teaching geology?

Geology is everything! It is everywhere! It encompasses physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics—and it applies it all to the natural world. Geology is history too. It’s storytelling, it’s art, problem-solving and puzzles. It’s logic. It’s the unknown and endless questions. For me, teaching geology is teaching my students to get comfortable with not knowing the “right” answer; to appreciate the vastness of time, the processes at work on our planet that are beyond human efforts to control, the inevitable demise of our and other species… Also, rocks are pretty neat.

Working on anything cool at the moment?

Our roadside geology digital tour of Yosemite should be published this spring. I have a couple of students in California I’m still working with remotely. One is wrapping up her thesis on a series of analog models of geologic processes, and the other is doing research on teaching using 3D printed models of geologic structures. I am also designing a knit ophiolite sequence and writing an interactive fiction knitting pattern that communicates environmental impacts in our protected parklands.

What’s your favourite thing about Squamish?

Every day is a beautiful day! And I am here. Finally.

Faculty Feature

Exploring How Environment Shapes Us

Social Sciences Tutor Dr. John Reid-Hresko’s research interests took him halfway around the world before he found a new project that’s ideal for his life at Quest and in Sea to Sky country.

Dr. John Reid-Hresko spent the past decade researching the relationships between humanity and the environment.

“I’ve been working at the intersections of human health, HIV and environmental governance,” he said. “But now I’m focussing on something closer to home for me.”

John’s path to Environmental Sociology began at Colorado University Boulder.

“Originally, I went planning to explore transnational resource extraction and neoliberal capitalism in Bolivia,” he said.

That all changed when he started looking for a summer job.

John was all set to get a job working in a restaurant. “Then a professor offered me a research assistant job looking at the existing literature around human health and environment interactions in South Africa. That shifted my focus away from resource extraction in Latin America towards health in Southern and Eastern Africa.” John was already fascinated with the idea that the places in which we find ourselves had bigger effects on our health than we could imagine. Now, after a decade of travel and research, he is looking at new and closer horizons.

“With my former research wrapping up, I started to look at where I was, here in Squamish. I was interested in thinking about identity and place here. In the Social Sciences, we aim to explore the human condition. So, my new research focuses around the sociology of sports, systemic inequality, embodied identities and outdoor recreation. Basically, the sociology of skiing. Why do we ski? How do we make sense of the dynamic of wrapping ourselves in plastic, and driving a polluting car to go sit on a motorized chairlift, just so we can be in nature?”

Researching closer to home also means John gets to spend more time engaged with his students, both in and outside the classroom.

“The great thing about Quest is having that flexibility to use the world as a classroom to inspire students,” he said, adding he had already experienced the Block Plan while studying at Colorado College. “The longer I teach, the more comfortable I am not being in control. Quest pushes that a lot. Our students are very engaged. Quest offers a really unique space for student-inspired inquiry. Instead of leading students through a progression of ideas, it is getting them to find these ideas, and learn collectively from, and with each other.”

News

In the Field with Dr. Kim Dawe

Kim talks to us about the importance of the Life Sciences and teaching Field Courses at Quest.

How did you end up in the Life Sciences?

I grew up in a hunting and fishing family, so I am naturally drawn to being outdoors. I also grew up on an island (Newfoundland) and was enamoured with the whales we’d see when walking along the shore. I’ve known I wanted to be a wildlife biologist since grade three, but thought I wanted to work with whales. During my undergrad, I took a forest ecology class with a great prof and realized I was more interested in terrestrial systems than marine. So here I am, a wildlife ecologist.

Tell us about the combined effects of climate change and land use on wildlife species.

The way humans use the landscape has large implications for wildlife. I think we have a responsibility to minimize those impacts and to ensure our actions don’t lead to imperilled species. Climate change, on top of that, is leading to so much change in species, communities and ecosystems. Land use and climate change can interact to make the situation worse or better. The particulars are really important, and I love trying to tease apart the relative impacts from each of these large stressors on wildlife. Understanding this leads to better wildlife and land management planning.

What do you want students to take away from studying biodiversity?

Students should understand the importance of biodiversity for sustaining our ecosystems. They should also come away from the course understanding how we gather ecological data and the challenges associated with it. Ideally, they also learn that ecologists have the skills and expertise to overcome those challenges.

You teach exciting Field Courses. Tell us about that.

We live among some incredible ecosystems and can learn so much by spending some time in them. Being in the field stimulates thinking about ecological processes in a way that classroom learning cannot.

In Summer 2017, I worked with Ali MacKellar on her Keystone project, which focused on how to set up a remote monitoring program and develop a field research station. We started a mammal and plant monitoring program that I’ve continued—and plan to expand to other parts of the Sea to Sky Corridor. One of the goals was to provide a real-world field program to use as a teaching platform.

Ian Picketts’s Impacts of Recreation and Tourism class came to the site and developed a site management plan to minimize our impacts on the region. Now it’s time to take ecology-focused students out there to learn from and contribute to this project. I’m developing a Field Course called Biodiversity Monitoring that will run in June 2019.

We focus a lot on the value of project-based learning at Quest, and this Field Course will give students the opportunity to work on a functioning monitoring project and contribute to its next steps. Students will participate in data collection, which includes checking wildlife photos on remotely triggered cameras, and will contribute to the project through work on course assignments.

We are so fortunate here at Quest to be able to design courses that we love!

How much time will the class spend in the field?

We’ll make two 5-6 day trips to the Pemberton site. The first one will be at the beginning of the course, after learning some key concepts and then returning to the classroom to devise a plan for data collection for the second trip. Time on campus will be used for reading, field work planning, and synthesis.

What have you learned from your students at Quest?

Teaching and mentoring at Quest is such a give and take. The engagement and enthusiasm from students is energizing and motivating. My love for ecology has been reinvigorated since coming to Quest and working with students discovering ecology for the first time.

Breaking down bigger concepts, responding to questions, and helping students work through the complexities reminds me of the key ideas and underlying principles that drive a lot of the work I do. I’ve learned to re-examine ideas I now take for granted, and I often finish my classes with new research ideas and questions of my own.

Faculty Feature

Getting the Dirt on Quest at Geological Conference

Physical Sciences Tutor Dr. Steve Quane, and students Amaya Cherian-Hall ’19 and Martin Lentz ’19, talk about presenting at the Geological Society of America Conference, and Steve’s discovery of a new type of volcanic ash.

October was busy for you, Steve! You took your students to the Geological Society of America Conference.

Yes! GSA is an amazing conference for students. Alongside top-notch, rigorous research, it gives students a chance to learn more about how science works. It’s also a very welcoming and supportive place for student presentations.

Tell us about Amaya’s and Martin’s presentations.

They both did a fantastic job. Amaya presented research on permafrost that she conducted at the renowned Yukon Geological Survey. She showcased her field work along with analysis of aerial photos and satellite images to investigate the effect of climate change on permafrost, and how it changes lakes in Whitehorse, Yukon.

Martin presented work that he and I did at Garibaldi Lake. He mapped part of the bottom of Garibaldi Lake, Lesser Garibaldi Lake and Barrier Lake, with sonar—from a paddleboard. The idea was to figure out the topography of the bottom of the lakes, which determines how the lakes were formed. He concluded that Lesser Garibaldi Lake and Barrier Lake were formed as a lava flow interacted with large blocks of ice left behind by the melting ice sheet.

I am continually impressed with how much Quest students learn when they get out of the classroom. At this conference, our 13 students were responsible for their own schedules, and attended the sessions they felt were most interesting. They truly soaked in the experience, far more than I could provide within the confines of a normal class.

What did you think of the GSA conference, Martin?

It was a really awesome opportunity to present a poster on my research at the GSA conference. It allowed me to engage with other students and academics in geology and hydrology, fields that I am potentially interested in going to grad school for.

What about you, Amaya?

Presenting forced me to synthesize my Keystone research into the poster format and allowed me to determine where gaps are and what work needs to be done before I take Keystone in April. It also gave me a chance to get feedback from scientists currently working in the field.

What about your talk, Steve?

My talk was on research I did during my sabbatical at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC. It was about a new type of ash that we found: Bread Crust Bubbles.

That’s amazing! What was that like?

Sometimes, discoveries in science are systematic and planned. Other times, they are fortuitous. This was one of those times! I was looking through a microscope at an ash deposit from central Oregon, prepping it for experiments, when I kept seeing these little bubbles. We had disregarded the bubbles as an anomaly. But on closer inspection, we realized that they were a significant part of the deposit — and a new type of volcanic ash that had yet to be described.

We also noticed that the outside of the bubbles had a texture that is common to other types of volcanic deposit—bread crust. Just like a loaf of bread, the outside of the bubble was cooled and the inside still hot. As the inside of the bubble expanded, the outer crust cracks.

Why is this an important discovery?

Normally, volcanologists cannot “see” into the volcanic conduit—the pipe or vent at the heart of a volcano where material wells up from under the surface—because the material is exploding at supersonic velocities at temperatures above 700 C! These little ash bubbles preserved part of the story to say something meaningful about what happened during the eruption. That can be used to help predict the behaviour of future eruptions.