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Exploring the Use of Environmental Instruments as a Method to Promote Sustainable Tourism in Islands: The Case of Savusavu, Fiji
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Multimodal Adventures in Teaching: Individualized Learning, Relationship-building, and Nurturing a Sense of Belonging through FSD’s Student Life and Writing Centre videos
Get PDFThe results of the recent Canadian University Survey Consortium (CUSC) survey indicate that, compared to equivalent institutions, TRU students lack a feeling of connection to the campus; thus, growing and nurturing a sense of belonging within our increasingly diverse student body is vital. How does one create or facilitate connection or belonging to places and spaces of learning? Teaching and learning do not always take place in the traditional way within a classroom; in fact, sometimes the best “learning” takes place in unique and unanticipated ways. TRU’s Writer & Storyteller Alicia Ashcroft uses Faculty of Student Development’s Student Life and Writing Centre videos to not only create opportunities for individualized learning and relationship-building with students outside the classroom, but to contribute to a sense of belonging through both the viewing and the making of the videos. In terms of viewing, the videos employ physical, self-deprecating, and observational humour and the superiority theory strategically: the bumbling character of “the ridiculous Ms. Alicia Ashcroft” allows students to gain confidence to reach out and connect (“well, at least I could do this better than her!”), emphasizes that learning often occurs through making mistakes, and de-stigmatizes accessing supports. There is also an element of assess before access: the visual accessibility of spaces, people, events, or services allows students to feel a connection and establish expectations prior to seeking out a service. Creating the videos facilitates a sense of ownership, autonomy and recognition within student participants – all key elements of nurturing a sense of belonging
Adventures in First Year Success
No full textLast summer, a group of TRU faculty and administrators attended the 3rd Annual Teaching and Learning National Institute (TLNI) at Evergreen State College. The aim of the Institute was to leave with a plan to apply a data-informed approach to a sticky problem on campus. Retention data suggests that students are leaving TRU during and following first year at rate of 40% attrition. In looking more closely at the data, we developed a plan to understand the first-year experience more fully by creating a community of faculty who teach first year courses to lead campus-wide change. In this session we will share the data, the action plan developed at the institute, and engage participants in sharing their perspectives on how to improve student engagement and retention for first year students at TRU
Is There Enhanced Visual Processing of Action Relevant Features in Peri-Hand Space?
No full textPeri-hand space, the area surrounding the hand, has been shown to produce an increase in attentional prioritization and slower disengagement of attention compared to objects presented further away (Reed et al., 2006; Abrams et al., 2008). This phenomenon is thought to result from feedback from the reach and grasp networks within the dorsal visual system to occipital visual areas (Perry & Fallah, 2017; Makin et al., 2012). In the proposed research we will examine the effect of graspability (graspable versus non-graspable) and object features (orientation versus saturation) to see if characteristics that are action-relevant and are processed by the dorsal visual stream increase attention and processing in peri-hand space compared to object characteristics that are action-irrelevant and are processed by the ventral visual stream. Participants will be instructed to hold their right hand near or far from a screen in a counterbalanced order and will be asked to identify a target object in a visual array of 11 distractors by touching the target on a screen with their left index finger. The target and distractors will be manipulated by orientation or saturation in a counter balanced order and also be graspable or non-graspable. We will then measure target detection speed and accuracy as well as pre-target fixation durations using eye-tracking software. Our goal is to assess the extent to which the phenomenon of peri-hand space relies on feedback from reach and grasp networks in the dorsal visual stream by assessing whether action-relevant object characteristics increase the perception of stimuli within peri-hand space