Kevin Pitts 0:04
Hello, and welcome to Teaching and Learning's Stories from the Field, a podcast series from the Teaching and Learning Center at Seneca College. In episode seven, we launch our in conversation series, with Seneca Award winner for teaching excellence and flexible delivery, Phillip Ackerman. Philip has long been a community educator committed to working with diverse migrant populations in a wide range of community settings. He has been a strong advocate of access to education for these populations, supporting several academic and community based interventions for the past decade. More recently, since graduating from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education with an M Ed in adult education and community development, Phillip has been the program coordinator of the social service worker immigrants and refugees program at Seneca College. Here is Phillip story.

Kevin Pitts 1:10
Welcome Phillip.

Phillip Ackerman 1:12
Thanks so much, Kevin. I'm happy to be here.

Kevin Pitts 1:15
So glad you joined us today. And we'll get right into it. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us your teaching story. What made you pick education as a career?

Philip Ackerman 1:27
I'm not necessarily sure I picked education as a career. A long, long time ago in my undergrad way back when when I did my undergrad right out of high school at U of T I actually studied Fine Art History. And when you graduate with a degree in Fine Art History, not a lot of doors are open for you. So at the time I actually traveled and I was teaching to English language learners around the world and I lived in Taiwan for a few years and I lived in Hong Kong for a little bit. And so that's where I really kind of started teaching. I never had any formal training or anything. And I was teaching younger folks in those countries and then I when I came back to Canada, I started working with adult learners here as a job and I got really inspired in that space and being in a learning environment and working with different folks and hearing their stories and and I really done a lot of value in educational spaces. And that's what really kind of drew me to teaching.

Kevin Pitts 2:33
Wow, that's a very interesting teaching story and career path. What is the one thing you love most about teaching?

Phillip Ackerman 2:42
I think, I think it's that. I think it's I'm not sure if I love something about teaching as much as I love something about education. I love the the education space. I love the contributions of all the different voices in those spaces to create change, to challenge the status quo, to reflect on where we come from and where we're going to dismantle to counter so much valuable, wonderful things can happen in those spaces and I find them so rich, and they really informed my work both in and out of the classroom. And just I love how change can be ignited there and sparks are ignited in those spaces.

Kevin Pitts 3:25
Yeah, I really love that distinction you've made between teaching and education. So I'm going to change my next question a little bit and ask you what would you change? What would you change about education?

Phillip Ackerman 3:38
That's a good question. Well I think that we've had some shifts in education Education recently and how we approach education and I feel that in some ways, we it's become a little bit more of a capitalist machine, rather than the rather than promoting education for education sake and promoting learning and promoting growth and all of those things. So I would really love to see kind of a shift back towards like a really set students centered space, promoting education promoting accessible and inclusive education. So having access to education for folks from different backgrounds, different identities, different intersections of identities, that they would be able to have a robust educational experience and be able to access different parts of education without financial barriers, without language barriers, without immigration status barriers, so reducing some of those barriers and really promoting education. I'm a firm believer in in education and that education can really promote positive change in our society. So I think we could really kind of promote that and champion, champion those ideas around education.

Kevin Pitts 5:00
Yeah, yeah. I really agree with you around that that access issue and that inclusion, and what education in its its purest form, if we can say that, can mean for everyone as a great equalizer. So how would you describe yourself as an educator?

Phillip Ackerman 5:21
Well, this is something as all of many people listening to this are probably aware and talking about our teaching philosophies, and in developing our teaching philosophies and in different contexts and different spaces and so on. So it's something I have thought a lot about. I would acknowledge that I think our teaching philosophies are always evolving and they're organic. They're always changing and they look different to the pandemic, a very clear example of this. Everybody kind of had to "pivot" is the famous word of the pandemic. We had to pivot very quickly, and still kind of maintain some of those key elements of education and student centered learning and so on, but in a different context with all of these other things going on, and so on. So I... the a couple of foundations of my teaching philosophy, or how I would describe myself as an educator. I really have I really find value in ideas around progressivism, and really kind of pushing the envelope of education and really promoting critical thinking and reflection within educational spaces, and also from a humanitarian lens and humanism, the humanism approach to education and really valuing the experiences of students in the classroom, and not prioritizing my own voice and my own experiences in these spaces. I work with I've worked in the settlement sector for many years, so I work with diverse populations of newcomers of migrants. I don't have a newcomer experience I am Canadian born but I've been working very hard on developing and growing my ally ship and educating myself and and raising my own awareness about different issues. impacting these communities. I am the Coordinator for the Social Service Worker programs specializing in working with immigrants and refugees. And a lot of our students in that course in our program are do have newcomer experiences they have come through as refugees. They have lived vicariously because of their immigration status. So that lived experience is so valuable and so rich. So it's really important that they to give them space if they would like and they feel safe to share that and they really can learn from one another. I know I'm not the expert in that room. I have thought through some of these concepts more because I've been working in the field for 15 years. But I'm in by no means the expert in that room. So I find my role is to really kind of facilitate the learning. I'm not lecturing at them. I'm facilitating how that learning can happen, how we can make connections between those experiences what's happening with policy right now? What's happening in the field, how do we work with people? How do we make sure that we're being trauma informed and anti oppressive? So all of those things, I think, are foundational principles of my teaching philosophy or how I kind of see myself as an educator I feel I just rambled on a lot. So I'm not sure if you have any follow up questions.

Kevin Pitts
Well, that's, that's terrific. And that notion of experience, and how that informs our teaching practice. And I was struck earlier by your statement about how your philosophy changes over time and I think that is so true for educators that they're building that experience and then altering their philosophy. So maybe as a follow up, I could ask you how has your teaching evolved over the years.

Phillip Acherman 8:55
So I think part of striving to be to promote Promising Practices in our education systems and, and developing our own practices. For me, especially in the work that I do and in the field that I do, developing my ideas around anti oppressive practice, which is a very kind of common word or concept in our field, which is countering different forms of discrimination and promoting inclusion and equity in different ways. So really developing that and really thinking through my own social location of what privileges do I have, what access to education have I had been Canadian born, being a white, cisgendered, man, all of these kinds of things and broadening my perspective around the different experiences by migrant populations at different intersections. So I've really worked on my cultural consciousness and my cultural ideas around cultural humility, and my anti oppressive practice and trauma informed practice as well. Trauma informed practice is something that I started to familiarize myself with a few years ago and I become a firm believer that we should all be interacting with each other in trauma informed ways and understanding that all of us have had some sort of interaction indirectly or directly with trauma in our lifetimes. And it's very clear that we've all just been through and are still going through a global pandemic that has impacted us in myriad ways. So I think developing those notions of inclusion in the classroom are things that I've really been working on, and how to really kind of center those experiences and student voices in the classroom as well.

Kevin Pitts 10:48
Great. Kind of shifting gears a little bit is, is there an influence in your, in the past that you model yourself after. Could be a person a teacher, an educator, is there an influence that you modeled yourself after and if so, could you tell us a little bit about it?

Phillip Ackerman 11:11
This, this is a question I've thought a lot about. Because there definitely definitely have been influences. There's definitely been influences in the way that I promote that classroom space and I promote that learning space and how I teach. And there's definitely been influences around like the content and like thinking through what we're teaching and what information is being shared and being critical. of sources of information and making some connections and making sure that we're looking at things from different perspectives and so on. So I think my influences are really piecemeal and have come from all sorts of different folks along my journey, both in and out of the classroom like definitely not just educators. I've definitely been influenced by community activists and advocates in the field and so on, so there's no one person. I will mention though, that I am a graduate of Seneca College, I did study in this program that I am now the coordinator for I did take the Social Service Worker program, specializing in working with immigrants and refugees, at King campus. I'm not going to tell you the year but it was a while ago, and I had some great professors at Seneca and some of them are still here. I don't want to name everybody because I don't want to leave anybody out. But if you're listening, you know who you are. And one of the big things that I noticed in the folks that really influenced me, especially in this field, especially in the content that we talked about in our classrooms was folks who were had one foot in the field so they were they were relevant. They were they were able to talk about emerging challenges, they were able to talk about trends that were happening now. They were able to talk about recent policy changes and how those policies trickle down and impact the folks that they're working with and that I was soon going to be working with. So that kind of up to date knowledge. I think it's really important, especially in the social service sector, the social service sectors, I should say, because policy is changing so fast. In the past week, there has been enormous immigration announcements that have happened around the border, closing the border closing, around a new program, a new economic program, and now its health care cuts are happening for uninsured folks tonight. There's a lot of big things happening and we need to keep abreast of those things because they impact the folks in the field so making sure that we are still connected to community and still connected to the work that we're preparing students for. That's something that's always resonated for me, from the professors that I had. And that's something that I really worked to embody myself and to make sure that I'm spending time keeping abreast of these things. And keeping up to date and making sure I'm preparing our students for 2023 and not for 1966 When I graduated from this program, I didn't graduating in '66 for the record.

Kevin Pitts 14:18
Thanks Philip. We'll be right back after this.

Kevin Pitts 14:30
Seneca is excited to honor our faculty who through their contributions and commitment of positively improve the quality of education and enrich the experiences of their students. The Senecas Teaching and Learning awards for faculty recognize and celebrate outstanding faculty who make a difference by engaging students, inspiring colleagues, caring for their students, and demonstrating innovative teaching practices. Senecas Teaching and Learning Center would love to hear from you for more information or just to say hi, send us an email at Teaching@Senecacollege.ca.

Kevin Pitts 15:15
And now, back to our story we're in conversation with Philip Ackerman, Seneca Teaching Award winner in flexible delivery. Phillip, congratulations on your award. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Phillip Ackerman 15:33
Yes, I was surprised by this award. So I I have wonderful colleagues who nominated me for this award. So thank you, everyone. So I won an award for teaching excellence in HyFlex delivery. I know there's a lot of different ideas and a different different feelings around HyFlex and some people love it and some people don't love it so much and it doesn't work for everybody and there's some glitches and some hiccups that kind of get in the way of the learning that happens. And I think there's some criticisms around that. For the courses that I've used HyFlex for it's worked very well. And I know that there is a very kind of base philosophy around high flex that HyFlex provides flexible learning, and students can get equal or close to equal learning experiences, whether they're live in person live virtually or asynchronously. So for our program and what I was teaching, which is I teach one course on immigration policy, and I teach another course on migration and trauma where HyFlex worked really well. They were quite content, heavy courses. And so I was able to it was it worked very well. So for the number of students that showed up, I could be flexible around that or so if sometimes three students would come to class and a lot of students were at home. I've noticed more recently that in my classes, I'm getting half the students in class and half the students are online and it's different students every week, so I am enjoying HyFlex more. Especially for that in person learning I really am. I'm happy to see that more students are returning to campus. I am a firm, firm believer and I can't say this strongly enough in especially for this courses that we talk about in the courses that we teach and the content that we talk about. For in person learning I find there's so much value in community building, the conversations that happen at break, that don't happen in online spaces where everyone just turns their cameras off and sits alone in their houses or whatever. But having those little conversations, building community, being more engaged in the learning in an active way rather than a passive way. I find that invaluable in the in person spaces. But I, I also find value that students can have some flexibility in 2023 at the end of hopefully it's the end of a pandemic with all their other life things going on with childcare, part time jobs, all of these other things that they have to kind of juggle. So I what I don't find value in for our program is the asynchronous piece. I don't find that we would be able to give students the same quality of experience, asynchronously as we would in a real class. Part of the reason is, as I mentioned before, a lot of our students have newcomer experiences themselves. So they share, they disclose, they talk, so I don't record the class time because we're talking about the refugee process and students have gone through that process and I tell them in every courrse that I dont have it up on the internet and just having that kind of control over it. So so students that miss those kind of in those live conversations are not going to get the same experience and I don't think we can equate that in any way. But for how we adopted HyFlex into our context. It's been working really well. And it it does kind of check some boxes that students are able to have a little bit more flexibility and on certain days with weather issues and so on that they are able to connect remotely. I know that it doesn't work when students are all just staying home and it just becomes an online class. And it's it's I know that's frustrating and so on. So when it works, it works When it doesn't, there's hiccups and challenges with that.

Kevin Pitts 19:47
So, for those listeners that perhaps are not familiar with HyFlex teaching, can you tell us a little bit about how it works?

Philip Ackerman 19:57
Sure. So I was one of the original guinea pigs within the HyFlex space. So HyFlex is I would I'm probably not going to use the right language and terminology and so on in my mind...it is this kind of smart classroom with cameras set up in the classroom, and good quality speakers. And so how I set it up is I use Zoom, and the students that come to class will be in person and they will be there and then the other students are on the screen at the front of the class in zoom. And you can switch the cameras back and forth so students at home can see the students in the classroom. They can see me and I can also share any sort of content, PowerPoints, Word documents, and so on to both groups at the same time, because it's all through the same Zoom that set up in the classroom. So students would be able to participate, live coming to class and participate like they did pre pandemic that they would come and join class. Discussions and so on. But they can also join through Zoom at home. And where the skill kind of comes in is kind of juggling those different spaces and make and in converging them in meaningful ways and so that making sure that students at home are able to participate in meaningful ways and you're not favoring the students in person or the students at home. You're giving everybody a chance to talk and connect with each other in in that space. So I think that's generally what HyFlex is the other way that a lot of folks use HyFlex is that they would record that session. And then students could also learn asynchronously so they could watch it on their own and do some activities and so on, on that on their at their own time. So it wouldn't be a live experience for them.

Kevin Pitts 21:57
Great. Thanks for that. I think that speaks to that access and inclusion and student choice that you talked about earlier. So students have the choice of either coming to class or experiencing the class online, and also to do some asynchronous options as well throughout the week. And that could be on a week to week basis. That's right.

Phillip Ackerman 22:19
Exactly. And I would mention one kind one challenge that we have is we often and this is the same thing with policy right that we often have these new ideas and they they become this one size fits all. So this should work for all students that we have this new HyFlex system. Students are going to get great learning experiences, whether they're on campus, whether they're at home, or whether they do it on their own time. I think foundationally that could work. I think the idea behind that is very valid and that could really work. But I don't think it's a one size fits all. I think there's a lot of students who for different reasons, whether because of life and their responsibilities. They're not able to engage in the classes, even if they're virtual. So a lot of students will turn on the class, don't, Ddn't join the Zoom, and that kind of feels like that's it right so we I think that there is a potential for some students to fall through the cracks when we're promoting flexibility. I know we talk I know what good foundation of Seneca is flexibility without compromise. And so one of the things we really had to do with HyFlex is to not have that compromise. We don't want to compromise their academics. We don't want to compromise their education and preparing them for a very dynamic and fast paced field. Because we are promoting flexible delivery, and so on. So we want to still make sure that we're engaging students, and where we're meeting them where they're at and so on, but we're really encouraging them to prioritize their education. And the active learners and be motivated and engage with the students in the class and the content and the professors and so on.

Kevin Pitts 24:08
Yeah, that's, that's great. So that's a good segue. What advice then, or tips or tricks, would you give new educators?

Philip Ackerman 24:20
Okay, so for new educators, we're at a very interesting moment, right that we are coming out of this pandemic. Hopefully, we're coming out of this pandemic, who knows what's going on right now, but in some ways, it does feel like this renaissance is happening, right? Folks are looking forward to the new world and we have all these new skills and new ways to use technology. And I think that's wonderful. And I think that there has been some really positive shifts and so on. But I don't think we're I don't think we're stable yet. I don't think we've found our footing. So new educators that are that are coming into this world right now I think they need to be patient and be flexible and understand that that change is still happening because we're still figuring things out. And I think we're going to be figuring things out for a little while longer, until we kind of find our stride again, and and find a way to move forward in education that is promoting learning, promoting inclusion, promoting accessibility, and so on, but also having those elements of flexibility and so on. So I think technology is an important thing right now in student engagement is a definite skill that folks need to continue to think about and continue to work on and so on. So I would say to connect with folks don't You don't need to do this by yourself. There's wonderful folks at Seneca to support and help kind of guide you through this and navigate this journey. Great.

Kevin Pitts 25:59
What about on the other end of the scale? What advice would you give seasoned educators?

Phillip Ackerman 26:07
I think the same thing, I think I want to think there isn't a huge difference between seasoned and new. And so I think I think all of us no matter how long we've been teaching, we were never there, right? We're never like "Oh, I'm perfect. Now I my teaching practice is polished. I have no more work to do on that. I have no more work to do on myself". We can always do work on ourselves, whether we're challenging our biases, whether we're developing our practices, whether we're thinking about inclusion in different ways. I don't think we can ever stop thinking about inclusion. I think there's ways to be inclusive of the student's language abilities, countries of origin, their own experiences, their students with disabilities, all of those different intersections that happen in a classroom and in that in a shared space like that. I think we need to continue to learn and continue to attend Teaching and Learning days and workshops outside and be reading about progressive ideas around education and be experiencing these different things and being in different spaces and growing our practice and our ideas around teaching and education. And I don't think we're ever going to be wherever we're never going to hit that ceiling. We always have more room to grow and more room to improve.

Kevin Pitts 27:27
I couldn't agree more with that statement for sure. So, Philip, what are your plans for the near future and maybe the far future?

Philip Ackerman 27:37
The near future, I have 17,000 assignments to grade. So that is my near future plans. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit. I don't so as I mentioned before, I'm always very interested in being involved in the community and I continue to work with youth in different ways, especially newcomer youth refugee youth, youth that are living here with no immigration status at all, or some form of precarious immigration status. So I want to continue this is short term and long term. I want to continue to be involved. In that work I am I work closely with some nonprofit organizations including the S4 Collective which is the sanctuary, students solidarity and support collective, which is a nonprofit. That I co founded with some community folks a few years ago. This, this work is really important because it informs my other work, but it also promotes like, broader change and one of the one of the issues that has been very close to me for a long time and I've been championing for a long time in different spaces, is access to education and promoting better access to education. So I would still like to work to promote change in this area and making sure that different folks can access education at secondary or post secondary levels and reduce some of those barriers that they face.

Kevin Pitts 29:09
I very much enjoyed our conversation today. Thanks for doing this.

Philip Ackerman 29:14
Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure I loved our discussion.

Kevin Pitts 29:25
Thanks to Philip for sharing his story with us today. For more information about Philip and Seneca College's Teaching and Learning awards for faculty, please visit our website at Bitly.podcast/TLC that's B I T L Y dot P O D C A S T TLC. Thanks for listening, and see you next time on Teaching and Learning's Stories from the Field from Seneca's Teaching and Learning Center

Transcribed by https://otter.ai