Distillations, Part 1

For my Candidacy exam, I wrote two papers. The first of these explored some of the fundamental questions behind my research, namely

  • what does it mean to teach?
  • how do we develop a sense of ourselves as teachers, particularly in the higher education context? and
  • how does our sense of identity influence our assessment practices?

This post is composed of excerpts and distillations of that paper.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A CEGEP TEACHER?

For teachers, Cégep can be an excellent opportunity. Most programs, pre-university or technical, require a Master’s degree or equivalent, rather than a doctorate[1]; furthermore, Cégep teachers are not required to conduct research, publish, or present, although many institutions support individual teachers who wish to pursue such endeavours. Teaching in Cégep is a largely autonomous affair; teachers are not accountable to parents, nor are they accountable to funding agencies.

At the same time, teaching at the Cégep level can present its challenges, not least of which is navigating the question of what level are we really teaching. Since there is no equivalent, the Cégep system has had to address this question – or ignore it – internally. Our students are 17-20, especially in the preuniversity programs, and they are not yet in university, so we might think of them as high school students, and ourselves as high school teachers. On the other hand, they have graduated from high school, and are now enrolled in specific programs akin to undergraduate programs in universities, so we might think of them as freshmen, and ourselves as university professors. Although Cégep programs are mandated as competency-based, that is, curriculum is developed around a concept of knowledge that includes social and academic skills, Barbeau argued that paradigmatic shift toward the competency-based approach has not been properly explained, integrated, or implemented by government, institutions, or faculty (in Doucet, 2016).

Teachers in primary and secondary classrooms also face challenges to their sense of professional identity, of course. In postsecondary education, however, new teachers must negotiate their identity as teachers as opposed to practitioners in their discipline – or, as Garnett (2013) argued, they must embrace their discipline-based identity within the institution and in relation to their students. In postsecondary education, teachers are likely to self-identify first as a member of their discipline, and must, consciously or not, develop a sense of themselves as teachers, both within the discipline and in the larger context of the institution.

Continue reading “Distillations, Part 1”

The Candidate

Shortly after I was accepted to the doctoral program, I ordered business cards, thinking that they would come in handy at conferences and the like. I filled in the form, and checked off the box marked “PhD Candidate.” After all, now that I was in the program, that’s what I was, right? A candidate?

Um, no.

It turns out there are designations, and that “candidate” indicates, typically, that you have completed any required coursework and have demonstrated – through comprehensive exams or papers, or both – that you have sufficiently immersed yourself in your field and are now prepared to take on original research.

The graduate secretary and the print shop were happy to accept my order, though, so I was the proud if confused owner of 250 business cards that erroneously identified me as a PhD Candidate.

When I told my supervisor about this mistake, she laughed and confessed that she had made the same mistake, introducing herself as a PhD Candidate as a newbie in her program. We’re actually working on a paper together now, exploring who makes what assumptions in the graduate context – because while the business card gaffe may be an innocuous blunder, there are assumptions made, by students, faculty, and institutions, that may have more dire consequences, or at least more embarrassing ones. Our conversation began with me relating the frustrating experience I had in applying to the program; the frustration stemmed from the institutional assumption that I (a) knew departmental faculty, (b) knew that I was expected to work with someone in preparing my application, and (c) knew how to remedy the situation if (a) or (b) were not true.

We all make assumptions, as teachers, as students, as parents, as citizens. As teachers, we may assume that students understand our instructions and know what to do with our feedback, for instance. We may assume that our colleagues share our beliefs about our role as teachers, and that our institutions will support us in our pedagogical choices. We may assume that someone will tell us that we’re not “candidates” yet, rather than signing off on a card order.

I think that a large part of the writing and dialogue I’ll engage in in the next few months will involve recognizing and challenging my assumptions – considering why I’ve made such an assumption, why it persists, and whether or not it’s valid. At least now that I have presented and defended my methodology and concepts papers, I can use those business cards 🙂

Maggie, PhD Candidate