TEACHING 4 COURSES AT ONCE -- ON THE 2 COASTS in CANADA

TEACHING 4 COURSES AT ONCE -- ON THE 2 COASTS in CANADA “Donald,” said Marjorie, “why do you always have to do six things at once?” “I’m a young man in a hurry,” I said. “Exhausting for people around you,” she sighed. I remembered that dialogue recently when I realized that my colleague Dr. Stepan Wood and I are actually teaching four university courses simultaneously on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Canada.  Here at Cape Breton University in Sydney, Nova Scotia, it’s 1:30 in the afternoon, and I’m teaching a credit course -- Political Science 3705 -- which meets in person every week for 2½ hours in our smart classroom in Campus Centre. A continent away, in Vancouver, where it’s 9:30 AM, Stepan is teaching a credit course – Law 391D – at the Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. During the first 1½ hours, our classrooms are linked electronically, and the two of us deliver four mini-lectures and discussions, rich in audio-visual materials, blending the stories from my environmental writing and film-making with the legal perspectives of one of Canada’s leading environmental law scholars. For the final hour of the session, I meet only with the CBU credit students – half of whom are participating electronically. Each student will do a class presentation and a substantial reflective essay. From the CBU student’s perspective, this course – Green Rights: The Human Right to a Healthy World -- is entirely a CBU course, delivered by Dr. Cameron in person, augmented by video guest lectures from Dr. Wood. At UBC, meanwhile, a mirror image of the same thing is taking place: in the final hour of each session, Stepan is working only with his own students, who are all studying for law degrees. From their viewpoint, he is delivering a self-contained UBC course, augmented by electronic guest lectures from Dr. Cameron. The UBC course, incidentally, is called Warrior Lawyers andGreen Rights, and it’s based on materials – interviews, films and a book – from TheGreenInterview.com,  which gives Stepan a coherent and colourful set of stories that humanize the formal language of legal texts. Neither of us could present such a rich experience alone... (MORE)

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