An Interview with Centennial College Teacher Andrew Lynes
Introduce yourself and the courses you teach. What, in your opinion, is the best thing about being a teacher at Centennial College?
Hello, my name is Andrew Lynes and I have had the pleasure of teaching at Centennial College for over 10 years. I teach Western Civilization, Intro to Sociology and Ethical Issues, as well as other Sociology courses.
What differentiates the college from other colleges/CEGEPs in Quebec in terms of the approach and the educational frameworks that we use at Centennial?
At Centennial we have been at the vanguard of implementing the Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a philosophy that puts inclusion and the student’s specific learning needs at the forefront of all curriculum design. UDL accommodates for different types of learners and promotes a variety of classroom experiences.
Describe a typical classroom experience or a typical day at Centennial College?
One of the great things about Centennial is that there is rarely a typical day. A classroom experience can be anything from a discussion to a debate; informative video clips to feature length films; an outing to a scavenger hunt at a cathedral to conducting a social experiment in a shopping mall. All of these are examples of activities that are used to support a diversity of teaching techniques.
What is C-Space and what are the advantages of having this in college?
C-space is an hour per week per course of class time that is scheduled for students. It is used as an active study period where students are meant to review work, preview up-coming topics, or work on assignments that are up-coming. Tasks are given for each c-space and the student is meant to complete these tasks in order to earn marks.
What is the culture like at Centennial College?
It is a very supportive environment with lots of collaboration amongst the small staff. Students often speak of Centennial as a family, were everyone knows your name.
Tell me about one of your favorite teaching memories/story?
I once had a student who was deathly afraid of giving a presentation, even in just in front of me alone. She was in tears and shaking, claiming that she preferred to fail rather than present. After much encouragement, support, and negotiation, we were able to arrive at an arrangement that allowed the student to demonstrate her mastery of the material without any further stress on her part. By the end she was crying again – this time tears of joy – as she felt empowered and considerably more confident than she had before.