Shows
Three Questions about Teaching and Learning (3QTL)What is Queer Pedagogy?We might not instinctively associate drag queens with teacher education, but for Dr. Harper Keenan, the queer imagination has tremendous potential to help us “unscript curriculum” and think about our classrooms in radically different ways. The Robert Quartermain Professor of Gender and Sexuality in Education at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Dr. Keenan has initiated an impressive array of community collaborations, including Drag Story Hour and the Trans Freedom School. Join us as Dr. Keenan describes the challenges (and unexpected rewards) of teaching pre-service teachers during pandemic lockdowns; the transformative power of queer, trans, and drag pedagogy; and why...2024-04-2439 minThree Questions about Teaching and Learning (3QTL)What Motivates Students to be Their Best Selves?For Dr. Bryan Dewsbury, equity-minded, inclusive, or humanist teaching means distinguishing teaching students from teaching subject matter. The humanity of students, in other words, is prioritized over course content, and their lived experiences become vital to how the classroom operates. In our conversation, Dr. Dewsbury describes how he confronted the challenges of teaching online during COVID lockdowns, while also highlighting the many dimensions of his approach to humanist teaching. He explains, for example, how restructuring “office hours” as “student hours” can deepen student learning; how the principles of PhD qualifying exams might help us design open-book undergraduate exams; and he offer...2024-04-0329 minThree Questions about Teaching and Learning (3QTL)How Might We Collaborate to Advance Racial Justice?In a 3QTL first, we are delighted to feature two guests on today’s episode: Dr. Patrina Duhaney and Dr. Regine King, the award-winning co-developers and instructors of a University of Calgary course entitled “Afrocentric Perspectives in Social Work.” As members of their Faculty’s Anti-Black Racism Task Force, which was established in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, Dr. King and Dr. Duhaney were motivated to create a course that would familiarize students with the challenges and barriers experienced by Black people in a Canadian context. Our guests also found themselves in the difficult situation of having to launch a...2024-03-1343 minThree Questions about Teaching and Learning (3QTL)How Do We Teach and Learn in a Crisis?The most challenging years of COVID lockdowns found Dr. Morgan Vanek inhabiting the role of student more often than she might have expected. As she learned to parent, drive, and cook—all during a pandemic—Dr. Vanek found herself reflecting deeply on those core values that were guiding her teaching and learning practice, while simultaneously rediscovering the value of the Humanities for helping us survive and make sense of global crises. Join us as Dr. Vanek outlines the many ways she transformed her classrooms in light of these experiences: from the implementation of “ungrading” techniques like contract and labour-based grading...2024-02-2131 minThree Questions about Teaching and Learning (3QTL)How Can We Practice Reciprocity?We rarely imagine the library to be a “rowdy” space, but for Jessie Loyer, unruliness and quiet contemplation can (and should!) coexist in our libraries. Drawing from her research on Indigenous information literacy and the Cree legal concept of “wâhkôhtowin”—the imperative to know your relatives—Jessie invites us to rethink what it means to “visit” a library, both ethically and relationally. How, as instructors, are we in a reciprocal relationship with not only our students, but also with the knowledge we acquire through research and those spaces in which we conduct it? How did the sudden shift to online te...2024-01-3127 minThree Questions about Teaching and Learning (3QTL)What is a Pedagogy of Kindness?Justice, believing students, and believing in students: according to Dr. Cate Denial, these are the three pillars of “a pedagogy of kindness,” an approach to teaching and learning that centers care for ourselves, as instructors, and care for our students. Dr. Denial, the Bright Distinguished Professor of American History and Director of the Bright Institute at Knox College, Illinois, is also the Primary Investigator of “Care in the Academy,” a Mellon Foundation-funded project examining pedagogies, communities, and practices of care in the academy after COVID-19. Kindness, Dr. Denial stresses, must include reconciliation, forgiveness, and accountability, and it should be distingu...2024-01-1031 minThree Questions about Teaching and Learning (3QTL)What is Student-Centered Teaching and Learning?Our social lives and community-driven projects were significantly affected during the pandemic, and it became especially difficult to organize innovative teaching and learning experiences within such a context. Our guest this episode, Dr. Adela Kincaid, has much to say about some of these challenges. An assistant professor in the University of Calgary's International Indigenous Studies Program, Dr. Kincaid has collaborated with students and community partners—including Indigenous Elders and knowledge-keepers—on some inspiring, student-centered teaching and learning initiatives. Join us for a conversation about land-based learning, student-led conferences, experiential learning, and the service-driven approach to community engagement that Dr. Kinc...2023-11-2927 minThree Questions about Teaching and Learning (3QTL)Can We Think Differently About Time?What do Mariah Carey, arts-based student feedback, and the Disability Studies concept of “crip time” have in common? They all played integral roles in Dr. Alan Santinele Martino’s approach to teaching and learning during the most challenging moments of the COVID-19 pandemic. An assistant professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary, Dr. Martino is currently researching the intimate lives of LGBTQ2S+ disabled people in Alberta, and he brings this Disability Studies lens to our conversation. While we aimed to survive the pandemic, Dr. Martino points out, we also had a unique opport...2023-11-0827 minThree Questions about Teaching and Learning (3QTL)How Do We Become Creative?How do we become creative people in the world, as both instructors and learners? For Dr. Laleh Behjat, professor of Electrical and Software Engineering at the University of Calgary’s Schulich School, creativity both necessitates and fosters courageous, caring, and collaborative approaches to teaching and learning. In our conversation, Dr. Behjat shares how she and her colleagues renewed the engineering curricula during COVID-19, and offers examples of how she cultivates community in her classrooms. Join us as Dr. Behjat describes how we might eliminate exams and draw inspiration from karate to reimagine “cheating” as a form of collaboration. Full episod...2023-10-1826 min
Games Institute Podcast046: Home-Away-Home with Dr. Derritt Mason This month we are joined by Dr. Derritt Mason, who is a associate professor in English at the University of Calgary. Follow along as Dr. Mason discucsses topics surrounding their love of video games, queer representation in games, and coming of age stories in gaming. Dr. Mason additonal dives into how adolescent roles are displayed in horror games, the unique aspects of "bildungsroman" in gaming, and his book “Queer Anxieties of Young Adult Literature and Culture”. Email: derritt.mason@ucalgary.ca Website: https://derrittmason.com/ Book: Queer An...2023-10-0651 minThree Questions about Teaching and Learning (3QTL)How Might We Reimagine Assessment? Over the course of a twenty-five-year teaching career, Dr. Jesse Stommel has been interrogating the power dynamics that structure our grading and assessment practices. Every conversation about grades is also a conversation about power, he maintains, and “ungrading” might offer some possibilities for making our classrooms more inclusive, caring, and collaborative spaces. The rapid switch to online teaching during COVID-19 raised some new questions for Dr. Stommel about the state of post-secondary education, and he found himself reconsidering the very foundations of his teaching and learning practice. Join us as Dr. Stommel discusses the joys of collaboration and the prob...2023-09-2737 min
Three Questions about Teaching and Learning (3QTL)What is 3QTL?“3QTL: Three Questions About Teaching and Learning” is a podcast focused on innovative approaches to teaching and learning in higher education. In its first season, the podcast invites post-secondary faculty across disciplines to share their experiences during COVID-19. Our guests and host, Dr. Derritt Mason, discuss how the pandemic affected their teaching philosophy, what best supported or hindered their practice during that period, and what they learned that they would keep doing in the future.2023-09-0802 min
The Children's Table PodcastIt's Dangerous to Go Alone!: The Secret Worlds of Video Games, featuring Dr. Derritt Mason and Dr. Angel MatosGet your quarters ready! Dust off your Super Nintendo! Perfect your avatar’s hairstyle! In this episode, we’re continuing our exploration of secret and hidden childhoods by talking about video games. While video games have long been at the center of adult anxieties about childhood, they also invite young people into vibrant virtual spaces. In a conversation with Professors Derritt Mason and Angel Matos we ask how these digital worlds might invite children, teens (and even adults!) to imagine new environments — or re-imagine the world around them? Together we consider how video games make new stories and new modes o...2022-11-3046 min
New Books in LGBTQ+ StudiesQueer Voices of the South: The Year In Review (2021)In this episode of Queer Voices of the South, co-hosts Morris Ardoin and John Marszalek look back at the books and authors they covered in 2021.January: Black Queer Freedom – Spaces of Injury and Paths of Desire, by GerShun Avilez, University of Illinois PressMarch: Queer Anxieties of Young Adult Literature and Culture, by Derritt Mason, University Press of MississippiMarch: Brown Trans Figurations – Rethinking Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Chicanx/Latinx Studies, by Francisco J. Galarte, University of Texas PressMarch: Morris Kight: Humanist, Liberationist, Fantabulist – A Story of Gay Rights and Gay Wr...2021-12-311h 04New Books in LGBTQ+ StudiesDerritt Mason, "Queer Anxieties of Young Adult Literature and Culture" (UP of Mississippi, 2020)Young adult literature featuring LGBTQ+ characters is booming. In the 1980s and 1990s, only a handful of such titles were published every year. Recently, these numbers have soared to over one hundred annual releases. Queer characters are also appearing more frequently in film, on television, and in video games. This explosion of queer representation, however, has prompted new forms of longstanding cultural anxieties about adolescent sexuality. What makes for a good “coming out” story? Will increased queer representation in young people’s media teach adolescents the right lessons and help queer teens live better, happier lives? What if these storie...2021-03-101h 02
Are We All Met?Episode 1 - Why Queerness is a Superpower and also...CATS! with Luc TellierIn this episode, we speak to Edmonton-based queer theatre actor, director, and educator. We discuss what makes queer artistry special, examining the traditions of the theatre, the impacts of capitalism, and Luc’s favourite musical CATS!
Find Luc: https://www.instagram.com/luctellier__/
Resources & References:
1. Queer as Camp by Kenneth Kidd & Derritt Mason (https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823283606/queer-as-camp/)
2. The Queer Art of Failure by Jack Halberstam (https://www.dukeupress.edu/The-Queer-Art-of-Failure/)
3. Tiny Bear Jaws Theatre Company (https://www.tinybearjaws.com/)
4. Gender? I Ha...2020-07-2757 min
Witch, PleaseEpisode N: Witch, Please! Live and Scholarly at the U of C
Settle down students because class is about to begin! Cheer for your U of A Champions Hannah and Marcelle as they swoop into the University of Calgary’s English Department on their shiny new Red Arrow broomsticks. It’s kind of like the Triwizard Tournament, except it’s like really safe for all involved.
Graciously invited by Dr. Derritt Mason and his Children’s Literature class, Marcelle and Hannah have a topical back-and-forth before opening up the floor to questions that will challenge their wits and long term memories. Will our covenheads reign supreme? (Spoiler alert: eve...2016-03-221h 09
Material GirlsEpisode N: Witch, Please! Live and Scholarly at the U of CSettle down students because class is about to begin! Cheer for your U of A Champions Hannah and Marcelle as they swoop into the University of Calgary’s English Department on their shiny new Red Arrow broomsticks. It’s kind of like the Triwizard Tournament, except it’s like really safe for all involved.Graciously invited by Dr. Derritt Mason and his Children’s Literature class, Marcelle and Hannah have a topical back-and-forth before opening up the floor to questions that will challenge their wits and long term memories. Will our covenheads reign supreme...2016-03-221h 09