Faculty Wisdom

Hello, I am Dr. Nancy McKeown and I am the Chair of the Department of Physical Sciences.  I teach Earth and Planetary Sciences courses.  Every year I teach Introduction to GIS and Planetary Surface Imaging and frequently also teach Introduction to Physical Earth Science, Geology of the Solar System, and Structural Geology and Tectonics.

I try to design my courses following Universal Design for Learning principles to help ensure everyone has the support they need to succeed.  This includes typically more, smaller, low-stakes assessments instead of two midterms and a final.  I often making those tests take-home, open-book, open-note, and online.  I’ll set a date range, for example: Friday at 3 pm to Sunday at 11:59 pm and then each student gets to choose an hour and a half interval during that date range to write the test.  That way, you can choose your own quiet place and time for the test.

Because of this built-in flexibility, it’s easy to enact the accommodations that are presented in Accommodation Letters from Access and Disability Resources (ADR).  It really helps if students send me Accommodation Letters earlier in term so that I know what accommodations I need to put in place, whether it’s extra time on an exam or having a note-taker in class.

It also helps to have good communication in case something changes or we need to structure things differently.  That is usually directly with me but I have also worked through Learning Specialists in ADR.  It’s important to communicate what is needed in time for me to make any adaptations because it takes time to reformat a test or send test materials like rocks and minerals to ADR.  I will always do my best to make sure that you get the help you need to succeed in my class.

Communicate early, work hard, and enjoy your time at MacEwan!