Red Deer College (Red Deer Polytechnic since 2021) is a teaching-intensive comprehensive institution that offers a variety of programmes that include high school upgrading, trades, diploma, university transfer, and collaborative degrees. I teach in the multidisciplinary Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, now part of the School of Arts and Sciences. Most of the students to whom I teach are enrolled in a university transfer programme, meaning that they complete two years of a degree at Red Deer College before finishing their degree at another post-secondary institution. Several students are enrolled in a collaborative programme (where Red Deer College offers a complete degree from another Alberta Institution), mostly in the University of Alberta's "Middle years" Education degree, or formerly in one of the University of Calgary collaborative degrees (English, Psychology, and Sociology) offered through our Department. This means I have taught mostly first and second year courses, with a few third-year seminars or directed reading courses I taught on behalf of the University of Calgary.

The years I have now been teaching at Red Deer College have seen me build upon my strengths as a lecturer and as an instructor using a variety of interactive teaching techniques with the support of the Centre for Teaching and Learning and of various professional development initiatives. I have developed well-adapted methods of teaching and assessment, and have been supported in this endeavour by peer reviews. I have also had multiple opportunities to develop other skills, such as management and group leadership, by being involved in committees and collaborative leadership initiatives. I have also been involved in the process of mentoring new faculty, particularly through peer observation and facilitating Small Group Instructional Feedback (SGIF).

Over the course of my career at the college, I have developed interactive learning activities with the staff of the library in order to enhance my students’ information literacy, which has come to be a challenge to many students. My goal is that students taking my courses not only acquire useful historical information, but also develop useful skills in information management that will enable them to succeed in whatever career path they choose. I have tried a variety of exercises such as research journals and options in developing research assignments to my courses. From 2009 to 2012, I integrated a librarian to my survey course in Canadian History. Not only were students invited to present information in ways both creative and relevant to their own programme (mostly Education), but they benefited from the expert knowledge and guidance of a librarian in developing research methods and exploring tools for researching and presenting information. This initiative was the unfortunate victim of budget cuts, but the experience led to further adaptations of the courses to enable students to reach similar objectives by different means.

In 2013, based on some of the principles of "learner-centredness" as defined by the work of Maryellen Weimer and others, I introduced the idea of having various options for research projects in some classes. This started with the introduction of Community Service Learning (CSL) projects in Canadian history courses, where students can get credit for volunteer work done in partnership with a community organisation. Over the years, I have had over twenty students avail themselves of this opportunity, contributing their time and expertise to several mostly small organisations in the community. Students write a report on the experience outlining the learning derived from the experiences. In World history courses, where CSL is less topical, I have been offering students the option of either doing a primary source analysis or to revise a Wikipedia article, which is another way of encouraging a contribution to the community, albeit an online one.

Participating in the Department as area head for History from 2008 to 2012 enabled me to get involved in programme development. I came to Red Deer with projects for creating a course in the history of health and healing, which would merge nicely with the needs of our Nursing programme. I also have an interest in the history of sexuality, which has attracted the interest of our Social Work programme. I introduced these courses on the calendar in 2013 and 2016 respectively, obtaining the necessary approval from transfer institutions and Alberta Quality Council. I have also participated in a variety of college committees, such as the Department's Marking Assistance committee, the Agora Student Conference committee, the Recognition of Scholarly Activity committee, and the Faculty Professional Development committee, which can be compared in complexity with running one of the small divisions of the college, with an annual operating budget of $1,3M. I also participated in the Strategic Planning Task Force, which developed and oversaw the implementation of the 2012-2017 College Strategic Plan. My input focused on enhancing the experience of students at the college and removing barriers for less-privileged students from what the College called "under-represented groups".

In the area of research, while I initially maintained connections with the research groups in which I was involved in Montréal, and participated in the activities of the David Peikoff Chair of Deafness Studies, I have reoriented my research focus in an area inspired by my teaching practice. I have been exploring aspects of undergraduate learning in history, using my experimentation with integrating information fluency skills as a basis, as well as theoretical approaches inspired by the "historical thinking concepts" developed among others by Peter Seixas. In addition to this research on teaching practice, I have an ongoing research project that started in 2013 on representations of Indigenous history in commemorative sites and museums. I think both of these areas of research will lead to fruitful avenues to developing ways of teaching history that will be more inclusive and respectful of the varied historical experience on this northern half of the continent, as well as more effective in furthering students' intellectual skills at tackling historical issues.

Finally, I continue to use technological supports whenever practical and useful to students' learning. Red Deer College uses the Blackboard platform as a Learning Management System, and each course has its own dedicated Blackboard site. I get courses with multiple sections that I teach merged, to avoid duplication, but also to encourage student collaboration across sections. Blackboard is the location of all lecture materials, additional readings and links to resources of interest, as well as the place where students submit their work electronically. In addition to Blackboard, I use Google forms for students to sign up for assignments, especially in classes that have multiple options, which avoids having to use sign-up sheets. Finally, I have developed a centralised site grouping all resources students need to succeed in my courses. This includes general guidelines for all types of assignments, pointers on how to research and how to properly use the Chicago Manual of Style, and all resources required to build a Community Service Learning project. In doing this, I am hoping to avoid having to put information on diverse Blackboard course sites, but also to avoid contradictory information that results from incomplete updates in different places. This resource site is linked directly in Blackboard, but it is also available to anyone who wishes to use it.