#SenecaProud

Pat Perdue  00:00

Hi, I'm Pat Perdue, and I'd like to welcome you to season three of the Seneca proud podcast. This is a co-production between my company Ycastr and Seneca College in Toronto.  These days because of the global pandemic, yep, that's still a thing, so much of Seneca is remote.  From working, to teaching to studying. But hey, Seneca College has always been more than a place or a bunch of buildings. Seneca College is an idea. It's a vision for a better future. And it's a challenge to do what it takes to transform that vision into reality. And that is exactly what season three is all about. Seneca College is transforming. There are really exciting changes in the works. And this season, we get to take a close look at some of those changes, as well as the people who are helping make those changes happen. So if you haven't already, subscribe, and download and join me as we discover the changes and meet the people are transforming vision into reality. Because the next episode of Seneca proud starts now. 

And welcome to the second episode of season three, the Seneca proud Podcast. I'm Pat Perdue, and I'm glad you're here. So how's it going? If you're listening to this in the Seneca area, you've got snow. We've had our first hit of snow over the weekend. And if you're listening to this podcast, say like in India, or Brazil, or the Philippines, number one, you probably don't have snow, and number two, I am definitely jealous of you. And some students who are listening to this episode are actually going into Seneca, like on campus during the pandemic. As President Agnew mentioned in the last episode, they're the pilots, the nursing students. And in the case of today's episode, the veterinary technician students who actually have to work with animals. Seneca has a fabulous Veterinary Technician program that happens in our King campus. There's a barn and horses and sheep and, Pandemic or no pandemic, of course these animals have to be taken care of. And there's lots of stuff the students need to do with these animals for them to satisfy the requirements of the program. Which means even in a pandemic, there's people coming and going on campus. But that doesn't mean it's business as usual. Groups have to be kept to a minimum and learning bubbles can't be allowed to blend. So how do you co-ordinate all the classes and labs and in person orientation that needs to happen? Well, I don't know. But our guest today not only does know, she created a brilliant system to keep everyone safe, keep their programs happening, and also help take full advantage of the remote programs to make even those into something special. Talk about lemons to lemonade. 

Okay, so let me tell you about our guest. Kirsti Clarida is the co-ordinator of the Veterinary Technician Program at Seneca College's King campus and has been a proud registered veterinary technician since graduating from Seneca in 1999. With service in small animal emergency and local veterinary practice, she brings a wealth of experience to her role at Seneca. She's also a former communications manager for the Ontario Association of Veterinary Technicians, OAVT, creating campaigns to increase awareness of the important roles RVTs play in veterinary medicine in Ontario. Kirsti also continues to advocate for RVTs in her role as Vice President of the OAVT, and President of the Ontario Veterinary Technician Educators. Kirsti and I began our conversation, talking about how the Registered Veterinary Technicians program had to change to meet the challenges of the pandemic while still meeting the needs of the students as well as the animals. As you can imagine it was complicated to begin with, and then cats were added to the mix. Okay, here's Seneca College's co-ordinator of the Veterinary Technicians program, sharing how she managed to make it all happen. Here's today's guest Kirsti Clarida. 

 

Kirsti Clarida 04:13

The first issue that we needed to address was the fact that when the pandemic closed campuses for people, we still had animals, and so it is, we are essential service workers, veterinary technicians are, and veterinarians according to the province of Ontario. So we were coming in to the college and some of our team were coming into the college to take care of the animals on the animal schedule, according to that provision being essential. And that meant that the animals didn't have any lack of service, and we were able to feed them and water them and groom them and do all of the things that they need to live their happy lives. Then we were able to look into bringing students back, because part of caring for them, the husbandry of them, is what we were doing as essential service, is part of the training that we use in our program. And that's why we have the students come.  They love the live animal handling. And our program in particular has large animals living on site year-round, which is unique to vet tech programs in the province. And when our students choose Seneca, that's the experience that they want to have. And we were aware of that and trying to work really hard to make sure that they could achieve those goals, get that experience work with these animals, but in the safest way possible. So we've had to make some changes to get students back in. But we've been doing it.  We've  been having students on site since August, the beginning of August.

 

Pat Perdue  05:46

That's amazing. So can you share with us a little bit of how you made that happen?  I can't imagine all of the logistical challenges that you had to figure it out. 

 

Kirsti Clarida 05:55

It started with a gap from not even from the new curriculum or curriculum for students that were just coming in. But when the campus closed mid semester, we were in the middle of a very practical semester, for our second term students. And that meant that all of their programming stopped. And we could only continue with the theory pieces. And we couldn't actually achieve the learning outcomes for anything that they had to do practical. So the first thing we did was isolate which of those skills we needed to complete. And then, because there was the IP grade that the college had placed in to the grading system, we had this in-progress unit for these two programs, or there's two courses three in the program. We knew where they stood, we knew what they needed to finish. And then we kind of sat a little bit and waited and tried to plan different iterations of what it could look like. Will we be able to bring them back?  Would Ontario allow us to bring them back? Was public health going to be able to have provisions that made it make sense and make it safe? Some of the skills were in the barn, some of the skills were actually in a building, which changed the square footage and the spacing and the radius of public and physical distancing. So we kind of were creating different drafts over and over again, on all of the different possible decisions that could be made in the province, so that we would know what to do as soon as we had an opportunity. And in July, we got an opportunity.  That said, we wouldn't be allowed to have people back together as long as we were meeting the public health restrictions in the province of Ontario. So the first thing we had to do is work on cohorts. We have an intake of 110, 108 students a year. I had 110 students that needed to come back. But I needed to have them spaced out far enough so that they wouldn't be at risk for each other. And that meant we needed square footage. So the return to campus team, there was a team involved in that looked at all of the rooms where we would be and they gave us these ideas of capacity based on 6.6 foot radius. And then they had a second model for an eight-foot radius. And when we got clearance on the six foot radius, I was able to know that my cap was eight, it could have students come back and cohorts of eight and then it was a mathematical equation, I've got 112 students that can only come in eight at a time. I need them to do this number of skills, it's going to take them four days to do it. Now I just have to plan it out. 

 

Pat Perdue  08:30

That sound like the scariest math problem on a grade 12 math exam.

 

Kirsti Clarida 08:37

It was at the beginning. You know when you zoom out and look at it even with myself. I was like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do with all this stuff? That's, that's a lot of moving parts. But I again, Excel was my best friend. So I was able to bring all of the information into one workbook. And then I could flip back and forth between the sheets to plug it in. And so I mapped it out. That's that was what needed to happen. I needed to map out what would happen for each student in a group of eight on each day they were coming, What room are they going to be in? How long were they going to be there? Where would they go to have a bathroom break? Where would they go to eat? When would they arrive because I didn't want to have multiple students coming in at the same time because now the cohort breaks apart if I have 24 or 32 students show up at the front door. So then I had to stagger arrival time, stagger departure time. And then we had a map of the buildings. So I wrote out little routes, so students could enter the building without having too much crossover in the common areas. And then I worked with the faculty to make sure that we all understood the same pathways and these rooms, and what were the expectations. And the only other thing we had to address, once the plan was in place, was if students couldn't make the dates we had determined for them. When I decided how to cohort them. It wasn't based on alphabet it was based on skills needed. So some skills are, we would call them invasive, but they're more disruptive to the animal maybe a little bit more painful, a little bit more stressful, like an injection. So if a student needed an injection, I was keeping those injection groups of students together. And I would know that when do I bring back cats and dogs on site, because at the time I only had farm animals living there permanently, and how many animals will we want to bring back, how many students need to do something like that. And so that was how their cohorts were built. And if a student couldn't make it because of life, which, absolutely, you know, maybe they weren't ready health wise, or they couldn't come because they were working, we were able to, I preserved a couple of slots. And so we were just, I think it was a fishes and loaves scenario where it just worked, they that even the students that couldn't make it, we had exactly enough spots leftover, and all of the buffer, and everybody was able to come through. So that whole return to campus piece to finish winter 2020 took four weeks with the students coming four days a week in groups of eight, to finish their skill set. And then using that template, I kind of got started for fall, which was a totally different scenario, because now I had 110 coming in again. And our lab divisions already were bigger than eight. So I had to come up with something a little bit different.

 

Pat Perdue  11:27

That sounds terrifying, just to put together. And then you said, “And then we had to introduce cats and dogs.” So that sounds like all of that plus, bringing in a bunch of cats, just seems to really, really add to the sense of how difficult that must have been.

 

Kirsti Clarida 11:44

And we have a good team, and I have other people that I work with that helped me; there's a co-ordinator for the facility. And so that once I was able to say, “Okay, obviously we have limits. So when we bring an animal on site…” They all come un-owned. So if anybody is looking to adopt something, please reach out to me somehow. What can I do? I'm good. Yeah, so we bring our cats and dogs and also our rabbits, we bring them in from shelters. And they're un-owned looking for homes. And while they're in the program, if we're going to be doing work with them, we also may really vaccinate them, if they haven't come fully vaccinated.  We make sure that their health is in good form. Students learn restraint practices. How to hold them, how to approach them, take care of them, and then also how to do the treatments. And we set limits, so no more than x number of injections in a day kind of thing.

 

Pat Perdue  12:36

That sounds super complicated. In the planning, and once you planned it all out, how did you go about explaining it to all of the folks that needed to live this new life where, you know, you can't come in and show them? So how'd you do it?

 

Kirsti Clarida 12:52

Um, okay, so I started with repetition, The first thing that I did was, I wrote out what I thought were the bullets, the W-five I addressed the who the what the where the when the why, and the how of coming on campus and being there. And then I pulled out what I thought were the most relevant pieces to get the traffic moving. And I shared that with the faculty. And then I shared that with the students. I had support with the dean. So we were able to send the emails out to them with their information, plugged into the message. So they got it twice, once from her, once from me. And then I followed up again, the week before they were coming with a third reminder email: Here's a chart of what's happening for you on your days. I actually gave them a little chart that said, you know, on this day, you're in this room at this start time. And these are the skills you're going to be performing and learning again, and on this day, you're in this room so that they had a map and a flow. And then I made myself available. I used Teams a lot to make sure that they could connect with me that way. And they could ask me questions. And I was as responsive as I could be to make sure that they weren’t left hanging. And if I had a question come in more than once or twice, I knew that it was something that was a gap for everyone. I would make that part of my next rollout. Because I think that it was a lot of information at any one time. I don't know that I could have gotten it across if I had not repeated myself a few times or made sure that they could get it in more than one way. So that was my approach.

 

Pat Perdue  14:30

Did the students know when you said, Go to this room… Had they been there before? So they knew where that room was? Or was there also an orientation challenge?

 

Kirsti Clarida 14:38

No, this group did but the orientation challenges came from my next group. So if we're talking the August group, they had come back to campus after having completed a semester and a half. So they understood where they were supposed to be. But I that question right there you just asked that was my fall startup. And so for that I actually built an entire team virtual orientation. And I use 360 videos that Seneca has of the building. And I used some student projects, there is a prezi that a student group had made involving a floorplan of our building with images in each room, and I toured the students. I tried to recreate that physical orientation for them. I could show them this is where you're walking in, and then you're going to turn left and then you go straight into this room, so that the first year students wouldn't feel totally lost when they hit campus.

 

Pat Perdue  15:31

Amazing. And what? Did you record it and then send them a link to it? Or how did you get them part of that orientation?

 

Kirsti Clarida 15:38

So when the first email came out from Seneca College, a CRM email saying welcome to your new program, I had already made sure that there was going to be a mention of an orientation in there, and they would be followed up by their program co-ordinator. And as in about mid-August, when the lists were ready from the Registrar’s department, I was able to take that list and I was able to send them all an email and let them know that this is where our virtual orientation would be. And I sent them a link to Teams, and then I gave them the two time slots. I was watching students enroll into the Teams with me and join me. And then I was able to start communicating a little bit with them. I had pre-populated the Team. So if they joined earlier, they could browse through all of the things I had, I have bookstore links, and I have Blackboard IT links and I have our program manuals in there. So they could look and wander around in the Team by themselves. But on the two set dates and times, I asked our student advisor, Nick Crandell, to join me and the two of us went in and for an hour, we talked and he would catch me on the chat, he would see if students were asking questions, because I would be busy moving around the screen and talking, and he tells me the chat and some students on unmuted themselves and that that was really I made it as live as possible. 

 

Pat Perdue  16:57

Would that be something that you would, even in a post pandemic situation, carry over as a as a best practice?

 

Kirsti Clarida 17:04

Absolutely, I've, I've already copied that Team so that I could do it again.  I've learned some things. So one thing I learned was that the general chat function, I did not know that I could lock it so that it wouldn't be receiving chats from any of the visitors or members. And I now would, because I did have to copy it. The good news is that that virtual orientation site now is a primary portal for me to connect with my students, the sense of community is so high, I was really worried in COVID, that it would be hard for me to build a connection with 110 new people, but I don't actually feel that way anymore. And they can message me, they can ask me a question. And as time went on, I found that the students were answering each other. So it's actually decreased the amount of emails that I'm getting, because they themselves are building a sense of community. And they'll redirect each other to, Oh, well, she posted this over here. And this question was answered over there. And it's, it's been wonderful. But because my general chat column is full, I can't use it for next year. I'm just going to duplicate it. I'm going to lock that piece down. And then I'm going to, I'm going to filter the chats into a channel that I can remove later if I need to.  

 

Pat Perdue  18:16

As I listened to how you describe that, and it sounds. Sounds great. Actually, it sounds like you've managed to take the situation that you've been thrown into, apply some technology, and really make it great with a huge amount of engagement. How does that level of engagement compare to the amount of engagement you would have had pre-pandemic? 

 

Kirsti Clarida 18:39

That's a good question.  Pre-pandemic orientation would have been in person. I would have been there to meet them when they came in.  They would have come into lecture rooms in groups of 30, or 40.  Would have been in an introduction. And then they would have gone on tours. And I would have been on some, but I wouldn't have been on all tours because there's just too many people. So other faculty members would have wandered around with them and showed them all the building. And I think they would have known my face. And they would know my name. But the back and forth would have been very different. I think that the fact that they can chat with me if they're shy, and not everybody hears them has really changed the dynamic. And this week, given the orientation that they've put up their hand, or they have to speak out loud, and it's their first day and they might be a little shy. And so some questions I think probably weren't getting asked.  But in orientation, they didn't necessarily have to go that way. Because once you're in Teams, all they had to do was open chat and put @Kirsti. And they could just send me a question real quick, or @Nick and they could get him, and that I think changed it. And then later when I started to meet them more in my classrooms, I built a team for each classroom as well. And it's gotten even better because when I'm giving a lecture or talking live with Students, the shy students don't have to be shy anymore because the only person saying their answer is me. So if they missed the mark, it's not embarrassing.  They don't have to feel exposed. I have some students, they don't mind, I think they wouldn't have mind if we were live, either. But I do notice that in a classroom lecture with 50 students, you might only have 10%, that will stick up their hands all the time. The rest are pretty quiet. And I feel like now they're not necessarily as quiet. They are participating with that veil of privacy.

 

Pat Perdue  20:29

And I've often wondered, you know, in an in-person classroom, is that the extroverted students who don't mind volunteering, and making jokes and keeping the class moving forward. But of course, all of our attention goes to those extroverted students, and the students less likely to speak up, for whatever reason, just don't speak up and don't get the benefit of having their questions answered.

 

Kirsti Clarida 20:51

I totally agree with you. And I worry about them, because you can't really gauge if they're quiet but getting it, or quiet and not. And if it holds them back from engaging with the material, and they're missing something. I you know, icebreakers didn't necessarily help. Trying to find them privately, maybe. But it's hard when you've got that many students in the building. But this is different. This is changed that for me. I can just reach out and say, ‘How are you feeling?’  Now I've got a few students that, you know, we do a meet up, we'll do a live chat. And we'll go through what their questions were. And I've made channels per topic. So if students wanted to talk specifically about one unit, and they wanted to share with each other, they can do that in there. But they can just send me a quick question. And again, I use and the same thing, if I get more than two of the same question, I now put a statement in there for everybody. Because if two people have asked, that's probably the tip of the iceberg. I missed this. Yeah, I've missed my message. And that just gives me feedback to tell me I miss my message. I need to be clearer here. 

 

Pat Perdue  21:55

So share with us a little bit about how your online classes have changed. Is it a net minus?  A net plus? I'm going to use a much-overused 2020 word. Is it a pivot? That, you know, it's just it's a change, neither good or bad? Or how has the virtual component changed the nature of how the course content is delivered?

 

Kirsti Clarida 22:16

I would say that about 70% of the content that I would have had in a typical lecture is the same.  There isn't much of a difference, except I'm not pacing back and forth. And the students don't see me flail my hands as much. Because I can use the whiteboard function, I actually also use sometimes my children's whiteboard behind me, and I draw on it so they can see it in the camera, but also the ones that would be in Collaborate, or I can make notes and share screen with them in other formats. I'd say that the 30, there's 30% of what I was doing that I've had to get creative with, but isn't as interactive in the digital setup as I would have liked. And for that, I think that's been fun ror me.  I don't like static. I like learning new things. I like trying new things like being busy. And this kept me busy to get creative around it. And for that 30% change, I think that's been worthwhile. And I actually do see some benefit to maybe keeping some of this online delivery for the theory-based learning that we've got in our program. I think that there's some real benefit here. Especially when I now know that the quiet students might interact more if they don't have to be so public with others, the extroverts.

 

Pat Perdue  23:43

So interesting. And when we spoke prior to our conversation today, you would use a phrase that I'd really like to bring forward. It was you found that it sort of brings learning home. And what had you meant by that? 

 

Kirsti Clarida 23:58

Oh, yes.  Because it's veterinary. It's veterinary related. I mean, I can't even think if I've ever run into a person that didn't get soft when you talk about animals. People, animals and people, right. So the students that are coming, they obviously love animals. And a lot of the talking in our theory classroom, we wouldn't have had necessarily a live animal there. But I would have been a model or I would have had a video on maybe bring in one dog or cat, but they would be learning it by watching it. When they're at home now with their own animals, I can ask them to turn on their webcams and show me your cat, show me your dog. Let's get engaging. Let's look at your dog. Look at the way the arm is moved like this. Let's talk about the eyes and let's talk about, I was using one for body terminology for etymology. So it's the language of positions and directions and they all have their animals with them, and I'm seeing hamsters, and they can they can learn in the comfort of their own space lifetime with their own animals, which also makes them feel good and proud to show their animals. I think the engagement went way up on that area when the learning was in their home environment. I love it. And I may be unique because it's animals, but I hope it would be transferable to other areas as well. But yeah, that's been a lot of fun.

 

Pat Perdue  25:15

It sounds super fun to imagine a chorus with 15 or 20, or however many are in it, with their calves on and they're all holding whatever animal they have, from a cat to a hamster to a rabbit to a dog. That sounds amazingly cute and so relevant for them, because they're learning, not just about animals in general, but also a little bit more about this animal that they love. 

 

Kirsti Clarida 25:38

Yeah, absolutely. And I think even if the etymology is dry, I mean, it's language and it can be dry for a lot of people. Plus, it's new. And it's conceptual, where we're not learning words completely, we're learning them in pieces. And the directional terms are new. It's not something that they might have had in high school, or in previous educational sectors. So when they come, and they've got their animal in front of them, and now make something that would have been dry and maybe a little boring, a little bit more interactive, right? Like they're touching. I would be touching Hank, “This is Hank’s sagittal plane, this will be the median line.  This would be me moving rostrally, moving caudally. And I could touch him, well, on camera and Nick, a touch there's too, and the action of moving, we’re touching the professions very, very physical, very practical. A lot of people that come through our program, describe themselves as hands-on learners. That's their language. They learn by doing. So what better way than taking that lecture at your home with your animal on your lap and do it? Let's talk about terms with your pet.

 

Pat Perdue  26:44

So yeah, and you made a reference to Hank, Hank is your dog?

 

Kirsti Clarida 26:48

Hank is my dog. Sorry, it's my dog. And he's a feature in my classroom and the students now, log in, like, “Hey, where's Hank? I don't see you back there!” So, yeah, he usually sits in the chair behind me, and they can see him through the cam.

 

Pat Perdue  27:05

That is awesome. So when you think of after the pandemic, are you making a list of things that you're going to bring with you?  New changes that will survive, you know, once we get into a more normal situation?

 

Kirsti Clarida 27:17

Definitely. I'm gonna go back to my, I should get a plug from Microsoft, and go back to my Excel. But I have a sheet reading and I have a tab per course. And then when something happens over. It's just running all day. And then when something happens in the day, I jump on the course. And I make a little note, and then I jump on there. And I make a little note. And that hopefully, is my plan is to keep that so that when I have time, in between, we only we don't run continually, we have a full intake only so I'll have a little bit of space.  In the winter or in the summer semester where I can tweak those courses and hopefully build it back up so that we can keep what works. And maybe you know, that 30% that I might be struggling with. Maybe I have to do something different with. Maybe that's better to be live. But if I can keep what works for sure.

 

Pat Perdue  28:04

So in terms of your personal experience with the pandemic and self-isolation, so in the quarantining, and all of that, how has that affected you personally? Is there something that you've had a chance to discover about yourself or rediscover about yourself that might stay with you even beyond the pandemic?

 

Kirsti Clarida 28:28

Yes. The first one is that if I'm not busy enough, I don't feel good, I need to be busy for me. And it's not at not just busy work and needs to be something that I feel is going to make an impact somewhere. If it's just busy work, I'm not engaged. And that was hard with the pandemic. Especially in the beginning, because most of what I saw in my job, and in my personal life was isolated by the times that I would be there. So my job would be in the building, and I would have my files around me, and I would be walking through the halls and I would talk to this person, I would talk to that student. And it was part of my day, taking that online was a learning experience for me; which I like but there were periods where it was much quieter than I was used to. And I felt a little bit out of sorts, like I had to try to realize what was going on with that. And then I also remember now that I do also like periods of quiet. So it's a bit like a catch 22. I like to be really busy but also like it to be quiet. So as the province has been opening back up, and I've been in more places, and the noise is getting louder, I thought, I don't know.  For that, less of a tolerance for that than I used to which is interesting to me. I'm also getting older but I really don't, maybe it's that, but I just I find that it's the world is getting noisy again.  I might have liked it when it was a little quieter.

 

Pat Perdue  29:59

And I think maybe, you know, we had become acclimated to all of the noise pollution that's around us. And then I found myself hearing birds for the first time and I live relatively downtown in Toronto. And you know, and I was hearing birds at 7:30 / 8 o'clock in the morning when normally I'd be hearing traffic. And not only would I hear a bird, I would hear or, let's say a Robin, because it was that time of year. So it was probably around April, I would hear a Robin sing their Robin song, and then I would hear maybe a kilometer away, the answer. I had never heard that before. 

 

Kirsti Clarida 30:41

See, I live in a residential area of north of Toronto. But we had ducks in my backyard feeding off my feeder, like just the squirrel population. I've got, there's a whole lifetime community. There's a little chipmunk that lives in my front porch. He's called Theodore.  My kids, we feed them peanuts, and he's got a whole life and like we've been able to just know all these little critters in our area and the quiet of it and the fact that there was more of them. I had no idea that I had so many toads living in my backyard either. I have a nice grouping of toads.  They're very noisy toads too.  And I just, everything has been so much quieter to accept and appreciated here. And I think it's getting a little louder now but I'm going to have to maybe get re-acclimated if I'm going to come back out into the busy life.  But yeah, so it was a little, it's a weird dichotomy, right?  Where I like it to be quiet, but I also need to be busy. That's what I know about me now.

 

Pat Perdue  31:41

Thank you for that answer. And Kirsti thanks so much for joining the podcast. It's been great getting to know you and great having this conversation. So thanks again.

 

Kirsti Clarida 31:51

Thank you. I really appreciate the offer. It's been a lot of fun for me too. Bye. 

 

Pat Perdue  31:56

And that was my conversation with Kirsti Clarida, co-ordinator of the Veterinary Technicians program at Seneca College. What really struck me about the conversation was, even as the pandemic was throwing challenge after challenge at her, she was fully dedicated to making sure she could maintain what the students really love about the program, while of course, keeping everyone safe, animals included. And wouldn't you just love to be in a remote class where everyone has a pet that they bring to class? Kind of sounds like the cutest class ever. So yes, thank you to my guests, Kirsti. And, of course, thank you for listening to the Seneca Proud podcast. We all know that at some point in our future, we'll all be back on campus. But it's great to know that even during a pandemic, staff and faculty are still committed to creating the best student experience possible. Thanks again for listening. I'm Pat Perdue. Stay proud Seneca.