Teaching & course design

I've been teaching throughout much of my adult life. As an undergraduate, I tutored high school students in English, and gave presentations at local high schools. I paid most of my way through graduate school as a teaching instructor, and was a sessional instructor for some years after that.

When I entered the business world, I continued teaching. Technical-writing, which I've also done off and on, is really just another form of teaching so far as I'm concerned. In addition, I was also frequently called upon to deliver presentations and to work at trade fairs – both of which are very similar to conducting an upper level seminar at university.

Eventually, I returned to teaching and course design. This time, I've been working largely with software, designing e-learning courses.

Software Courses

Most of these courses were done through the Learning and Instructional Development Centre at Simon Fraser University in conjunction with Telestraininglobal. Others were developed for international clients, including a division of Intel. 

Many of them were developed as elearning courses, although a number have also been delivered live, and all were designed to be used that way with a minimum of reworking.

English Courses

This file contains a list of the courses I delivered as a sessional instructor, mostly at Kwantlen College and Simon Fraser University.

Like many sessional instructors, I taught my share of entry level composition courses. These are the average sessional's basic bread and butter (or, at least, macaroni and cheese). 

However, I am proud of the fact that I was also one of the few sessional instructors in the Simon Fraser University English Department to teach upper level courses without a doctorate. 

These courses include Children's Literature, Varieties of Fantasy, Romantic Poetry, and several courses on Victorian fiction. 

I used to claim, half-seriously, that, given three weeks' preparation, I would teach anything on the syllabus – a boast that, fortunately, I was only called upon to prove once or twice.