The following are courses where I have incorporated ecological/place-based and arts-based approaches where possible, and as appropriate to the context.
Beneath each course description, I include a brief note on the approaches I have integrated.

Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University

EDUC 100 Selected Questions and Issues in Education
Students examine questions relating to: the concept or idea of education; learning and the learner; teaching and the teacher; and more generally, the broader contexts of education. In this iteration, three pillars of values underlie the work around teaching and learning: Indigeneity, Equity and a Culture or Inquiry. The course asks students to think broadly about education, but particularly to focus on the ways that Indigenous and Equity issues are framed and interrogated within the field. This focus will be pursued through a lens of inquiry and will be explored predominately through the process of writing.
Guided by the work of Indigenous scholars, we explore Indigenous pedagogies and how they are inextricable from the land and from ecological relations. Students begin to understand how a reciprocal relationship with the land is integral to responsible learning/teaching.

EDUC 199 Personal Agency: Finding Voice and Place in Academia
Developing one’s academic voice and being part of an academic community involves taking an active role in academic conversations:  listening with care to the ideas of others, and responding thoughtfully.  It also involves developing confidence to voice your experience and ideas clearly and sincerely. 
Working with the awareness that academic life can be well connected with your own life and story as a person, this course offers practice in expressing yourself through both written and spoken language, and in finding connections that are meaningful to you.  
Students are invited to:
-Explore individual learning needs and preferences
-Participate in both in-class dialogues and online discussions that hone ability to critically reflect on the voices of others while developing one’s own
-Explore written voice through a personal narrative
-Present research on a topic that affects one’s own life, and that is then interpreted and expressed through creative means.
We explore the notion of ‘place’ in all its aspects - social, psychological and geographical - and how these are interconnected. With the idea that finding place (a sense of social belonging, a voice and a valuable role to play) is inextricable from personal histories of - and awareness of - geographic place, we probe questions around Indigenous inhabitants of the land and ecological relationships. Students’ sense of connection to what they care about in the world is also expressed through creative/arts-based interpretation.

EDUC 352 Building on Reflective Practice (Writing Intensive)
In a sincere practice, ongoing reflection on personal approaches and practices, and on teaching aims and is necessary for the growth and continued vitality of the teacher. In this course, we will work toward building such a practice through discussions of caring relations with others and with self, of personal values and beliefs and how these relate to teaching and to education, and of how one might integrate philosophy and research with practice. We will have opportunities to reflect on what it means to be educated, to share teaching styles, and to reflect on how teaching can develop based on feedback received from others and on self-reflection.
Aims are:
To further acquire knowledge and understanding of research in reflective practice and to gain an appreciation for different modes of reflection
To actively reflect on your interactions with others in the classroom and with yourself as a class facilitator; and to develop understanding of how this reflection enriches your understanding and practice
To build and develop your own reflective practice framework and how it might apply to various contexts
A key self-reflective project involves visiting a place in nature and engaging with it through creative dialogue.

EDUC 437 Ethical Issues in Education
This course engages students in discourse around theories and approaches in ethical issues in daily life, and particularly in contexts of learning and teaching.  Some questions that we explore include:  What do we mean by ethics, and in what contexts does it play out?  How do we relate to others ethically, and how far might these ethical relations extend?  How do we engage in ethical awareness, and how do we create meaningful ethical change in our everyday practices? 
At the core of our work together is a project that seeks to build, through the practice of transformative learning, greater conscious awareness of our own life practices and habits of mind.  We also engage in active dialogue: you will have the company of peers in your group with whom you jointly reflect upon the theories and perspectives you are learning, engaging in self-cultivation and questions around values and ethical practices.
This is an online course originally written by Heesoon Bai and is much informed by her publications.
We consider how the relational aspect of ethics - our relations with self, with others, and with all beings - are all interconnected. We discuss intrinsic (rather than instrumental) valuing - not only of other humans but of the larger biosphere, and the role of aesthetic attending. The key project is around self-change (rather than endeavouring to change others), one aspect of which may be understanding how healing the self and healing the planet are deeply interconnected.

EDUC 456 Models in the Contemporary Arts in Education
Contemporary art involves ways of working that are frequently conceptual, improvisational, exploratory, and interdisciplinary. Such art is often process-oriented and reflective. It tends to focus on meaning rather than traditional skills and mastery, and uses a wide variety of materials and approaches. Such art often explores social and personal issues that may include the nature of art, consumerism, politics, ecology, gender, sexuality, technology, culture, language, the media, and identity. The course examines modern and postmodern approaches to art with a view to providing a balanced understanding that is of value to education. We explore how engaging in the arts, both as responders to works and as active makers, can open up and enrich the realms of learning and teaching. Students learn about and respond to theoretical issues in art today, as well as to meaning-oriented approaches to the teaching of art They also become familiar with the work of contemporary visual artists and engage in the practice of art-making in a reflective way.
One of two major art projects focuses on responding to a local place, with aims to authenticate personal connections to it through aesthetic means, and to explore local distinctiveness.

EDUC 477 Designs for Learning: Art
For teachers of all levels of art experience and ability, this course focuses on how to create, and integrate, meaningful art practice in the classroom. We will be working through 3 frameworks: our own art practice, the teaching of art, and art appreciation, criticism, history and process.
The course involves regular artmaking during class time, looking at the work of artists and learning from their ideas, forms, contexts and ways of working, and considering how best to teach the kind of art that matters to you to and your students. We will explore various media (drawing, painting, sculpture, mixed media), the social and cultural contexts of art, and visual communication.
Educational aims:
-to engage in hands-on art practice
-to develop the skills, knowledge and confidence to facilitate meaningful art practice in the classroom appropriate to the students’ level
-to enrich understanding and appreciation of various facets of visual art, aesthetics and art criticism
-to integrate learning through art into various contextual and/or subject areas
The first of 3 modules focuses on connecting with place and land through art practice (2 others focus on connecting with self and with community).
We explore the work of Indigenous artists and their contributions to understandings of ecological relations and their criticisms of colonialism.

Continuing Studies, Liberal Arts 55+, Simon Fraser University

LIB 231 Ecology, Culture and Connecting with the Natural World
Our environmental crises have their roots in our imagination, habits of mind and, perhaps most notably, our cultural values. Many arts scholars who focus on the environment claim that the idea that humans are separate from and above other species, when in fact we are only a small part of the web of life, is the core of our ecological problems.
We will consider the ideas of some of these scholars through active reflective discussion, with some focus on the work of eco-psychologist Joanna Macy. We will also engage in creative activities (no previous experience required) that aim to explore our own personal relations with nature, engendering new insights and deepened connection with the more-than-human world.
The course as a whole focuses on creative and cultural responses to ecological degradation and possibilities of healing.

Dept. of Interdisciplinary Expressive Arts, Kwantlen Polytechnic University

IDEA 1100 Exploring Self and World: Transcultural, Creative and Interdisciplinary Inquiry
We will explore diverse ways of responding to questions about what matters to you in your life: personally – in terms of your nature, values, heritage, and potential purpose – and how these might connect with your academic and professional career. Since we work with the assumption that academic and professional work should be personally meaningful, we begin with explorations around self-awareness. Responses to this inquiry are likely to be open-ended, and to evolve as you do.
Our work together will take on a variety of formats and will invite you to think, feel, act and approach things in ways that may invite you to put aside ordinary rational thought (at least for a time). They call upon your sense of exploration, play and discovery as we try out approaches that may be unfamiliar and experience ways of learning and knowing – and of communicating that learning and knowledge – in modes that are creative and expressive, interdisciplinary and diverse.
Course Objectives
To deepen self-awareness, particularly with regard to your values, ethics, heritage, preferences and purpose
To have interdisciplinary and creative opportunities to articulate personal values (what you care about, how you would like to contribute to the world) and to explore examples of how these might be put into practice
To become familiar with creative and arts-based process through participatory activities, and through responding to the work of others
To deepen awareness of relationship with self, others, society, the physical environment and the natural world, and to actively participate in dialogue with all of these
To explore, practice and value affective and expressive forms of knowledge and communication, and their applications
The course is arts-based as a whole, and integrates a focus on ecological issues. Many students choose to focus on these in their final group project.