Know Your Profs is an ongoing series of profiles on the instructors at Camosun College. Every issue we ask a different instructor at Camosun the same 10 questions in an attempt to get to know them a little better.
If you have an instructor you’d like to see interviewed in the paper, but perhaps you’re too shy or too busy to ask them yourself, email editor@nexusnewspaper.com and we’ll add them to our list of teachers to talk to.
This issue we caught up with Business prof Kathie Ross to talk about dry humour, students who give up too soon, and being a “guide on the side.”
1. What do you teach and how long have you been teaching at Camosun?
I teach accounting and tax courses. I started at Camosun in 2008 teaching some continuing education courses and have continued to teach courses on and off since then.
2. What do you personally get out of teaching?
I love it when I see that the students have grasped a concept. In education they often call it the “aha moment.”
3. What’s one thing you wish your students knew about you?
That I always want every student to do their best, and I’m always hoping they do.
4. What’s one thing you wish they didn’t know about you?
Sometimes my sense of humour gets very dry; not all students appreciate it.
5. What’s the best thing that’s happened to you as a teacher here?
Seeing a student that I taught years earlier in a business situation and having them remember me as one of their favourite teachers. Of course, they could say that to all their teachers, but it still made me feel special.
6. What’s the worst thing that’s happened to you as a teacher here?
When students give up too soon. Accounting sometimes takes a little longer before it starts to make sense for some students. I feel a huge sense of loss when a student gives up on my class when I think they are just beginning to understand it.
7. What do you see in the future of post-secondary education?
I think we will see more and more flipped classrooms making greater use of technology and the internet for students outside of class time. This is great for me because I love teaching in a flipped-classroom environment and spending time with students to help them understand their work, being a “guide on the side” rather than a “sage on the stage.”
8. What do you do to relax on the weekends?
Ballroom dancing and motorcycle riding.
9. What is your favourite meal?
My husband makes BBQ baby back ribs where he is at the BBQ for hours. I only get them once a year, usually on my birthday.
10. What’s your biggest pet peeve?
Students who come to class unprepared.