North Island College is a comprehensive community college that focuses on student success. We proudly serve 169,000 people throughout our 80,000 km service region, which includes northern Vancouver Island and BC’s main coast from Bamfield to Bella Coola.

Dedicated to Indigenization, access and wrap-around student supports, NIC works with local communities, government, and industry to build healthy and thriving communities, one student at a time.

While the demographic makeup and student profiles will vary by program area, here are some general snapshots of who our students are at NIC.

Learning is a journey towards self-discovery, personal growth, and socio-economic prosperity. At NIC, our passionate commitment to life-long learning ensures we provide relevant and accessible learning opportunities for all.

For many students, access also means valuing their life experiences and being able to choose what, how, and when they progress through their studies. We will increase the many ways students can access education and training at NIC.

Further information on how NIC is and plans to support students, refer to section 4 of the Build 2026 Strategic Plan.

Cognitive and Emotional Development

Our students are on an intellectual journey that takes them through various stages of thinking as they encounter new ideas and new ways to understand the world. Sometimes, as they struggle with new ideas, it may seem as if these stages or phases of cognitive and emotional development are getting in their way. However, if we accept that moving through stages of intellectual complexity and sophistication is normal on anyone’s path of learning, we can help our students with their intellectual struggles. If we are aware of and can anticipate the stages, they are likely to experience, we are better able to respond effectively and assist students in becoming critical thinkers. We will also be able to let go of the frustration that comes our way when students resist certain kinds of thinking or seem stuck with perspectives that do not serve them well in their learning.

The Perry Scheme

The Perry Scheme is one tool that many instructors find useful for diagnosing where students are on their intellectual journey. The late William Perry, professor at Harvard, originally published his research in 1970, using as his subjects the white males in his university courses.[1] Subsequent researchers have updated the original thesis, to uncover its relevance for a broader population.

Perry identifies four basic stages in the evolution of an individual’s thinking. The summary provided here is a pragmatic simplification of the scheme. In general, Perry’s research describes the four basic stages in the following terms.

Dualism (black and white thinking)

• Knowledge is viewed as received Truth; things are either right or wrong
• Teacher is the authority who has all the Answers
• Learning means memorizing, finding the “right” answer, getting the “A”
• Common Dualist question: Will this be on the test? Will you tell us the right answer?

Frustrations for students at the dualist phase

• • Memorizing worked in high school, why not now?
  • Why won’t the teacher answer my questions?
  • Questions without clear-cut answers are “tricky,” unfair and not useful.

Multiplicity (everything is grey)

• All knowledge is suspect; all opinions and statements are equally OK
• Teacher may be the authority, but he/she represents just another opinion
• Learning means playing the teacher’s game to get the “A”

Frustrations for students at the multiplist phase    

• • How can the teacher evaluate my work if it’s just a matter of OPINION whether it’s good or bad?
  • Grades are based on whom the professor likes

Relativism (Everything has a context)

• Knowledge is suspect, but some things are supported by evidence and reasons
• Teacher is a conversation partner, acts as guide, shows the direction, helps students discover.
• Learning means realizing that what we “know” is colored by perspective and assumptions. Facts and data are essential, but not sufficient.

Frustrations for students at the relativist stage       

• • I need more information and more than one perspective, but this class is narrow.
  • Traditional university classes are often not challenging enough
  • I’m surrounded by students who are clueless.

Commitment in Relativism (knowledge has an impact on who we are, on our moral being)

• Knowledge affects personal actions outside the classroom
• What matters: facts, feelings and perspectives and how I will act upon them
• Teacher is a source among other sources
• Learning includes making choices, and taking responsibility for those choices

^{Further Reading: Belenky, M.F., B.M. Clinchy, N.R. Goldberger and J.M. Tarule. 1986. Women’s Ways of Knowing. Basic Books, NY.}

Supporting Diversity in the Classroom

NIC has several supports for faculty and students that aims to foster inclusivity and diversity in the classroom.

• Aboriginal Students: Link
• International Students:  Link
• Student Wellness: Link
• Disability Services:  Link
• Human Rights Policies:  Link

Indigenous Students

Indigenous students come from many backgrounds and types of experience and there is no single way to describe their previous experience, nor their academic experience at the university. But it is important to remember that Indigenous students come from a culture that prioritizes respect, learning through listening and watching quietly, learning from personal experience, and acknowledgement of the spiritual dimension of relations between people and the world. These ways of knowing and learning are not always consistent with the expectations of a college classroom that receives its norms from western European culture. European culture often privileges active participation in whole-class discussion, rapid-fire answering of questions, abstract conceptual thinking and objective rather than personal approaches to understanding the world. Additionally, the European classroom has historically been a place where Indigenous ways of knowing have been actively and intentionally suppressed, so our Indigenous students may arrive in our classrooms with a certain wariness about how well they will fit in and whether they will be successful in what may feel like a hostile environment.

^{Map of Vancouver Island of First Nations}

NIC faculty have been using various strategies to help Indigenous student know that they are welcome in the classroom, and that their ways of knowing and being are an asset to the learning that happens there. Just some of the strategies they have employed include:

Beginning the class with the traditional acknowledgement that we are living and learning on un-ceded Indigenous land. North Island College is honoured to acknowledge the traditional territories of the combined 35 First Nation of the Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwakwaka’wakw and Coast Salish traditions, on whose traditional and unceded territories the College’s campuses are situated. Setting up the classroom (either permanently or only on some class days) as a talking circle

Inviting an Elder to teach in the class during the semester

•  Allowing for multiple ways of participating in discussion and class activities, not just acknowledging the first hand up
• Designing assignments that have multiple formats and ways to submit
• Designing assignments that allow students to bring their personal experiences into play
• Designing experiential activities that align with course learning outcomes
• Including Indigenous perspectives as part of the curriculum, not just as an add-on at the end of a chapter.

NIC Elders
At North Island College (NIC) our Elders are a trusted and honoured resource. They provide counseling, support and guidance to all students at NIC. You will often hear the students referring to the Elders as “Auntie” or “Uncle”, which is a sign of both affection and respect. North Island College Elders are active in a variety of areas encompassing student support, classroom instruction, teaching traditional protocols and cross-cultural sharing.

If you should have questions or wish to invite an Elder to your class, please contact the Indigenous Education department Elders in Residence

1st Generation Students

First generation students are those who are the first in their families to attend university. Venturing out in this way takes a significant amount of courage and adventurousness. NIC attracts a significant number of these students, who bring with them some challenges for learning.

First generation students often do not understand and are initially unprepared for the expectations of a post-secondary classroom. Their personal experience of classrooms ended in High School, and they have no siblings or parents who can give them advice. There may be many questions they do not know to ask, and many resources they do not know how to find. They may not know how to apply for financial aid, may be seeing a course outline or syllabus for the first time and may need help understanding deadlines and grasping academic standards. They often do not know about the many resources at NIC (the Writing Centre, Math Learning Center, Advising, Counselling, Disabilities, Health clinic, Technology Helpdesk, etc.) and thus waste time trying to work things out alone.

These students also often have added pressures from home. Their parents and siblings and friends do not understand how to succeed at post-secondary learning and expect their student to continue doing everything they did before registering for classes. They are more likely to hold down full-time jobs, care for family members, and face financial pressures than other students. They may also experience incomprehension or backlash from family members and friends for stepping outside the conventional norms of their community. All of these pressures can make post-secondary an almost insurmountable experience.

Some ideas for helping first generation students succeed:

• Arrange office hours at times and on days when most of your students can attend. Create opportunities for office hours in addition, to accommodate complicated student schedules. Never tire of inviting students to your office. Encourage them to come singly or in small groups for study sessions.
•  In face-to-face courses, encourage students to connect with you before or after class, when they are already on campus
• Create a welcoming online presence so students can connect with you outside of class.
• Be responsive to students, but also clearly explain any limitations you have for responding, especially electronically (i.e. “if you email me, I’ll get back to you within 48 hours if it’s a weekend, otherwise it’s 24 hours”)
• Create very clear course outlines with expectations, deadlines, contact information and resources clearly explained
• Create assignments with flexible formats, and that can include students’ personal experience in the world when possible
• Be familiar with all the resources available to students so that you can help them connect with those they need

Mature and Returning Students

Mature and returning students have many of the same pressures as first-generation students. They work, care for families and are often concerned about finances. At the same time, they are often very focused on their personal goals, and clear on why they have come back to school. Additionally, their life experience sometimes helps them see connections to the material that younger students cannot yet make. However, since their academic classroom experience is some years old, they often worry about their ability to keep up with their younger peers in the university classroom and about their writing and math skills. Additionally, they are less likely than traditional age students to create a network of friends, and so often feel isolated at post-secondary education.

The strategies that help mature and returning students are similar to those for first generation students. Welcome them in your class, let all students see their experience of the world as an added asset, encourage them to ask for assistance, and supply them with the many resources NIC has to offer students.

International Students

NIC attracts international students from many different continents and cultures. These students usually come to us highly motivated but are often unprepared for the culture of the Canadian classroom. They have many practical issues to solve with regards to immigration, insurance, housing, and work. They also must master a new culture and vastly different academic expectations than in their home countries. And they are doing all of this in a language that they have not yet fully mastered, and looking through cultural lenses that do not always square with how things work in Canada. International students are often away from home for the first time, and experience homesickness and cultural disorientation while taking on a full academic load. Because of their language and culture differences, they may also experience isolation from their peers in the classroom and high stress around their academic performance.

The Office of Global Engagement (OGE) supports the college in meeting its internationalization goals. This includes supporting learning outside of the Canadian cultural context and developing skills for success in an interconnected world.

Your international students are expected to perform just like any Canadian student in the class. This does not preclude some challenges with language, culture, and classroom expectations. The three largest challenges are writing skills, oral comprehension and communication, and academic expectations, specifically expectations around participation in class discussions and conventions of writing academic papers.

Supporting Students who have English as an Additional Language (EAL)
^{(Excerpt from Teach Anywhere post written by Margaret Hearnden)}

Potential Challenges Facing Some EAL Students

While all students are facing significant challenges at this time, there are some challenges that might affect some EAL students to a greater degree:

• Being very far from home and worrying about family
• Being far from Courtenay and worrying about connecting with their instructors / peers
• General stress of living in a foreign country / functioning in a second or additional language
• Living with other family members/friends in tight conditions (multiple students sharing one room / laptop)
• Not having physical access to library / computer labs
• Reliance on using a phone to connect with instructors, peers and course materials
• Racism / negative perceptions of ‘others’

Core Learning Components ACCESS:

A= assess, C=content, C=communicate, E=engage, S=summarize, S=support

Assess

• Avoid Timed Assessments
  Strictly timed assessments disadvantage students functioning in an additional language in ways that do not reflect their knowledge by also assessing their speed of reading / processing information (‘dial-up’ versus ‘high-speed’)
• Invite Reflection
  Use assessments that require individual reflection rather than ‘Googling’ and ‘cutting and pasting’ content, forces students to create original work and shares their understanding
• Include Spoken Assessment
  Consider using oral assessments for students who are less strong in written skills (unless you are teaching them writing)
• Be Flexible
  Ask students about how they can demonstrate they have met the course learning outcomes – that can take the heat off you as the instructor and can provide ideas you’ve not thought of (this also promotes feelings of inclusion and engagement)

Communicate

• Focus on Relationship Building
  • Instructor – student: Initiate one to one contact, e.g., send an introductory email with a photo, video presentation of you talking and introducing the course, and / or arrange one to one office hours
  • Student – student – Put students into small groups so they can work offline together. Begin with ‘get to know you’ exercises). Building trust is key to engagement.
• Be Flexible
  • Consider using student’s alternate email address it not engaging using NIC email.
  • Use Brightspace to email / send regular announcements
• Create Community
  • Use community building activities from the outset (e.g., discussion board questions – students share something about themselves that they are happy sharing; Padlet with a map to show where they are currently living or from where they originate).
• Think about Language
  • Use multiple ways modes of presenting information and opportunities for engagement that support EAL learners in terms of language.
  • Use platforms such as YouTube and TED Talks that have functions such as close captioning or subtitles in multiple languages. Include materials that can be viewed multiple times.
  • Present information using narrated PowerPoint presentations with an accompanying transcript;
  • Consider using annotated PDFs of readings, where students can bring up the definition of words they may not know;
  • Create or get students to create a glossary of key terms for students to refer to ahead of reading and associated online engagement). Explain idioms and metaphors.

Engage

• Optimize the Opportunities of Asynchronous Learning
  • Focus more on asynchronous activities to reduce stress of ‘live’ communication if you know students are in other time zones / might not have access to good Internet or technological tools.
• Foster Inclusion
  • Find out as much as you can about students’ individual circumstances (obviously without prying) – helps guide what is feasible to include in instruction and makes students feel like they’re being included – e.g., any technological limitations (access to certain sites if abroad, differences in time zones).
• Invite Student Experience
  • Draw on individual student experiences. One of the biggest barriers to student engagement / motivation is not feeling ‘part of a community.’
• Engage in Diverse Ways
  • Allow students different ways of engaging depending on the comfort level in different language skills (e.g., some students may be able to better engage and demonstrate their learning through videoing themselves with their phone explaining a concept, rather than writing a paper and emailing it to the instructor).
• Use Signposting
  • Key points are organized in different places across languages. EAL students are often looking in the ‘wrong place’ for the key ideas.
• Use Visuals
  • Use diagrams, photos, pictures etc. to support explanations, especially if they help with understanding abstract concepts. Concrete examples that illustrate the concept or theory you are explaining increase understanding.

Support

• Reassure
  • EAL students often need a lot more reassurance in terms of language skills. If you are not assessing writing / language let students know you are focusing on the content of their ideas, not how they articulate it. NB – reassure more if using ‘chat,’ ‘discussions,’ etc. that are synchronous, where it can be hard for students to focus on the idea, grammar and spelling of how they express that idea, all at the same time.
• Invite Diverse Ways of Interacting
  • Use asynchronous discussions, wikis etc. so students have more time to think and formulate ideas;
  • In synchronous sessions, be mindful that it’s hard to interrupt in a second language and much harder in an online environment, since we can’t see as clearly non-verbal cues that help us know it’s okay to speak next.
• Provide More Time for Learning
  • Having EAL is like having ‘dial-up’ versus ‘high-speed’ Internet. There are also more likely to be ‘connectivity’ issues (finding the right word), and ‘technical’ problems (accessing appropriate sentence structure, idioms etc.).
  • It takes 2-3 times longer to read complex articles in a second / additional language. This is important to consider when planning the amount of written content that you expect students to get through and also when creating assessments.

Students with Disabilities

Students with disabilities, be they physical, cognitive, or issues of mental health, have as much of a right to study and improve their lives as any other students. A disability may put a student at a disadvantage, not because he or she cannot perform academically, but because the conditions under which a course is habitually taught include barriers to that student that do not exist for students without disabilities. For this reason, there are arrangements put in place to support students with disabilities so that they have a more level playing field when they are in an academic setting. Such arrangements are commonly called “accommodations.”

NIC is committed to providing access to education for students with documented disabilities and recognizes the legal duty to provide reasonable accommodations to students with a documented disability. Students must provide faculty members with a letter from The Department of Accessible Learning Services (DALS) describing the accommodations to which they have a right.

If a student has been advised to meet with you privately during office hours to discuss arrangements for accommodation, acknowledge and be supportive of the student’s requirements. Never ask what the student’s disability is, that information is personal and legally protected. The student may self-disclose, but the faculty member may not ask. Come to a clear agreement regarding the implementation of the accommodations listed in the letter from DALS.

Not all students with disabilities will disclose that they have a right to accommodation at the beginning of the semester, even if you invite them to. This may be because they do not wish to share such personal information, or because they do not even know they have a disability. Some students with disabilities do not learn that they have one until they are already at risk of failing a class. The stressors of academic performance along with other things happening in a student’s life may also trigger episodes where the student is unable to perform in the same way that students without disabilities do.

Some ideas for helping students with disabilities succeed:

• During the first class announce details surrounding DALS. Let students know you are aware and supportive of services that help students learn.
• Include a welcome statement in your course syllabus such as:

Students with diverse learning styles and needs are welcome in this course. In particular, if you have a disability/health consideration that may require accommodation, please feel free to approach me and/or Department of Accessible Learning Services   (DALS) as soon as possible. The DALS staff is available by appointment to assess specific needs, provide referrals and arrange appropriate accommodations. DALS is in the Puntledge Hall in the Comox Campus, in the C-wing of the Campbell River building, in the Centre Wing of the Port Alberni campus in can be reached at:

Campbell River 250-923-9713

Comox Valley 250-334-5080

Port Alberni 250-334-5000 ext. 4028

• The sooner you let us know your needs the quicker we can assist you in achieving your learning goals in this course.
• If you notice a student struggling and you suspect it might be a disability, refer the student to the DALS Services and discuss with the student teaching and learning alternatives that might help the student succeed. Try not to diagnose a disability.
• Treat students with disabilities as you would other students, with the exception of the accommodation that are helping them succeed. Students with disabilities should have the same opportunities to succeed or fail as anyone else. Their work must be equivalent to that of their peers (attend class, meet deadlines, complete assignments) unless otherwise specified in their Letter for Instructors from DALS.
• Be prepared to offer flexibility in assignment deadlines and formats, to help students succeed. The goal is always to provide equal opportunity to master the essentials of your course.

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