Rachel Katz often shares her cooking and baking with other people. After a time, people began to tell her that she should start a food blog. While Katz decided a blog would be too much to handle whilst being a full-time graduate student, she figured Instagram would be a manageable platform. So last summer while she was working one job and had relatively free evenings, she started her food Instagram, Fork in Progress.
On the account, Katz shares photos of the recipes that she’s tried. Unlike many other food accounts, her unfiltered photos project accessibility and make anyone scrolling feel like they could get in their kitchen and make the same meal.
The recipes that Katz tries are not necessarily easy, but she believes basic kitchen confidence can be applied to make more complicated recipes. She looks for recipes with very specific instructions that she can follow along with. She also looks for versatile recipes that she can add her own flavours to. In her captions, she highlights her innovations and provides tips.
One benefit to Instagram for her is the interactivity. It is easy for her followers to ask her questions and provide feedback. The platform also makes it possible for her to share step-by-step videos that break down the recipes into easier steps. This is to prove to people that anyone can learn how to cook delicious dishes.
“I was frustrated with a lot of students… saying ‘oh I have no time to cook’ or ‘I don't like cooking’… [But] food is so important, food is delicious and there's a kind of pride that you get from making your own food that you don't really get from anything else,” Katz said.
Katz understands how difficult balancing food with student life can be. The McMaster grad lived in residence in her first year where the meal plan limited the choice she had over what she ate. In her second year, she shared a six-person student house with a tiny kitchen. In both years, she didn’t feel like she had a fully functional space where she can cook her own meals.
For Katz, this resulted in patterns of disordered eating. In her second year, she committed to recognize these patterns in herself so she can create healthier eating habits. Preparing her own meals has been one tool in repairing Katz’s relationship with food.
In her third year, Katz moved into a two-person apartment with a nice kitchen. In her new kitchen, Katz explored cooking more. Working at the Silhouette also encouraged her as she began to regularly bake for the office. This practice allowed her to receive feedback on her food and grow as a baker.
“I don't use words like clean… or like detox, cleanse… [T]here are all of these other food bloggers out there who use those lines and a lot of recipe bloggers who have these crazy extravagant recipes. But there wasn't really anyone to fulfill the student niche for people who wanted to cook actual meals but didn't really know where to start,” Katz explained.
While developing a healthy relationship with food is important to Katz, food is also a tool that she uses in her relationships with others. Cooking is an activity that she likes to do with family and friends. Her food-related memories stretch all the way back to her childhood.
Katz grew up eating a lot of homemade meals. She is inspired by her mother, who is an accomplished home chef and baker. Not only does she adore the chocolate chip cookies that she grew up eating, but she also admires her mother’s diligence. Her mother can spend months trying to perfect a recipe.
Now an adult, Katz is making her own food memories, many of which include food she’s made for others. For her, cooking for people is a way of shaping their experiences for the better. By making a caramel corn cake for her partner’s birthday, she was able to make the day more memorable. When she makes her mother’s birthday cake this year, she will make that day more special.
However, as the name of her account indicates, Katz is still growing her skills in the kitchen. She wants her followers to continue learning, experimenting and trying new things.
“[H]aving a name that has associations of things that are not quite perfect, that I'm still learning but it doesn't mean that I don't know anything, I think… that embodies the mentality that I'm hoping I can encourage people to take with food and feeding themselves,” said Katz.
For this reason, Katz is not focused on monetizing Fork in Progress, as she and her followers operate within a student budget, she does not want to promote products that are inaccessible. While she would consider a column in a publication, she believes the account can only remain authentic by staying fairly small.
As long as she’s a student, Katz wants to continue spreading positive messages about food and cooking. She wants Fork in Progress to show students that they can make their own cakes and eat them too.
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Tutorials are a part of almost all students’ classes. They provide a time to delve deeper into confusing topics discussed in lecture, review difficult homework, or to spark meaningful discussion over class material. They are most definitely an important element to many university classes. Tutorials should not, however, be a place for unstructured expressions of opinion.
Last week, I attended a tutorial where I am one of the only non-white individuals in the room. The topic for that tutorial was diversity in the workplace. Soon, I could feel the classes’ eyes on my figure, watching how I would react. Statements that began with “I’m not racist but …” began to circulate around the room. What was intended to be a discussion on employment equity quickly turned into a discussion on if racism exists in Canada and if the term white privilege is a form of reverse-racism.
I had never felt more unsafe in my four years at McMaster University. I firmly believe that universities should provide a space for discussion of sensitive topics. But only so long as these discussions are conducted in a safe and supportive manner. The tutorial that I experienced was anything but.
I am lucky that my professor for that class was extremely sympathetic to my situation and offered meaningful solutions that went beyond switching my tutorial section. She promised to discuss with the tutorial assistants how to run tutorials and remind them of their responsibilities. TAs have a duty to moderate discussions on sensitive topics to ensure that situations like this do not arise.
We should remember the purpose of tutorials is not to engage in pointless discussion for fifty minutes to earn a participation credit. If we decide to run a tutorial on a sensitive topic, it should be to engage in thoughtful exchange of ideas and differences.
How then should we run tutorials on sensitive topics? The first step is to ensure students consent to being involved in these discussions. Some students have special or complicated relationships to the issues being discussed; for them, the issues are not just a point of theoretical debate but have actual impact to their life. By putting a disclaimer on the course outline and offering students the choice to opt-out of tutorials that discuss sensitive topics, we are respecting students’ individual circumstances.
For those who wish to remain in the tutorial, there should still be structured discussion. The tutorials should be based upon a clearly articulated objective. There should be a common base for understanding — the assigned readings should provide prompts for discussion. Ground rules should also be set to ensure that discussions do not turn hostile.
The framework of the tutorial can take many forms. For example, the TA can moderate a think-pair-share session which provides less risk for an out-of-control situation. Students can also be given a set of thought-provoking questions prior to tutorial and be required to come prepared to present their responses with the class. The tutorials should also have an element of student feedback to assess how effective these discussions are and how to improve them.
It is also extremely important that TAs should be trained on how to diffuse tension within the tutorials, which is bound to occur during these types of discussion. It is unfair to place sole blame on the TAs for any escalated situations; the professor of the course should be actively involved to ensure their tutorials are run in accordance to their standards.
There is also a level of student responsibility when engaging in discussions of sensitive topics. When we engage in these discussions, it is imperative that we remind ourselves that there are no hypothetical situations; we are oftentimes discussing the reality of people’s lives. Think twice before playing “devil’s advocate”–does your comment truly invoke thought or are you just trying to be cool at the expense of others?
University is an opportune time to learn of different experiences and perspectives. Discussions involving sensitive topics are important to help students understand the complex world they live in. There ought to then be more emphasis that they are run effectively.
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Lecture should not be a place to ask assignment questions, have long discussions receive participation marks. If attendance in both tutorial and lecture is mandatory and graded, what’s the point of having both sections take up time in my schedule?
Not all students enjoy tutorial-style scenarios. They are meant to be a smaller setting for facilitating group discussions and for the students to clarify concepts and ask assignment questions as a whole.
Unfortunately, tutorials have been losing their purpose. With the diverse requirements of certain classes in different programs and the rise of technology as a resource for students, tutorials may not be as necessary as they used to be. This is not the case for every class, but some course structures need to be reassessed.
With the increase of resources that eliminate the need for social contact, it is becoming harder for students to find the motivation to attend tutorials. Anyone who uses Khan Academy and relies on proffs to post lecture slides online can tell you the same thing.
This is why the incentive of participation marks exists; where, though attendance is not mandatory, it might as well be if you are interested in getting a better grade. However, certain undergraduate classes are beginning to use the participation mark incentive to forcibly influence students to attend lecture as well.
Students who have class in the new “active rooms” in L.R. Wilson Hall have experienced this. One of my mandatory English courses weighs each two-hour lecture to be one per cent of my final grade and solely bases this on the forced group participation portion of the lecture. Yes, lecture. Not to mention that this full-year course also has a full-year tutorial that uses the participation marks incentive. This lecture is one of the “learning pod” classes in L.R. Wilson.
With the diverse requirements of certain classes in different programs and the rise of technology as a resource for students, tutorials may not be as necessary as they used to be.
The active learning classrooms are “high-tech” classrooms with multiple TV screens that students sitting in the “learning pods”, also known as the round tables in the classroom, have access to using an HDM port.
In addition, the room also has a microphone at each seat and each pod has a complimentary white board at each seat. Sounds like the perfect tutorial room, doesn’t it?
Tutorials are beneficial for certain classes, however a lecture like the one I just mentioned does not need an additional tutorial. In this case, the integrity of the lecture-tutorial dynamic becomes obsolete.
However, in certain classes, the three hours of graded participation might be beneficial, especially for classes that are heavily dependent on discussions for grade achievement.
Though McMaster has a reputation as a university that practices the lecture-tutorial dichotomy, some classes have been straying away from this strategy of learning.
Some classes have been adopting the “flipped classroom method”, where students study at home using voice-over videos or modules that the professor has provided, and lecture is used to ask questions and expand on content that students learned about at home.
For certain classes like economics and psychology courses, this strategy works because it extracts the need for forced participation and encourages students to participate at their own pace, based on their own knowledge and understanding.
It also gives students more time to study concepts in the week by getting rid of a tutorial slot, and allows students to learn based on their own learning methods.
Just because McMaster has a lecture-tutorial dynamic, doesn’t mean that all courses need to hold true to it. Courses need to be assessed based on their structures and purposes. If tutorial is not beneficial for me as a student, then it doesn’t need to be one more reason for me to worry about my grade.
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By: Elizabeth Ivanecky
With course evaluations available until Dec. 8, McMaster University needs to adjust the structure of tutorials that often accompany lecture-sized classes. Tutorials simply do not accommodate all types of personalities and learners.
The choice to remain anonymous in lecture halls isn’t present in tutorials. This tutorial strips more reserved students of this anonymity and forces them to share their opinion.
What do shy students do then? Do you let the system change you or show the system it doesn’t own you, but lose easy marks in the process?
Thankfully, many professors and TAs are aware of students who have more difficulty expressing themselves among their peers and do offer ways for such students to make up their participation mark in ways that go beyond oral expression in classrooms. They opt for giving such students the opportunity to write up written responses to a set of issues discussed in tutorials. Even with professors and TAs who are more attuned to the personalities of their students, there are other problems with the tutorial set-up that need to be addressed.
The main problem is the fact that tutorial discussions benefit a certain kind of learner or student. Those of us who absorb information best through lectures are most likely going to excel in tutorials where we learn by listening to our peers and expressing ourselves. No doubt those of us that learn by reading and writing can take notes during tutorials in order to retain some discussion material.
However, for those of us that learn by doing things, there are few alternatives. Unless our professor gives us an assignment where we find examples in the Hamilton community of what Marshall McLuhan meant by “The medium is the message,” then we are probably not going to get much out of a discussion of issues.
Similarly, those of us who are visual learners will also have difficulty in this rigid setting. It does help when professors and TAs show diagrams of the functioning of body systems or flow charts showing timelines of historical changes, as it would with any learner. For a visual learner, these actions need to be consistent.
Perhaps the faultiest thing about tutorials is the mark breakdown. In a typical tutorial worth anywhere from 10, 15 or 20 per cent of our grade, we are expected to make at least three to four significant comments showing we engaged with the readings discussed to gain full marks.
But the math doesn’t add up. Say you have a 50-minute tutorial with 14 other peers and on a regular basis, the TA or professor leading this tutorial is guaranteed ten students who come to class. In an ideal world, if all 15 students were determined to receive full marks for tutorial participation, they would each have to make three or four strong points for discussion. With the assumption that these points take time to develop in an oral delivery, you’re looking at around five minutes of class time for each student to make these points.
The main problem is the fact that tutorial discussions benefit a certain kind of learner or student.
This does not even include the regular commenting that a TA or professor would provide during such discussions. Already, the time allotted for these small-group discussions is not nearly adequate in meeting the student’s bare minimum needs of success let alone inspiring thought-provoking discussions.
Although tutorials are meant to be spaces where students have the opportunity to voice their opinions, they often either get led by a select few students or become strings of awkward silences echoing in the minds of students reluctant to be present for that.
It’s time to say goodbye to tutorials that are led by the few and welcome a space that makes students actually want to come to tutorials.
