About me
Originally from Montréal, Canada, I moved to Los Angeles in 2013 to pursue postdoctoral work at UCLA. In 2015, I relocated to north Georgia, where I worked as an Assistant Professor of English at Young Harris College. In 2021, I became a volunteer Curriculum Manager for the Ann Foundation and relocated to San Diego to begin work as a Learning Designer at AVID Center. I have a BA and an MA in Comparative Literature from The Université de Montréal, a PhD in Theory and Criticism from Western University, and many years of experience as an educator.
Whether online or in person, my goal with every learning experience is to help participants identify connections between theoretical knowledge and different aspects of their lived experiences. I bring examples to illustrate complex ideas, create scenarios to illuminate real-life applications, and engage learners through small group activities, service-based projects, and interactive experiences to foster intrinsic motivation and a stronger sense of community.
Pedagogy
I believe good learning design must thoroughly assess the needs, goals, and prior knowledge of participants before determining content, materials, and modality of instruction. When creating and revising courses, I collect and analyze data from prior course iterations and learners' reports and assessments. I then make strategic decisions about learning objectives, modules, and technologcal tools that align with participants' motivations, prior skills, and goals. Following this analysis, my courses intentionally promote active learning and engagement, while fostering opportunities to bridge equity gaps.
Participant-centered perspective
To assess where participants are and what they can learn in a given module or course, I use and review questionnaires, research, and prior iterations before developing lesson plans and selecting materials. Learners generally appreciate this approach. In semester evaluations, my students at Young Harris College have commented: “Dr. Massicotte is the most helpful professor I've ever had. I've never had a professor make English class as interesting as her.” Or: “Usually I dread English classes, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one. I was never confused in this class and always knew exactly what to do.” I believe my consideration of learners' goals, abilities, and experiences make my courses both challenging and engaging for them. When participants develop confidence in the topic, they are more likely to pursue further learning opportunities beyond the initial training.
Promoting active engagement
Learning is an active process that requires engagement. To help this process, participants should be encouraged to work with the content through various cooperative activities, scenarios, gamification, and interactive designs that incorporate their personal experiences into the learning environment. Moving beyond the traditional “information and quizzes” approach to instructional design, this focus on active engagement helps participants accomplish the learning outcomes in more authentic and meaningful ways. Learners are better able to retain and use the material when they have opportunities to put it into practice.
Equity practices in instructional design
Equity-centered design is the practice of intentionally promoting equity in learning environments by creating opportunities for equal access and success among learners, regardless of race, class, gender, or sexual identity. Learning solutions risk reinforcing equity gaps when not critically considering the diversity of identities and needs of today’s learners. When creating new courses, I recognize that equity does not emerge by chance but requires both planning and purpose. In curriculum development, this perspective may mean selecting course materials that express varied views and experiences. It might also mean being mindful of the sources of authority deployed or selecting culturally informed examples.
Through learner-centered, active, and equity-minded curriculum development and course design, my goal is to ensure participants feel welcomed and valued, are encouraged to learn, and develop skills that will help them beyond the learning event.
Portfolio
Below are some recent projects for elearning and blended environments.
Books
Trance Speakers: Femininity and Authorship in Spiritual Séances, 1850-1930 (McGill-Queens University Press)
Overview
Few people know that the famous Canadian author Susanna Moodie participated in spiritual séances with her husband, Dunbar, and her sister, Catharine Parr Traill. Moodie, like many other nineteenth-century women, found in her communications with the departed an important space to question her commitment to authorship and her understanding of femininity.
Retracing the history of possession and mediumship among women following the emergence of spiritualism in mid-nineteenth-century Canada - and unearthing a vast collection of archival documents and photographs from séances - my work pinpoints spiritualism as a site of conflict and gender struggle that redefined modern understandings of female agency. Trance Speakers offers a new feminist and psychoanalytical approach to the religious and creative practice of trance, arguing that by providing women with a voice for their conscious and unconscious desires, this phenomenon helped them resolve their inner struggles in a society that sought to confine their lives.
Drawing attention to the fascinating history of spiritualism and its persistent appeal to women, Trance Speakers makes a strong case for moving this practice out of the margins of the past.
Hélène Smith: Occultism and the Discovery of the Unconscious (Oxford University Press)
Overview
In 1896, a young Genevan medium named Hélène Smith perceived in trance the following words from a Martian inhabitant: "michma michtmon mimini thouainenm mimatchineg." Those attending her séance dutifully transcribed these words and the event marked the beginning of a series of occult experiences that transported her to the red planet. In her state of trance, Smith came to produce foreign conversations, a new alphabet, and paintings of the Martian surroundings that captured the popular and scientific imagination of Geneva. Alongside her Martian travels, she also retrieved memories of her past lives as a fifteenth-century "Hindoo" princess and as Queen Marie Antoinette.
Today, Smith's séances may appear to be nothing more than eccentric practices at the margins of modernity. As author Claudie Massicotte argues, however, the medium came to embody the extreme possibilities of a new form of subjectivity, with her séances becoming important loci for pioneering authors' discoveries in psychology, linguistics, and the arts. Through analyses of archival documents, correspondences, and publications on the medium, Massicotte sheds light on the role of women in the construction of turn-of-the-century psychological discourses, showing how Smith challenged traditional representations of female patients as powerless victims and passive objects of powerful doctors. She shows how the medium became the site of conflicting theories about subjectivity--specifically one's relationship to embodiment, desire, language, art, and madness--while unleashing a radical form of creativity that troubled existing paradigms of modern sciences. Massicotte skillfully retraces the story of this prolific figure and the authors, scientists, and artists she inspired in order to bring to light a forgotten chapter in modern intellectual history.
