Teaching and Learning News

This post is reprinted from the SFU News blog. Read the original post here.

With mid-terms over, Natalia Kouzniak is again holding “crying sessions” in her office with students taking first- and second-year calculus courses who complain that they can’t do math.

“I spend 15-20 hours a week in my office explaining to students why math is useful, how to study it, what was insufficient in their studying,” says the SFU Surrey senior math lecturer.

“My teaching philosophy and goal is to help students unlock their potential – to get students who say ‘I’m not good enough at math’ to become good enough.”

Her students would agree the 2012 SFU Excellence in Teaching award winner meets that goal.

They are effusive in their praise of her teaching and encouragement, often noting high grades in courses such as calculus and differential equations they struggled with or failed in the past.

“First-year math requires perseverance and good teaching,” she says. “I’m a very strict instructor, but I always give students a second chance.”

Kouzniak takes her passion for math far beyond the classroom. She coordinates work at the Surrey campus Mathematics Open Lab drop-in centre for first- and second-year math students and participates in a number of outreach activities.

She organizes a popular math camp each summer as well, and helped found a Surrey math meet-and-greet for high school students to visit first-year math classes on campus.

She also visits local high schools to promote math at SFU and discuss the transition to university.

“Natalia believes in her students, which makes them believe in themselves,” says a nominator. “Her dedication and commitment to her students is phenomenal.”

This post is reprinted from the SFU News blog. Read the original post here.

“I thought this course was going to be boring, but it was a lot more interesting than I expected it to be.”

That’s a comment Beedie School of Business senior lecturer Anne Macdonald has heard many times in the past, and it illustrates why she’s been named an SFU 2012 Excellence in Teaching award winner.

Macdonald continually strives to engage her students, using stories in the news as examples to help them relate to the subject material.

She is so passionate about accounting she believes the subject should be compulsory for all students, regardless of their concentration.

“It gives students such a wonderful grounding in the language of business and really helps them understand issues they may face in all walks of life,” she says.

“They may not end up as accountants, they may not even be in a business role, but accounting develops important skills they can use in the future.”

An SFU alumna, Macdonald arrived late to teaching as a profession. Upon switching careers, she quickly found her way back to SFU when she began teaching at the Beedie School of Business in 1998. It is an affiliation that is more than just a job to her.

“I first came to SFU as an undergraduate and actually had my wedding reception at the Diamond Alumni Centre at the Burnaby Mountain campus. When I returned to SFU to teach it felt like coming home.”

Macdonald concentrates on making her classes interesting. But does she ever find herself bored teaching the same thing over and over again?

“Every semester there is something new, with new students bringing a fresh perspective,” she says.

“Just when I think I have heard it all, a student will surprise me with a new outlook and I think to myself, ‘I’ve never looked at it that way before, but yes, you are correct.’ ”

This post is reprinted from the SFU News blog. Read the original post here.

Carl Schwarz shows up for class year-round in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts.

The relaxed dress code suits the popular statistics professor, who spends much of his time examining peculiar problems and using numbers to explain them.

But it belies his passion for convincing students that statistics are interesting, even exciting – a goal that is central to Schwarz’s teaching philosophy.

And his enthusiasm for that goal, combined with his devotion to involving students in real-life research, helped earn him a 2012 SFU Excellence in Teaching award.

Teaching is not about standing in front of the class and lecturing, says Schwarz; it’s about introducing students to realistic problems.

“Some students say my assignments are long and hard, but students have to get their hands dirty,” he says, adding long hours of study and practice are the only route to success.

Schwarz’s office door is open most weekdays from 9 am to 5 pm, and students know they are always welcome.

“If the same student comes to my office very day, it doesn’t bother me,” he says. “It shows they’re interested in the material.”

What frustrates him are the students who don’t come for help until the end of the semester, when it’s too late.

Over the past 10 years, Schwarz has been posting his course notes online to allay his irritation over the lack of texts covering the topics he wants to study and teach.

The site is a boon to students in many disciplines who use the information to study, create and model experiments, solve problems, and prepare journal articles.

“Schwarz does what many instructors are never able to do,” says a nominator. “He transforms knowledge and inspires students.”

From left to right: Kate Slaney, John Bogardus, and Nicole Jackson, three of the four recipients of Cormack Teaching Awards for 2012 …

… and John Harriss, this year's fourth winner.

He’s talking about the process of determining recipients of the faculty’s Cormack Awards for Teaching Excellence, given each year to outstanding instructors within FASS. Fortunately, this year’s awards committee was able to meet the challenge, and Craig recently announced the names of four “truly outstanding instructors” who will receive the honour at the next FASS annual general meeting in fall. The list includes, by design, a lecturer, an assistant professor, an associate professor, and a professor:

• John Bogardus, senior lecturer in Sociology and Anthropology, is an educator wholeheartedly dedicated to creating self-reflective and collaborative learning environments. The former sawmill and steel foundry worker, first aid attendant, journeyman carpenter, and psychiatric nurse focuses on producing ethical, productive, analytically sound, and deeply engaged work that resonates far beyond the classroom.
• John Harriss, professor and director, International Studies, has taught at least twice the required course load since starting to teach at SFU in 2006. He also redesigned the undergraduate major and the MA program in International Studies. According to one student, Harriss is “intimidating in his intellectual accomplishment and approachable in his warm and personable manner.”
• Nicole Jackson, associate professor, International Studies, creates a dynamic and highly interactve classroom by using structured debates, short videos, guest speakers, a core “introductory reader,” and various multi-media sources. One of her most successful teaching approaches involves having students act as a mock UN subcommittee to respond to a scenario drawn from current events.
• Kate Slaney, assistant professor, Psychology, joined the department in 2006 and quickly took on the task of teaching five of the department’s most difficult undergraduate courses. Although students are often apprehensive about large lower-division classes, they have given her exceptionally high ratings, along with praise for “excellent assignments, handouts, and communication skills” and for her ability to “make the boring interesting.”

This post is based on information from the FASS website. Read the full story at FASS Faculty Profiles – Awards and Honours.

John Bogardus’s faculty profile page: www.socanth.sfu.ca/people/john_bogardus/

John Harriss’s faculty profile page: www.sfu.ca/internationalstudies/harriss.html

Nicole Jackson’s faculty web page: www.sfu.ca/internationalstudies/jackson.html

Kate Slaney’s faculty profile page: www.psyc.sfu.ca/people/index.php?topic=finf&id=112

Kate Slaney’s lab website: www.sfu.ca/psyc/faculty/slaney/

Read about the nomination process for the Cormack Awards for Excellence in Teaching.

Jamie Mulholland traces his interest in mathematics back to his parents.

“Their perceptions of math were that you just really need it to get through life, no matter what you’re going to do,” he says. They taught him that “it’s not about formulas, it’s not about arithmetic, it’s just a way of thinking, a way to solve problems – having confidence in your ability to solve problems.”

Now he is spreading that gospel with great success as a lecturer in Mathematics. In the video interview posted above, he talks about his love for teaching and the epiphany he had as a teaching assistant standing in front of a class for the first time: “It was partway through the lecture that I realized this is what I love doing – talking about mathematics, helping other people to see why I love mathematics and why they should open up their minds and their hearts to love it too.”

Clearly he is very good at what he does: in February he was one of three faculty members to receive a 2011 SFU Excellence in Teaching Award. What makes him a great teacher? Undoubtedly part of the answer is to be found in his teaching philosophy. He quotes the Hungarian mathematician George Pólya, who said, “Mathematics is not a spectator sport.”

“And this is the philosophy that I take,” says Mulholland. “[My students] can’t just passively sit by and watch me present. They need to be engaged. They need to be working through mathematics on their own. They need to be doing the math, not me. I don’t need to be doing the math; I need to be assisting them with their pursuits in math.”

Watch this video on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScfOAOTG6Fk&feature=player_embedded

Visit Jamie Mulholland’s faculty profile page: www.math.sfu.ca/people/staff/faculty/jamie_mulholland

Visit Jamie Mulholland’s personal website: www.sfu.ca/~jtmulhol/

In the video post above, Lynne Quarmby expresses a realistic view of the teaching challenge she faces as a professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry: “Many students come into the class pretty disengaged. It’s a requirement, they need the credits … but they come in expecting that it’s going to be boring, difficult, painful.”

That assessment could lead to discouragement, but in Quarmby’s case it has served as a motivation for exceptional work as an instructor and, earlier this year, to a 2011 SFU Excellence in Teaching Award. In the video interview, she talks about the wider perspective that gives purpose to her teaching.

“Although I teach cell biology, I consider that I’m actually teaching a group of citizens,” she says. “So these people may go on to become lawyers or bankers or journalists or all sorts of things, and a very few of them will become scientists. But all of them, I hope, will leave my class with a deeper understanding of science and how science is done and what scientific knowledge is really about.”

In the video Quarmby also discusses what leads to memorable learning experiences and what excites her as an instructor.

Watch this video on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Xy7yWFyMft0

Visit Lynne Quarmby’s faculty profile page: www.sfu.ca/mbb/People/Quarmby/

Ash Parameswaran is a professor in the School of Engineering Science and one of three recipients of SFU’s 2011 Teaching Excellence Awards. In the 3-1/2 minute video above, he talks about the importance he attaches to teaching and the way his interactions with students have changed over the years.

One interesting reflection recalls the insecurity he felt as a young instructor.

“Initially, although I had the passion to teach and engage the students, … I was extremely defensive,” he says. “In the class a student would ask a question and I would find it extremely difficult to handle that. It appeared almost as if the student was questioning me rather than questioning the subject.”

Gradually, he came to understand that questions are learning opportunities rather than attacks, and he incorporated them into his lectures: “I’ve started to make the student ask the question to me. I say, ‘Look, you ask the question.’ This way we both are engaged.”

In the video interview he also describes his unexpected feelings while visiting a former student in Saudi Arabia, along with the origin of his passion for teaching.

Watch this video on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJgb-B2Fs5c

Learn more about Parameswaran by visiting his faculty profile page: www.ensc.sfu.ca/people/faculty/ash_parameswaran.html

When Ash Parameswaran, a professor in the School of Engineering Science, was named one of three recipients of SFU’s 2011 Excellence in Teaching Awards, John Jones wasn’t surprised.

Jones, who is acting director of the school, identified the quality that makes Parameswaran unique in an interview with the SFU News: “The reason Ash’s teaching stands out, even in a school with a number of very good teachers, is simple. He takes delight in discovery and creation, and he is able to convey that delight to his students.”

Parameswaran, who previously received the APEGBC Teaching Award for Excellence in Engineering and Geoscience Education in 2007, reveals that his enthusiasm for teaching is grounded in the belief that knowledge transfer plays an important – perhaps the most important – role in advancing the welfare of the entire community.

It’s interesting to note that he doesn’t advocate a particular style of teaching. Rather, he recognizes that some students learn well from lectures, while others learn more from hands-on experimentation. Many of his students participate in co-op work programs, and he is happy to help them connect classroom concepts with workplace applications there as well.

Learn more about Parameswaran and his passion for teaching by following the links below:

Faculty profile page: www.ensc.sfu.ca/people/faculty/ash_parameswaran.html

Engineering Science News and Events: Teaching excellence in Engineering Science.

SFU News: 2011 Teaching Excellence Awards.

The bio page of Lynne Quarmby’s blog says “she’s got a bit of a passion for teaching.” If you follow the explanatory link after that statement, you come to a poem entitled “Course work,” by A. R. Ammons. It goes like this:

Ideas go
through most
heads without

picking up

any substance
or leaving
any trace

Quarmby, a professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, quotes it because she “thinks that A. R. Ammons got it mostly right about how our system of education works.” And because she’s not content with that state of affairs, she has made a point of trying to change it in her own classes by cultivating “a classroom culture where even the shy find themselves comfortably engaging in the conversation.”

Her efforts have made a deep impact on her students, who frequently describe her as inspiring. They have also drawn the attention of the wider SFU community: in February she was one of three faculty members to receive a 2011 Excellence in Teaching Award. That’s an impressive achievement for someone who is also known as a dedicated researcher. But Quarmby sees her teaching and research activities as complementary.

“Research breathes life into my teaching,” she explained in an interview with the SFU News. “Not only can I share my excitement and stories from the front lines, but also a sense of the amount of work required to make a discovery that becomes a single paragraph in a textbook.”

Learn more about Quarmby and her passion for teaching by following the links below:

Faculty profile page: www.sfu.ca/mbb/People/Quarmby/

SFU News: 2011 Teaching Excellence Awards.

It’s interesting that when Jamie Mulholland talks about math, he uses words like “beauty” and “beautiful.” Clearly this lecturer in the Department of Mathematics loves his subject, and that passion – along with his desire and ability to awaken a similar feeling in his students – is one reason why he was chosen to be a recipient of SFU’s 2011 Excellence in Teaching Awards.

Mulholland, whose background is in pure math, has always had a strong interest in communicating his own appreciation for math to a wider audience. On his faculty profile page, he states, “I’m interested in mathematics education and promoting mathematics to students at all age levels: elementary school through college/university.”

The creativity with which he pursues that goal is evident on his personal website. There’s a page called Applets for calculus with tools he has developed to help students visualize abstract calculus concepts; the applets are as entertaining as they are informative. There’s also a link to the course notes for Mathematics of Permutation Puzzles, a third-year course he developed to introduce group theory through puzzles like Rubik’s cube.

For Mulholland, it’s all part of a mission he expressed in an interview with the SFU News: “My goal in terms of lifetime achievement for my career is to have everyone appreciate mathematics, but if I just make them less anxious, then I’m happy.”

Learn more about Mulholland and his passion for teaching by following the links below:

Faculty profile page: www.math.sfu.ca/people/staff/faculty/jamie_mulholland

Jamie Mulholland’s website: www.sfu.ca/~jtmulhol/index.html

SFU News: 2011 Teaching Excellence Awards.