Frank Aherne makes a substantial contribution to teaching at the University of Alberta by inspiring a generation of undergraduate students and through his encouragement of academic staff. He has an infectious enthusiasm for research and teaching and actively promotes independent thought and free expression. His teaching witnesses his belief that all students have untapped potential if carefully placed in the right learning environment. He does a tremendous amount of background preparation for the courses that he teaches to ensure that the best possible learning environment is established. Frank’s classroom is always an exciting place to be. His enthusiasm and sense of humour capture the imagination of his students; they consistently exceed all expectations based on their performance in other courses. Colleagues in his faculty regard his teaching as exemplary and awarded him the Hocking Chair.

Frank Aherne is a valued member of Alberta’s peer consultation team, where he helps colleagues develop as teachers through discussion of critical issues and through sharing his experience. In addition to his peer consultancy work, he is involved in committee work within his own faculty to establish professional development opportunities for graduate teaching assistants. He has been a member of the University Teaching Services Advisory Panel and the Committee for the Improvement of Teaching and Learning. The Committee is charged with recommending policy in the area of teaching and learning, and has in the past several years made major changes in the climate for teaching and learning at the University of Alberta. Much credit for these innovations is due to his diligence, wisdom and courage. He represents the “complete” university professor.

Brock Fenton was already an accomplished teacher when he arrived at York University in 1986. In 1984, he won a teaching award while at Carleton University and in 1986, he received a provincial award (OCUFA) for teaching. His outstanding contributions are all the more remarkable given that he has been the Chair of the Depart ment, a position often so demanding in administrative tasks that teaching responsibilities are reduced. “In class, Dr. Fenton’s lectures are concise, well-planned, and organized. He speaks clearly and emphatically and is capable of keeping students’ attention and interest.” “He treats students with individual respect and makes himself very approachable. He encourages class discussion.”

Brock Fenton has given several conference talks on teaching and learning topics for colleagues at York University and beyond. He has served on the Biology Department’s Teaching Committee and the Curriculum Committee of the Faculty of Pure and Applied Science. He has contributed to sessions on teaching and grading in laboratory courses during “TA Days”, York’s orientation for teaching assistants. He has organized and led workshops on teaching at both the 1991 and 1992 annual conferences of the Canadian Society of Zoologists. The emphasis of these workshops has been on how to be an effective teacher, particularly in large introductory classes in biology. These workshops generated much enthusiasm and led to fresh approaches to teaching of introductory biology on several campuses across the country. Brock Fenton plays a leadership role by increasing public awareness of the import ance and excitement of science through public lectures, workshops for teachers, popular writing and the electronic media.

A Focus

Teaching and Research, research and teaching … the two prime duties of university professors. There is a common perception that these two tasks are conflicting activities, and “everyone” who has spent any time on a university campus has a story about Professor X, recently tenured because of a strong research record apparently matched by a disinterest in students and teaching. For those who care to listen, other students tell you about another distinguished researcher, Professor Y, who touched the lives of many students by introducing them to the wonders of the unknown.

Professors should not be teachers or researchers and, as illustrated by many 3M Fellows, they must be both. These people are stalwart and distinguished researchers and teachers. In my view, they epitomize the job of professor. I believe this because universities are places where people should learn how to explore the limits to our knowledge. While professors are in the vanguard of this quest, they are facilitators more than leaders. Professors who are active as teachers and researchers help to create a positive learning environment which extends from lectures to tutorials and labs.

Within the Faculty of Arts, as well as in the University at large, Ralph has served with distinction on several committees mandated to improve teaching, the most recent being the Committee in Support of Teaching. While he clearly has the capabilities to assume important roles in full-time administration, Ralph has so far chosen to remain close to his students and to the Informal Logic movement in which he is regarded as an international leader. Not only is the textbook he co-authored among the very best available, but his tireless devotion to informal logic has had a significant impact on the teaching of informal logic, literally revolutionizing the field. His scholarly work in this area is well-known and respected, resulting in numerous invitations from throughout North American to give workshops on the teaching of informal logic and to assist with the creation of new programs.

Ralph is highly regarded not simply for his professional accomplishments, but for his personal qualities as well. He is a thinker of penetrating insight, an individual of unusual integrity, and a person of exceptional warmth and authenticity. He embodies the best of what the teaching profession is about. There is an intensity to his teaching that touches nearly every one of his students. It flows, in part, from his love of the subject and in part from his enthusiasm for teaching. What makes “Dr. J” (as he is affectionately known by his students) such an extraordinary instructor is his ability to combine the smooth and easy presentations of a more experienced lecturer with the freshness of a first timer. The high degree of respect and admiration students (both past and present) have for Ralph is a tribute to his professional conduct and superlative dedication as a teacher. Addresses:

• “The Golden Age of Rock,” Laurier-Brantford Public Lecture Series, Brantford Campus of Wilfrid Laurier University, January 29, 2001.
• “Dialectical Adequacy,” Department of Philosophy, McMaster University, March 9, 2001
• “The Dialectical Tier Reconsidered,” Keynote Address, International Society for the Study of Argumentation, Amsterdam, June 26, 2002.
• “Reflections on the Dialectical Tier,” Philosophy Department Colloquium, Michigan State University, October, 2002.
• “Why ‘Visual Arguments” aren’t Arguments,” Informal Logic at 25, University of Windsor, May, 2003.

Workshops:

• “What is Critical Thinking?” and “Teaching Critically,” Keynote presentations to Baker University Seminar on Critical Thinking, May 23, 2001.
• “Teaching Critical Thinking,” Workshop for the Centre for Flexible learning, University of Windsor, November 2, 2001.
• “The Agony and the Ecstasy,” Workshop for the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, McMaster University, June 14, 2002.

Articles:

• “Informal Logic: An Overview.” Informal Logic, 20.2 (2000), pp. 93-108.
• “Manifest Rationality Reconsidered: Reply to My Fellow Symposiasts” Argumentation, 16:3 (2002), pp. 311-331.
• “Interpreting Shell’s ‘Clear Thinking in Troubled Times,’” Informal Logic/Teaching Supplement, 21:3 (2002), Teaching Supplement, pp. 39-47.

Michael Moore is regarded at Laurier, and across Canada, as a leading Canadian educator, in the classroom among students, in meeting-rooms with professional policy makers, in informal and stimulating conversations with colleagues, and in faculty development workshops with teachers from varied disciplines. For Michael, the classroom is a place where intellectual challenges and risks, traditions and innovations, are all brought into play. In spite of the broad range of courses and students he teaches, he maintains an excellent teaching record. He is widely known for the outstanding quality and success of his Handbook of Current English where, in a field chock full of books on the teaching of language and writing, his is one of the most highly regarded. For his excellence in teaching, he was awarded W.L.U.’s Outstanding Teacher Award in 1991.

Prior to his appointment as Associate Director, Research and Instructional Development in 1992, he was a member of the Teaching and Learning Committee, appointed by the Vice- President, Academic, to develop an innovative, university-wide, multi- disciplinary teaching development office. He writes and presents scholarly papers on pedagogy and works on the development of policies to support excellence in pedagogy and curriculum development. He actively supports programs to improve teaching and research on university teaching, and has organized several workshops for colleagues. Some typical presentations, workshops, writings:

• What is Your Default Mode?: Thinking Past Our Favourite Teaching Habits” (co-presented with Russell Hunt), STLHE Conference, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 2003.
• “Good Habits Die Hard: Debating the Why of How We “Deliver” University Teaching and Learning” (co-presented with Russell Hunt), STLHE Conference, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John’s, 2001.
• Annual WLU orientation workshops, e.g., GTA practicum training, IDO new faculty sessions, presentations to new undergraduates on academic integrity.
• Review of Re-Thinking the Future of the University (eds. D. Jeffrey and Domenic Manganiello), English Studies in Canada 26.3 (September 2000).
• “Ethos and Professing: the Limits of Technique” (co-presented with Allan Gedalof), STLHE Conference, Mount Allison University, Sackville, 1998.
• “Multi-Disciplinary Issues in Pedagogy and Curriculum Development.” “Splitting a Hair?: `Practice’ versus `Technique’ in University Teaching.”
• “Me and My Shadow: Teachers at the Secondary – Postsecondary Interface.”
• “Teaching on Television: Opportunities and Compromises”.
• Keynote address on transition to university, at WLU summer weekend conference of incoming students and their families.
• “Subjectivity and Academic Discourse”.
• My Brilliant TV Career: New Misadventures in Teaching”.
• Fish and Fowl in the English Department”.
• Beyond Apple-Polishing” (on class ombudspersons).
• “The Value of the Textbook: An Author’s Perspective”.

Television Series: I recently co-developed and co-presented, with fellow Fellow (and fine fellow) Allan Gedalof of Western, a series “Introduction to Literature” for public broadcasting (TVOntario). The credit course package for distance education includes, besides the video segments, extensive audio and print material. I remain interested in various techno-educational ironies crystallized by this experience.

Other Awards:

• WLU Outstanding Teacher Award, 1991.
• Ontario Lieutenant-Governor’s Award for Teaching Excellence, 1993.

Interests and Awards:

My impossible ideal of academic life is an almost exact balancing and blending of our responsibilities to scholarship, to teaching, and to university, professional, or community service. Of course most of us find, over time, an extra commitment or urgency in one or another of these areas; for me it has been in teaching and pedagogy and, for a while, secondment to directing instructional development services.

Classroom practice aside, that emphasis has reflected itself in appointment to government education committees (e.g., provincial high school English curriculum revision), in frequent presentations to secondary and post-secondary teachers’ groups, and in service on such university committees as academic planning, teaching workload, teaching awards adjudication, Teaching and Learning Centre, and teaching dossier policy. I am actively involved with the website facultydevelopment.ca, and the on-line journal Positive Pedagogy.

My main ongoing interests in this respect are probably educational philosophy, motivation/mentoring, faculty development, and (as regards to my own discipline) current curricular controversies and the ever-widening gulf between students’ high-school and university experiences of this thing called “English”.

Trained as a bioinorganic chemist, Judith’s current research and scholarly activity is in the area of chemical education. She is developing materials for and studying the effectiveness of the Problem-Based Learning of chemistry. PBL is a process of inquiry and investigation in which students are confronted with problems whose solutions require certain information and skills, most of which they do not possess. This required knowledge that they identify then defines their curriculum. Immediately students realize, on a need to know basis, the reasons for including certain material in their curriculum. The key feature of PBL is that the learning process is initiated and directed by the problem before any preparation or study has occurred.

While PBL activities can be done individually, they are normally done in small groups and such activities have been incorporated into Judith’s upper year courses. Seeing that this small group work approach was less successful in the large, 1st-year course with its heterogeneous population, Judith has developed a web based platform for PBL to support a larger team approach to the activities. Virtual PBL allows study groups to emerge from the active participants on the web and enables the “silent lurkers” to learn from the active participants.

Judith is also actively involved in other areas of web enhanced teaching and learning. She supplements regular office hours by communicating with her 1st-year class of 800 students through a Virtual Office Hours system. VOH supports both confidential and public communication between the students and their professor. Publicly posted questions and their answers are available to the entire class, meaning that FAQs need to be answered less frequently, thus freeing the professor to address a wider range of students’ concerns. The use of VOH has significantly increased the opportunity for all students to engage in dialogue with Judith and in particular it has provided a line of communication used by those students who are initially too shy to seek face-to-face interaction and for part-time students for whom regular office hours may be impossible to attend. As well, the requirement for students to communicate in writing has noticeably improved this communications skill for many. About 50% of the class post questions on the public VOH pages and close to 90% of the students regularly browse through the questions of other students and their answers and report significant learning from them. Final examination results, as compared to those of previous years, bears this out. According to student surveys, VOH has been the most unique and significant learning aid in their 1st-year experience at university.

In addition to her pedagogical research, Judith has made contributions to the field of chemical education both nationally and internationally through her activity in professional societies. She has served the Canadian Society for Chemistry on its Board of Directors as the Director of Chemical Education and Student Affairs from 1994-1998, the Vice-President in 1998-1999 and was President of the CSC in 1999-2000 (the first person to hold this position whose primary interests and research are in chemical education). In this capacity Judith has lobbied MPs and bureaucrats from Industry Canada regarding the need for federal funding of research in science education. Her aim is to convince the NSERC of its responsibility to support research in science education as it does the other branches of science. Most recently she has been appointed to the Educational Strategy Development Committee of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. She currently chairs the Chemical Education Trust of the Chemical Institute of Canada.

In 1996 Judith was named as one of the University of Toronto’s “Popular Profs” in The Maclean’s Guide to Canadian Universities. She is clearly that and more. She is the consummate university educator who has contributed greatly to the development of innovative curricula and novel teaching approaches. Judith’s leadership in 1st-year teaching has provided the foundation for the undergraduate programs in chemistry at Erindale College and the student evaluations of her work are clearly outstanding. In addition she has taught biological, inorganic and physical chemistry and as such is unique in her Department for not only the quality but also the breadth of her teaching. She is widely known for the mentoring of her colleagues in the art and science of fine teaching and for her advocacy of science education nationally and internationally. And, of course, she is a genuinely outstanding educator herself. In addition to the 3M Fellowship, Judith received the first Erindale College Teaching Excellence Award in 1991, the Ontario Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 1993, the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) Teaching Award in 2000, and the Union Carbide Award for Chemical Education in 2001. Also in 2001, she was elected a Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada. In 2007 she received the University of Toronto President’s Teaching Award and became a member of the University’s Teaching Academy. She was also an inaugural recipient of the Ontario Government’s Leadership in Faculty Teaching (LIFT) Award.

Marilyn Robinson is an extraordinary teacher – enthusiastic, dedicated and gifted – and a model for all who aspire to excellence in the craft of teaching. Year after year, Dr. Robinson’s evaluations are consistently and significantly above the departmental average. This result is consistent over a variety of students and teaching situations (large lecture courses, science labs and small group teaching). It is rare for a teacher to be rated so highly across the board. She devotes an incredible amount of time to one-on-one tutoring, advising and counselling of students and to curriculum development and course design in the Department of Physiology. In 1992, she was awarded the University’s Edward G. Pleva Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Marilyn has also made important contributions to the quality of teaching through her role as Director of the University’s Educational Development Office over the past five years. Innovations that have taken place during Marilyn’s term of office include peer consultation on teaching, T.A. Day, and a new mini-course on university teaching for faculty. As Director of this office, she is also responsible for publishing a newsletter, running a seminar series for faculty members on teaching-related issues, and mounting a range of programs to promote teaching excellence. She is recognized across Canada as an expert in faculty development and is frequently called upon to offer workshops and consultations on teaching at various Canadian universities.

As an educator, Alan Slavin is second to none. His teaching is encouraging, enthusiastic, and knowledgeable, and as such, is tremendously effective. Not only is he an outstanding science educator, but also, a tremendous advocate of women in science. He believes strongly that the presence of female role models who are “doing” science may help to encourage more young women to keep up their science studies. In 1987, he organized a program whereby women studying physics and chemistry visited elementary classrooms to present science demonstrations. By avoiding the assumption of any particular gender for physicists, Al Slavin was able to encourage learning by all students. He is able to take abstract, sometimes obtuse subject matter and make it real, tangible and experiential for students. As an indication of how well he is respected by his students, he has received a number of Trent University Merit Awards and the Trent Symon’s Award in recognition of excellence in teaching. Al was awarded the 1996 Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate teaching from the Canadian Association of Physicists

As a colleague, Al is a constant source of ideas on teaching methods. He has written a workshop, used at Trent, for gifted high school students and independent study units used by high school students. He initiated the Peterborough Physics Teachers’ Association which brings together high school physics teachers and physics faculty from colleges and universities. He has been active in educational panels for teachers, and in lab design and delivery. He has also given a large number of public talks on science and the social consequences of technology.

Numerous studies of physics teaching over the last 20 years have shown that students learn much better when they use class time to interact intellectually with their professor and fellow students instead of merely listening and taking notes as in conventional lectures. This is no surprise when we realize that probably 90% of a conventional lecture is spent transferring information which the student can easily obtain from the written page, leaving only about 10% of class time to spend on the areas which students traditionally find most difficult. Moreover, most students are rushing so much to take down notes that they do not have time to think about what is being said, so the instructor’s clarifying remarks are lost to them.

Since September 1998, our first-year physics class has been taught without conventional lectures at all, using an approach pioneered by Professor Mazur of Harvard University1. Students are asked to read, before each lecture, what would previously have been covered in that lecture. Notes are provided in advance for this, with the textbook just acting to complement the notes and as a source of problems. Most of the class time is spent with the students working in small groups on short, multiple-choice questions that develop a conceptual understanding of the material. After each question, everyone votes on the correct answer by a showing of hands, which gives the instructor instant feedback on class comprehension. The instructor then explains the correct thinking — and often discusses logical flaws leading to the wrong answers — which lets the students correct their understanding. Then the class moves to a new question. Typically six such questions can be covered in a 50-minute class. Research by Mazur has shown that students taught with this method obtained exam grades up to 7% higher than those taught by the same instructor with a conventional lecture format, and with a much better conceptual understanding. Students like this format much better than conventional lectures.

Current interests: Analytical Skills. Classroom Techniques.

1. E. Mazur, Peer Instruction (Prentice Hall, 1997).

Geraldine Thomas has had a profound impact on teaching and on the improvement of instruction at Saint Mary’s University. Long before most, she was a proponent of faculty peer counselling programs, and has continued to promote the implementation of an instructional development centre or equivalent resource program at the University. As founding Chair of the Quality of Teaching Committee, she did much to raise awareness of research which is taking place in the area of teaching. Her leadership role as the first Associate Dean of Arts was marked by her unflagging efforts to provide much-needed academic counselling to Arts’ students early in their careers, to promote their participation in sessions on study skills and to encourage them generally to make their studies at university their first priority.

In the classroom, her command of her subject material is beyond question. She strives to make the student feel comfortable and encourages each student’s unique participation. For many students, she is a source of inspiration and represents the best in the teaching profession. Her devotion to her profession and her commitment to excellence in her students are widely recognized. In 1991, she received the James Ryan Award for her constant and caring attention to students’ needs. Her humanistic approach is characteristic of her entire career at the University, whether it be counselling an individual student, dealing with members of her department, or working with colleagues from the broader University community. In recognition of these outstanding qualities, Geraldine was selected the 1992 recipient of the Association of Atlantic Universities Instructional Leadership Award.

“Phil Wood is the best professor I have had yet!” This accolade from students appears at least once on just about every course evaluation Phil receives. A winner of numerous student-initiated teaching awards (he has been nominated for the McMaster Students’ Union Award four times and was selected best overall within the Faculty of Engineering), a living model of continuous improvement, a provider of concrete activities that bring excitement into the learning experience – that’s Phil Wood. Equally effective at all levels of teaching, Phil has unquestionably demonstrated over the years that he is a superb educator. He is an example of how to facilitate learning that makes a difference!

Phil has developed a number of innovative teaching tools which are specific to engineering (including a very much discussed “beer cooling” experiment) and has published several scholarly papers on teaching and learning. In 1989, he was asked to take on the responsibility for Level I Engineering. With characteristic energy and scholarship, he sorted through the problems and created a series of new programmes to support first year students. The success rate of Year I engineering students rose dramatically. These leadership skills made him a natural choice for serving on the University Committee on Teaching and Learning and for work on a university-wide task force to introduce self-directed learning into more McMaster Year I courses.

Olive Yonge has been described as inspiring, exceptionally supportive of students, effective in stimulating thinking and promoting self-direction, most respectful of students’ opinions and ideas, and very skilful in utilizing the background students bring to the learning situation. She has twice received the Undergraduate Nursing Students’ Teaching Award for Outstanding Teaching and, in addition, has been chosen as the outstanding teacher in the Faculty of Nursing three times in recent years. In 1992, she was one of five recipients of the Rutherford Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at the University of Alberta.

What distinguishes her from other professors is her philosophy of teaching, her creativity and her willingness to share with others her insights and ideas about teaching and learning. Throughout Alberta, she is considered the “top” psychiatric/mental health nurse. She has achieved this position through her work with the Alberta Mental Health Nurses’ Interest Group of which she was a founding member. Since 1983, she has served in almost every executive position. She has presented over 30 workshops and 80 guest lectures to a wide variety of audiences in the last 10 years. She has written and produced a videotape on mental health, developed games, experimented with interactive journals, and used films as clinical case studies to promote problem-solving. Her most recent leadership activity has seen her at work on the Vice-President (Academic)’s Task Force on Innovation in Teaching and Learning.