Professor Carol Hulls strongly believes in the philosophy of “do-learn” and applies this approach to help her students experience the joys and complexities of engineering design from the moment they arrive on campus. Always looking to improve classroom learning, she has launched new courses, re-designed existing courses, and implemented a variety of innovative classroom techniques including tablet teaching, lecture capture, flipped classrooms, and experiential learning. She is a founding member of the Engineering IDEAs Clinic at the University of Waterloo, a multimillion-dollar initiative to incorporate hands-on, open-ended activities into all 14 UW engineering programs. Innovative and risk-taking in her teaching, Carol is willing to experiment with a new approach if it could potentially improve student learning and make her students better engineers.

Cross-appointed to the Faculties of Humanities and Education, Professor David Hutchison is Director of Brock University’s Centre for Digital Humanities. David’s teaching innovation focuses on the intersection of project-based learning (PBL) and project management best practices. Through his approaches, he scaffolds PBL learning by equipping students with the same tools and techniques used by professional project managers. David spearheaded the Brock University Design Studio (BUDS), which brings students from different academic programs together to form collaborative project teams.

Professor Jason Pearson is a passionate scientist and educator. He has a keen interest in rethinking how science is taught at all levels and inspiring students by enabling them to make self-driven discoveries through research. His innovations include the development of live and fully interactive educational content in chemistry. He has also adopted leadership roles within the University of Prince Edward Island to develop and promote innovative scholarship and practices around teaching.

Jason constantly seeks to empower students to take ownership in their learning by providing ample opportunity to explore concepts independently and innovate within the laboratory environment.

Throughout Professor Peter Sankoff’s career, he has demonstrated consistent willingness to explore the use of new techniques and technologies in a continuing effort to augment the learning experience for his students. His innovations have led him to new course ideas, adventurous ways of communicating with students, and entirely new pedagogical philosophies. Peter has fundamentally transformed what a traditional law class looks like by becoming the first Canadian law professor to use the flipped classroom model. His innovations include thoughtfully integrating technology and experiential learning to engage his students. He believes his teaching innovations must support deep-learning and interactivity, as well as maximize the student-professor learning experience and the sharing of experiences.

Professor Matthew Schnurr believes that an interdisciplinary approach offers the best opportunity to enrich students’ understanding of how today’s global environmental problems are both natural and social crises, which demand interventions that address both spheres simultaneously. Over the past seven years, his commitment to innovation in teaching has centered on the use of complex role-play simulations that enable students to connect the intellectual material they encounter in class with real-world activism. He has created a series of fictionalized negotiations that stimulate students’ intellectual curiosity and motivate them to become engaged global citizens. Through his work he has observed and demonstrated that simulating complex realities in a simplified and condensed manner helps to stimulate student interest, enhance the mastery of course materials, and deepen skill development.