innovation in education

One tries to make sense of the world through statistics. The other is a coding wiz. And the third focuses on explaining the relationship between plants and animals.

Alison Gibbs, an associate professor (teaching stream) in the department of statistical sciences; Jonathan Rose, a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering; and James D. Thomson, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, received the 2016 President's Teaching Award – the University of Toronto's highest honour for excellence in teaching.

While the three come from different backgrounds, they share a devotion to their students.

“It’s not about teaching. It’s about learning,” Gibbs said.

Gibbs and Thomson are from the Faculty of Arts & Science. Rose is from the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. All three were honoured Tuesday night at a ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of the first university-wide teaching award. U of T President Meric Gertler and Vice-President and Provost Cheryl Regehr presented the awards.

President Meric Gertler (right) and Provost Cheryl Regehr (left) present Professor James D. Thomson with the award (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Thomson co-teaches an introductory biology course on adaptation and biodiversity that is so popular that enrolment often exceeds the seats in Convocation Hall. To accomodate the 1,900 students who typically sign up, the class has morning and evening sessions.

Thomson has also taken students as far as Vietnam to study flowers and pollinators, and he wrote a textbook called The Struggle for Existence, a nod to Charles Darwin.

Known for his dry sense of humour, he tries not to recycle jokes for students.

“If some little witticism occurs to me while I’m phrasing a sentence, I’m willing to take a bit of a flier and throw it in. Usually, those pretty much fall flat,” he said with a laugh.

Urban studies students make an impact in the community

sgupta — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 13:16:18 +0000

Urban studies students make an impact in the community sgupta Tue, 03/31/2015 - 09:16

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Urban Studies student Samson Okungbowa (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Elaine Smith

Author legacy

Elaine Smith

Topic

Our Community

Faculty of Arts & Science

Urban Studies

Students

Service learning

innovation in education

Community

City

Features

Subheadline

Service learning program touches organizations across the city

While teaching youngsters to create papier mâché figures, Samson Okungbowa learned his own valuable lesson during a recent service learning placement at Art City in Toronto’s St. Jamestown neighbourhood: he discovered the value of experiencing neighbourhoods firsthand.

“There’s a stigma built up around St. Jamestown, but when you come to check it out, the social capital outweighs everything else,” Okungbowa said. “It’s all about breaking the stereotypes.”

Okungbowa is one of 54 second-year Introduction to Urban Studies students who chose the option of a service learning placement with a community organization over the alternative, a research paper. About two-thirds of the class fanned out to spend 12 hours apiece assisting programs such as Art City, Out of the Cold and the TD Centre of Learning in Regent Park. Afterward, they were each required to reflect on their experiences in a journal.

“Service learning helps students both reinforce the class content and learn more about issues such as urban inequality, civic engagement and gentrification,” said Shauna Brail, an urban studies professor and the director of experiential learning for the urban studies program.

“In a general sense, it also deepens their commitment to community engagement and strengthens their ability to be critical thinkers.”

Interested students in the full-year course have the choice of approximately a dozen organizations for placements. Brail works hard to match each student with one of his or her top choices. The students get information about the available placements in December and receive their assignments in January, the month they also attend an orientation session to meet representatives from the partner organizations and hear from students who have participated in previous years.

The students then head off to their placements in teams of two to five students that, said Brail, “allows students in a class of 80-plus to get to know each other better. It also gives them a real diversity of perspective, because they have one another to talk to and can learn from each other.”

The community organizations like Art City also reap benefits.

“We really rely on our volunteers to a certain extent,” said Jared Peters, the director of this free, multi-disciplinary art program for children, many of them newcomers to Canada. “They come and provide one-on-one attention for the kids. They may help them with homework and they help them to realize a specific vision for their artwork.”

“The four U of T students who joined us had a really great energy about them, and the kids really loved them.”

Okungbowa said he can already see lasting benefits from the experience.

“Just my openness to meeting new people has changed,” Okungbowa said. “Everyone has a story that is unique and important. There are a lot of connections to be made; why not go out and make them?”

“In lectures” he added, “I can connect things we’re discussing to Art City; I have real life connections to the material now.”

Brail is always delighted when the placements have the desired effect.

“Most research shows that the students who experience service learning show greater tolerance and understanding afterward,” Brail said. “It’s amazing to watch them grow through it and make connections.”

For his part, Okungbowa is ready for more.

“If I could do service learning every year as part of a course, I’d do it,” he said. “It’s so much fun, and it reignited my interest in the coursework.”

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Alternative energy MOOC captures global audience

sgupta — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 11:36:52 +0000

Alternative energy MOOC captures global audience sgupta Tue, 03/31/2015 - 07:36

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Mark Balson

Daniel Rouse

Author legacy

Daniel Rouse

Topic

innovation in education

Energy

Global

When he began teaching at U of T Engineering 37 years ago, Professor James Wallace (MIE) learned that a spare piece of chalk was all he needed to ensure his lessons went uninterrupted. Now, with the introduction of massive online open courses – or MOOCs – he’s found you can bring together a couple of IT technicians, a state-of-the-art camera and an internet connection to reach a worldwide classroom.

Wallace recently finished teaching a MOOC on alternative energy technologies – the second MOOC in U of T Engineering’s history. Called Wind, Waves and Tides: Alternative Energy Systems, the course examined the equipment used to harness various energies and brief explored their historical influences.

“At U of T, we are learning about online education and what it can do and what it cannot do. I think it is in essence an experiment on online education,” said Wallace, who in 2012 received U of T’s prestigious President’s Teaching Award.

“One of my motivations for participating as a MOOC instructor is that your reach goes much further – student feedback from around the globe makes you aware of local projects or technologies that enrich the course for everyone.”

One module featured a company that used waves to generate power, but the business became insolvent the week after. This only enriched the course content though, as it highlighted the tough environment of the industry. It sparked online discussion between the students, who provided Wallace with similar companies he was unaware of, both running and defunct, and current news on alternative energy systems from different parts of the world.

With his global online class providing such a wealth of information, Wallace found that he was learning of new methods and angles to compliment his alternative energy systems MOOC, and his continued work in environmental engineering.

“The MOOC enabled me to develop much better course materials that are now being used in my regular U of T Alternative Energy Systems course, which is also taught online,” said Wallace.

Two years ago, Professor Bryan Karney (CivE) led the Faculty’s first MOOC. His course studied how our world’s energy forces – from wind and waves to storms and currents – animate the Earth’s surface and allow our planet to support life.

These types of online opportunities enable students to pool information form all across the world. Rodney Sumlin, from Baltimore, graduated from Georgia Tech last year and is pursuing a career in wind energy, and he found the MOOC a valuable opportunity to add to the knowledge he had already gained. He relished being part of an international classroom.

“[MOOCs allow] easy access to a large, global network of information from people – classmates, TAs and professors – with similar interests,” Sumlin said.

As well as allowing the University to boost its international reputation further through one of the world’s largest MOOC providers, Coursera, Wallace also appreciates the flexibility online learning offers to students.

“Engineering students in particular are kept really busy. They have a demanding workload and a very full schedule so they greatly appreciate being able to watch the videos online at a time of their choice. The ability to self-schedule is a key feature of online course delivery,” he said.

These sentiments are echoed far beyond the walls of U of T. Matthew Brown studied the course from Perth in Australia to put him back in touch with his undergraduate qualification – an MEng in mechanical engineering – and to continue to educate himself on the issue of climate change.

“This is a serious and significant issue that as a world community we need to address urgently,” said Brown.

His home life in Western Australia is busy as he raises a young family while holding a full-time position in sales and marketing, but his initial concerns in being able to squeeze in time for study were soon quashed.

“I studied the course twice a week for a couple of hours at night,” he said.

This flexibility does inevitably result in participation dropping off as those who were initially attracted in the MOOC find they are too busy, or just not as interested as they thought they were. Overall, 11,000 people signed up from all over the planet. About 6,500 viewed the first lecture, and by the end of the final exam, there were just 10 per cent of that amount left. Still, you would struggle to squeeze 650 students into a U of T seminar.

In the future, Professor Wallace has plans to broaden his online teaching portfolio with another MOOC on energy storage. He aims to build on what he learned with this course, keeping content more succinct and interacting further with his audience in the next round – it is an ongoing experiment to provide the best education possible to a large audience.

Who knows, this time around he might leave that trusty piece of chalk in his office.

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innovation in education

U of T celebrates exemplary teaching

Read more about Thomson

Read more about Rose

Read more about Gibbs

Read more about the President's Teaching Award

Urban studies students make an impact in the community

Alternative energy MOOC captures global audience