Pippa Lock named one of Ontario’s best university teachers
McMaster's Pippa Lock will receive the 2014-2015 Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) Teaching Award during a ceremony in Toronto next month. 'As one of her students put it, Lock loves chemistry and teaches it with every fibre of her being,' said Andrea Buchholz, chair of OCUFA’s Award Committee.
The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) has named Pippa Lock as one of the province’s most outstanding university teachers.
Lock, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology, will receive a 2014-2015 OCUFA Teaching Award during an Oct. 24 ceremony in Toronto.
“As one of her students put it, Lock loves chemistry and teaches it with every fibre of her being,” said Andrea Buchholz, chair of OCUFA’s Award Committee.
“From her innovative methods, to her commitment to student mental health, she is a very deserving recipient of an OCUFA Teaching Award.”
In recent years, Lock has turned away from traditional lectures and “flipped” the structure of her course backward. She was named a 3M National Teaching Fellow in 2014 for her innovative approach to teaching and learning.
While traditional courses devote class time to lectures and leave students to study key concepts at home, Lock’s class works in reverse.
Students in her Introductory Chemistry class watch online lectures on their own time, and Lock devotes in-class time to discussions about real-world applications of chemistry.
She says this flipped class technique is particularly effective in the Introductory Chemistry class, because students come to McMaster with very different backgrounds in science.
“They have experience, strengths and weaknesses in different areas of chemistry,” Lock told the Daily News earlier this year.
“So for some of them, the course content is review and they work through it quickly. For others, the content is completely new and they need to take more time with it.”
Flipping the class also allows for more flexibility and accessibility for students who need accommodation for mental health issues and other reasons.
Founded in 1964, OCUFA represents 17,000 professors and academic librarians in 28 faculty associations across Ontario.
The four other recipients of a 2014-2015 OCUFA Teaching Award are:
- Greg Evans, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Toronto
- Vincent Hui, Department of Architectural Science, Ryerson University
- Timothy S. O’Connell, Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, Brock University
- Trent Tucker, College of Business and Economics, University of Guelph
Below: Watch an interview with 3M National Teaching Fellow and OCUFA Teaching Award winner Pippa Lock:
