Bachelor of Health Sciences Program receives national award

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[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/BHSc2.jpg” caption=”Bachelor of Health Sciences instructors pose for a photo in Prince Edward Island. Pictured back row, from left, Del Harnish, Sean Park, Sheila Barrett, Carl deLottinville, Debbie Nifakis, Julie Butler and Margaret Secord. Pictured bottom, from left, Jennifer Landicho, Annie Lee and Elizabeth Cates. From the side column, top to bottom, left to right, Erika Kustra, Stacey Ritz, Jennifer McKinnell, Henry Szechtman, Kristina Trim, Stash Nastos, Manel Jordana and Andrea McLellan. Click here for FULL Size“]Five years ago, 18 McMaster instructors met with one goal in mind – to develop an entire program for undergraduate students that promotes the ability to identify and solve problems, to think critically, to work in groups and communicate more effectively.

Not only were they successful in creating the popular Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) Program (BHSc), they have been recognized nationally with Canada's top award for teaching scholarship – the Alan Blizzard Award for collaborative course development and contributions to teaching from the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

“The group received the award because the scholarship attached to the teaching was exceptional,” says Del Harnish, assistant dean of the program. “They studied what they did in terms of impact on learning and demonstrated better learning outcomes and better skill development in students.”

BHSc curriculum focuses on developing skills like group work, evaluation, critical thinking and time management within the knowledge requirements of health sciences. A powerful tool in meeting these goals is the infusion of “inquiry” throughout the curriculum. Faculty “facilitators” foster a student-centered ethic that encourages students to take responsibility for learning and creating new knowledge.

“The initiatives were started in year one courses and integrated with many other courses over four years,” says Harnish. “Both aspects are the least studied in teaching and learning. Most other educators are working within a single course and using less reliable ways to measure learning.”

The BHSc program submission, entitled “Skills Development with Students and Explicit Integration Across Four Years of the Curriculum” was chosen unanimously by The Alan Blizzard Committee among 11 submissions from 10 universities. The committee praised the outstanding, original contribution to the enhancement of learning through collaborative initiatives and in a larger sense to the scholarship of teaching.

The award includes a framed citation in recognition of exemplary contribution to the scholarship of teaching and learning, publication and dissemination by STLHE of a paper describing the project and presentation of the Alan Blizzard Plenary at the annual STLHE conference in Prince Edward Island in June, which they did in front of more than 450 university and colleges educators from around the world.

Not only did the presenters give conference participants an opportunity to think about “inquiry” as something other than a McMaster approach, they helped bring the message home. “At the conference they provided Tim Horton's gift certificates in random conference packages with a rule that said 'recipients have to have coffee with someone they don't know to find out something about another person's teaching or student learning'.”

Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) Program instructors, who also received the McMaster's President's Award for Excellence in Teaching (Course or Resource Design), include: Sheila Barrett, Julie Butler, Elizabeth Cates, Carl deLottinville, Del Harnish, Manel Jordana, Erika Kustra, Jennifer Landicho, Annie Lee, Jennifer McKinnell, Andrea McLellan, Stash Nastos, Debbie Nifakis, Sean Park, Stacey Ritz, Margaret Secord, Henry Szechtman and Kristina Trim.