[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/BHsc_sm.jpg” caption=”Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) Program Instructors. Click here for FULL Size.”]For outstanding contributions to educational excellence at McMaster, professors with the Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) Program and professor Anna Moro were selected as this year's recipients of the awards for Excellence in Instruction, and Excellence in Course or Resources Design.

Established in 1993, the awards recognize outstanding contributions to education. Each winner received a citation and memento at Spring Convocation and a $5,000 honorarium. Their names and photographs will be included on McMaster's Wall of Recognition in Gilmour Hall.

President's Award for Excellence in Teaching (Course or Resource Design)

Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) Program Instructors

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, Kristina Trim This group of 18 individuals from the Bachelor of Health Sciences program is very much responsible for the success of a program that 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.

Students in inquiry courses rated their professors approximately 15 per cent higher than instructors in non-inquiry courses and 100 per cent felt that their inquiry-derived skills would help them in the future.

This group received the Alan Blizzard Award for collaborative course development and contributions to teaching from the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

President's Award for Excellence in Teaching (Instruction)

Anna Moro, Modern Languages and Linguistics

In more than two-thirds of Anna Moro's classes, she has obtained a median score of 10-out-of-10 on her student ratings, with the remaining classes rated at nine-out-of-10. Her students have nominated her for a McMaster Students Union Teaching Award numerous times and she received the MSU Teaching Award for Humanities in 2003. She has been listed as one of the most popular professors at McMaster in the Maclean's Guide to Canadian Universities and Colleges.

Moro's newly-developed course on forensic linguistics is unique at McMaster and exceptionally rare in North America. She also developed innovative ways of teaching Italian through a study package that incorporates a variety of media.

She has even made pedagogy the subject of her research by analyzing the effectiveness of different teaching methods for the Italian for beginners course.