Posted on May 13: President’s awards recognize outstanding teachers
Renowned, admired, innovative. These are some of the words that describe the recipients of this year's President's teaching awards.
For outstanding contributions to educational excellence at McMaster, professors Douglas Boreham, Deborah Cook and Miroslav Lovric, were selected as this year's recipients of the awards for Excellence in Instruction, Excellence in Educational Leadership and Excellence in Course or Resources Design.
Established in 1993, the awards provide the opportunity for McMaster to recognize outstanding contributions to education. Each winner receives 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.
“I am delighted to extend my congratulations to you for this well-deserved honour,” says Peter George, President and Vice-Chancellor. “McMaster has been well served by your continuing efforts on behalf of teaching and learning, and our University is very fortunate to number you among our most celebrated colleagues.”
Citations:
Boreham, professor of medical physics & applied radiation sciences, is the recipient of the President's Award for Excellence in Instruction.
Boreham's students describe him as an excellent lecturer who teaches exciting and informative courses. They are particularly enthusiastic about his course “Radiation and Life”, a novel undergraduate course he designed which follows the Inquiry teaching philosophy pioneered at McMaster. As part of the course, his class has visited such diverse facilities such as the Juravinski Cancer Centre, the Bruce Power Nuclear station and the McMaster Accelerator Lab as well as a planetarium and a commercial greenhouse. Students have also had the opportunity to watch MRI scans and laser eye surgery. Doug is innovative and creative in his teaching and presents very “real world” applications which brings his students close to the practical area of study by experiencing radiation applications firsthand. Besides his extensive knowledge of the subject matter, he has a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for facilitating a class and interacting with students. His informal setting and friendly personality makes him very approachable to the students.
In addition to his teaching, Doug performs outreach for his Department through high school visits, for the Faculty of Science through Open House events, and for the University through the Deep River Science Academy and SHAD Valley – two excellent programs that mentor young, inquiring students to become interested in science. He gives as many talks as possible, outside the university and research community, to groups ranging from elementary school students, high school students, high school teachers, and public interests groups. Several undergraduate students and one graduate student changed their discipline and chose to apply to McMaster in Medical Physics after meeting Doug at an outreach event.
Last year, a group of level four students presented Doug with a special gift – a small pillow with the following quote: “Teacher: The guiding force that transforms the bright, energetic minds of today into the hopes, dreams and opportunities of the future.” This was also the year that Doug won the McMaster Students Union Award of Merit which recognizes and encourages new instructors whose teaching abilities and contribution to the McMaster community have been significant, effective and are therefore worthy of distinction.
Cook, professor of medicine and clinical epidemiology & biostatistics, is the recipient of the President's Award for Excellence in Educational Leadership.
Cook has always approached teaching as an opportunity to engage in the learning process fully, with a philosophy of pursuing excellence while still enjoying her work. As a clinician, she takes every opportunity to teach clinical skills at the bedside by medical students, interns, residences and fellows about the relevance and interpretation of the patient's history and physical examination. In the classroom, her more formal sessions provide unique opportunities to discuss more complex issues underlying theory. As a mentor, she strives to have as positive an impact as possible on the careers of her students to ensure love of learning, productivity, and pursuit of excellence by addressing their intellectual challenges and maximizing their personal growth.
Deborah also believes that bringing individuals together from different disciplines is meritorious by providing opportunities to learn from each other. In this respect, she organizes an annual UWO-McMaster Joint Critical Care Fellow Research Day a venue to share knowledge and deliver constructive feedback to learners regarding their research. This successful event has been replicated by the University of Ottawa and at Queen's University.
The movement to encourage evidence-based decision-making among clinicians has had an enormous and very positive influence worldwide. Deborah is one of the most influential leaders of this movement. Her contributions in this area include tutoring professional groups and co-chairing workshops on how to teach evidence-based medicine. As well, she has provided over 45 lectures and plenary addresses on evidence-based practice and created two and three-day workshops at critical care and emergency medicine conferences in four major continents. Her most prominent contribution in this area is her editing of a series of articles on systematic reviews in one of the world's top medical journals, the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Deborah Cook is one of the most renowned, admired, and beloved leaders in the world in academic activity in intensive care medicine, achieving her recognition both through research and educational activities. She took on a central role in producing a series of Users' Guides to the literature published in one of the leading intensive care journals. In addition, she has given innumerable addresses, and taught many courses at international meetings, educating critical care physicians in using the medical literature to optimize their patient care.
Deborah's qualities have been recognized in several ways, including her appointment to a new regional chair of Critical Care Medicine, her consulting and critical care section editorship for the Journal of the American Medical Association, several prestigious national awards, the acquisition of numerous research grants, and many original publications.
Lovric, professor of mathematics and statistics, is the recipient of the President's Award for Excellence in Course or Resources Design.
Lovric created the course “Teaching Mathematics” to improve the quality of instruction delivered by undergraduate teaching assistants in mathematics by preparing them for their important jobs as teachers and role models to their younger peers. The course fosters creation and development of life-long skills whose value and relevance extend far beyond the boundaries of a university. As a result, students who complete the course are asked to be TAs in other Mathematics courses, help in the Math Help Centre, or assist in other jobs related to teaching. Some students also use their experience to be TAs in other departments.
The course fosters collaboration with students in all stages of its design and implementation. Besides improving on their teaching, the students in this course discover themselves how to learn math the right way by becoming deep learners. The course philosophy is that of a teaching and learning partnership and establishes rich and mutually productive relationships on several levels: between Miroslav and his TAs, between TAs and their students, and between TAs and themselves.
“Teaching Mathematics” is the first non-traditional course that has become a regular course in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. Colleagues in the Department who also teach this course are exposed to non-traditional approaches such as learning contracts, self- and group-evaluations, and personal interviews, and now consider projects that no longer fit traditional models of instruction. Miroslav has also been asked by the University's Graduate Student Network Coordinator to assist with the development of department-specific workshops intended for teaching assistant development across campus.
In the context of education in mathematics, this course is unique in Canada and is “the envy of all in Canada who know about it.” He has been invited to present the course in conferences, seminars and workshops both here at McMaster and elsewhere in Canada, as well as abroad. The Fields Institute's of Ontario Mathematics Education Forum has noted its use for the instruction of pre-service mathematics teachers. Evaluation of the course has been the subject of several research publications as well as an article that appeared in the Notes of the Canadian Mathematics Society which stated that the course “admirably fills two functions, getting competent teaching assistants for a first-year calculus course and providing undergraduates with teaching experience and the opportunity to polish their skills.”
Photo credit: Chantall Van Raay
