Top of their class

When Zopito Marini assumed the responsibility of running the Introduction to Child and Youth Studies course at Brock University six years ago—a prerequisite for all first-year students in the department—one topic continually ignited what he calls a “very heated discussion.” The subject was parental licensure: the idea that parents should require a licence in order to raise a child. “The students get so fired up and I knew that we better be on our toes,” says Marini, who has taught at the university since 1985 and was the founding chair of the department.

For some of his teaching assistants, controlling the room while presenting provocative material was a major challenge. So Marini decided to create small workshops to prepare TAs prior to the start of the academic year. He would engage them in role-playing exercises and offer learning techniques to help with the evaluation and feedback process. And Marini addressed his students’ volatile reactions. Using a number of teaching models related to bullying to explain the various dimensions of incivility that students can succumb to when debating controversial and emotionally charged topics, he developed a teaching strategy to induce what he calls civil learning communities in order to foster a safe learning environment in class. Marini has subsequently shared his techniques with colleagues at Brock and other institutions.

Marini incorporates other subtle techniques in his teaching style to keep students focused, including the use of teaching maps that serve as both conceptual and visual organizers to let students see how material fits into the grand scheme of the course. In addition, at certain points in a lecture, he’ll shout out, “stretch time.” “He gets everyone to stand up, stretch their arms up and legs, ‘shake it off,’ and then proceeds,” says Sarah Josse, a fourth-year student who is one of Marini’s TAs. “Many first-year students find this surprising and embarrassing at first, but by the end of the term they remind him of stretch time, and it is clear how this simple action helps students concentrate.”

Engaging students in a supportive teaching environment is all part of Marini’s plan of ensuring that everyone is on their toes, ready for any challenge that they may encounter in life and work.

—Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze

When Angela Thompson was on sabbatical last year, she enjoyed the time to write and travel. “But, did I miss being with my students!” she exclaims. “My best friend told me that I’m never allowed to take a sabbatical again because I was way too grumpy.” It’s a safe bet that Thompson’s students missed her, too. Typically they characterize their human kinetics prof as inspiring, enthusiastic and a great role model. Originally from Saskatchewan, Thompson knew once she started at St. Francis Xavier University, in Antigonish, N.S., that she’d found her place: “I absolutely thrive here.”

She keeps classes as interactive and friendly as possible. In her first-year Principles of Human Movement class, she appoints five to six students as “daily experts.” These students have to answer questions or demonstrate learned principles in front of approximately 150 of their peers. “It gives everybody an opportunity to speak,” notes Thompson, thereby reducing the psychological “size” of the class. She regularly departs from her lecture notes and separates students into small groups so they can discuss the topic at hand. Thompson’s friendliness and energy extend outside the classroom. She chats with students at varsity sporting events and her office door is “literally” open. She advises honours theses and writes about 150 reference letters each year.

A strong proponent of nutrition and physical activity, Thompson lives her principles. She regularly runs, practises yoga, eats well and, along with her students, dons a pair of sweat pants and plays sports with them in her service-learning program Fit for Life. Through Fit for Life, Thompson and her student volunteers engage elementary schoolchildren in games and teach them about nutrition. Thompson sees it as a “win-win” experience— “absolutely amazing for the children participants” and a great opportunity for students to work with children. “They get to see that that game idea they had sounded terrific—until they tried to explain it in the gym with 25 little rug rats.”

—Robert Near

It takes most people a little time in life to find their passion. Alan Morgan is not one of those people. At the age of eight his fascination with geology began to percolate; by 10, he was taking geology courses in grammar school and visiting the National Museum Wales; then, at 17, he was off to Iceland with the British Schools Exploring Society to trek across glacial water streams and walk on ice sheets.

Morgan has since travelled the globe, and for almost four decades has taught Earth 121, an introductory geology course, at the University of Waterloo, among other offerings, where he shares his tales of adventure and discovery with students. “I’ve seen active volcanoes, I’ve walked through the rubble of earthquakes and major floods, so it’s very easy to bring these real-life stories into lectures” he says. And after all these years of teaching, Morgan can still capture the imagination of his students. “He doesn’t leave you confused about concepts, but brings clarity to them,” says former student Maria Fox. “He incorporates a lot of his photos in PowerPoint presentations, and he has a lot of funny stories regarding this or that geological formation.”

Morgan’s research interests are in quaternary stratigraphy—deposits laid down over the last 2.6 million years—along with climate change. He has given more than 850 public lectures, published some 100 research papers and book chapters, and has led geological excursions in Mexico, the American Southwest, Iceland and Greece. And he’s in no rush to slow down. This year he is working on a unique project in a Waterloo park called the Geo- Time Trail. The trail consists of a path exactly 4.567 km in length, a number that in billions corresponds to the approximate age of our planet. Once completed, illustrated signs, markers and even Morgan himself will take hikers along a geological timeline so they can understand what was happening in the world at a specific period. The project, like his teachings, reflects Morgan’s love for the planet and a belief that the more people know about it, the more inclined they are to respect it.

—Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze

Anthony Clarke aims to excite, challenge and provoke his students as he sets out to teach others how to teach. One of his classroom strategies draws on improvisational techniques as he engages students in a game similar to Whose Line Is It Anyway? After the game, students discuss the learning scenario they’ve just witnessed. Clarke also believes that all new teachers must be adept in digital learning technologies. He’s something of a tech pioneer himself: he began teaching computer science back in 1978. Recently, Clarke introduced his students to a form of stopframe animation that allows them to explore issues in a novel, multidisciplinary way.

“It never gets boring for me,” says Clarke, “I never use the same notes.” The Australian transplant “invites chaos and trusts complexity” in his classroom, firmly believing that the “intelligence of the collective is almost always greater than that of the individual.”

Clarke’s innovation has had an effect beyond his classroom. He developed a mentoring practicum to help teachers prepare to supervise and mentor B.Ed. students while on practicums in their classrooms. He initiated the Collaborative Inquiry for Teacher Education program so that during their practicums, B.Ed. students can meet and discuss what they have been experiencing in the field. And Clarke has helped fellow profs at UBC to refine their teaching techniques.

For Clarke, a successful day of teaching is when he completes the 45-minute bike ride home and realizes he hasn’t stopped “thinking about what’s happened in class.”

—Robert Near

Uttandaraman “U.T.” Sundararaj, head of the department of chemical and petroleum engineering at the University of Calgary’s Schulich School of Engineering, didn’t get interested in engineering because he dreamt of massive structures or great industrial enterprises. It happened because he knew the job came with some sweet benefits. “My mother’s brother was a mechanical engineer in the Indian army, and when I was very young he used to come visit us in his Jeep,” recalls the long-time University of Alberta prof, who moved south from Edmonton in August. “This was a time when you’d be lucky to have a scooter. I guess I was his favourite nephew, so he’d have me sit in the car for a drive around the neighbourhood while all the other kids cheered.” Thus was a budding engineer created.

Sundararaj is known for his use of arresting live and video demonstrations in the classroom, an approach one associates more with physicists and mechanical engineers. It is natural that a chemical engineering expert would give students Silly Putty—a sophisticated polymer we all know, though not in its industrial guise as Dow Corning Dilatant Compound 3179. But Sundararaj goes the extra mile, using Lego to demonstrate the behaviour of long-chain molecules and showing footage from his kitchen and backyard to teach the mysteries of fluid mechanics. The principles of emulsion are the same, he points out, whether you’re talking about mayonnaise or oil-sands tailings.

Sundararaj has long been recognized as a teaching star, but recent students who have played pickup basketball with today’s gregarious U.T. might not recognize the more reserved figure he once cut. “I have to admit,” he says, “that when I first started teaching, I did not look at it from a scholarly perspective.” He started researching learning styles and experimenting with new classroom techniques in 2000, after returning to the U of A from a stint in industry and being caught off-guard by a disappointing set of student evaluations. “The students all seem to believe we throw those forms in the garbage,” he says with a warm laugh. “They have no idea how seriously we take them.”

—Colby Cosh