Starting this Fall 2014, the Waterloo Engineering Society debuted the Engineering Society Teaching Excellence Award to promote and reward teaching excellence displayed by University of Waterloo Engineering Faculty or Staff. The motivation behind the award was to recognize instructors who have shown outstanding contributions toward undergraduate learning.
As part of the selection process, nominations were accepted from students outlining how the instructor exemplified one or more of the following criteria:
a) Employing non-conventional teaching techniques
b) Allowed opportunities for experiential learning
c) Showing a commitment and dedication towards ensuring academic success for our students
Nominations from students were accepted until November 1, after which the selection process was initiated. The Teaching Award Committee comprised of both the on and off-term Vice President of Education of the Waterloo Engineering Society, the Associate Dean of Teaching or a designate and two at-large members. The responsibility of this committee was to fairly evaluate the given nominations and select a recipient for the award.
After careful evaluation of all supporting letters from students and other relevant information, the recipient of Fall 2014 Engineering Society Teaching Excellence Award is Dr. David Brush with honourable mentions to Dr. Mark Smucker and Dr. Carol Hulls. Dr. David Brush has already been a recipient of the Faculty of Engineering Teaching Excellence Award in 2013 for his exceptional teaching abilities and techniques employed.
Dr. Brush is a lecturer in the faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering and was nominated for teaching CIVE 265, CIVE 280 and CIVE 375 courses. As outlined in the supporting letters from students, Dr. Brush went above and beyond to ensure that the class received the help it needed. He did so through a variety of ways such as hosting extra office hours, uploading fully annotated notes to Learn for students who missed classes due to interviews, and several other methods.
As an instructor, Dr. Brush is always enthusiastic and enjoys adding humor to his lectures to keep the students engaged in the topics being taught. He also often includes a small mid-class break where a short video is shown or has jokes ready to give the class a chance to freshen up. Sometimes, the breaks included content that was related to the course and thus provided entertainment related to the subject matter. To demonstrate the relevance of the material taught in courses, Dr. Brush had labs slots for all courses which significantly helped the students connect theory and reality. He showed students the value of approximations and assumptions. When asked about the labs in Dr. Brush’s courses, Dylan Dowling, a student currently in Civil Engineering 3B said “some of the best labs from my 3 years here were in Professor Brush’s classes.”
Given below is the transcript of a short interview conducted with Dr. David Brush about his thoughts on teaching.
Question: What do you enjoy most about teaching?
Response: I thoroughly enjoy helping students to understand and apply course concepts at all levels. It’s amazing to be a part of student light-bulb moments.
Question: What is your biggest motivation for teaching?
Response: I view teaching as guiding a diverse group of people on a journey. Hopefully the whole group will arrive close to the planned destination at the end of term, but it will be challenging and there will be issues, especially with the guide. However, along the way, a special relationship of trust, commitment and encouragement can form, so that all those engaged can get through the rough patches. This is extremely motivating, and helps me to not get caught up in the details that don’t work as planned. It’s a relationship and a journey; by the end of term we’ll get to a worthwhile destination together.
Question: What unconventional teaching methods do you employ?
Response: I’m fairly conventional in the classroom, using a mix of fill-in-the-blanks course notes and solving problems on the board. I include a pause halfway through each lecture with videos, stories or humour. I hope to build interest and give students a mind-break. I encourage class participation by allowing and respecting all questions. Lectures come alive when students are interested and feel safe to ask questions and make comments. Finally, I have developed some hands-on projects that allow students to apply course concepts and experience design.
Question: What message would you like to send to students reading this article?
Response: Teaching is a journey of learning. Do you want to learn deeply? Try teaching your topic of interest to a group of peers, remembering to respect their questions and add some humour.
In addition to being an instructor, Dr. Brush was also the work term report coordinator for the Civil Engineering class he taught. He was asked non-stop questions, all of which he would answer “with a smile of his face” as stated by one of the nominators.
As visible in the interview transcript above, it is evident that Dr. David Brush is extremely passionate and committed to teaching with the overall goal of sharing his love of learning. It is an honor to recognize a professor with such dedication to both students and his job. The Engineering Society congratulates Dr. David Brush on his commitment to student learning and teaching excellence.
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It’s a great job for those teachers who really did their best for their job. I hope that there would be a lot of teachers who are like this because they are the only hope of many students to learn.