Teaching

Philosophy / Pedagogy

My approach to teaching is continually evolving; fundamentally I believe the responsibility of a teacher is to provide guidance to students in acquiring concepts and skills and in applying newly learned knowledge. I believe strongly in rewarding curiosity and put value on the application of knowledge learned in the classroom to the “real-world” and to current events.  There are 3 key principles that I try to follow in my teaching.

1) Start with learning outcomes: teaching should start with a focus on the learning outcomes expected of students and flow from there to specific content and not the other way around.  Learning outcomes should be clearly stated to students at the beginning of a course, the beginning of each class, and for all assignments.

2) Learning requires application: acquiring facts and concepts is one part of the learning experience, but it is only when concepts are applied in new ways does real learning occur. I strive to frequently ask questions of students in class and in assignments that require synthesis of taught concepts and application to events and phenomena outside the classroom. I also strive to create an environment in which students feel comfortable asking questions of me and of each other.

3) Value student experience : students bring different life experiences and different styles of learning to the classroom. I try to encourage students to use their own daily lives as a source of the evidence they can use to question and understand the concepts introduced in class. To accommodate different styles of learning I use a combination of lectures, group work, in class learning quizzes, field-work, on-line learning and video presentations.

Teaching responsibilities to date

Courses taught (2012 to current)

Geography 104 Global Forest Resources. Queen’s University, fall 2013

This introductory geography course surveys forests and forest policy and management through lectures and assignments. Enrollment was 140 students from a range of departments and stages of degree completion. I organized this lecture course into four modules: biology and ecology of forests; socio-economics of forest, sustainable forest management; and future forest trends.

Geography 1302 Places and Spaces of Human Activity, University of Ottawa, winter 2013

This introductory human geography lecture course was delivered to 190 students. It is a foundation core course for further studies in geography and environmental studies. The textbook for the course was Knox et. al Human Geography: Places and Regions in Global Context

Environmental Studies Field Course ENV 4910 / Recherche sur le terrain, University of Ottawa, fall 2012

This 4^th year capstone bilingual field course caters to Honours students in the Environmental Studies major. The field component is a week-long trip to a rural region to explore the concept of rural sustainability. I developed a theme of community renewable energy and had students conduct interviews and participant observation with local planners and with representatives of four different renewable energy resource projects.  Twenty-six students participated in this course which continued in the fall term with briefings and group work.

Energy module of ENV 1101 Global Environmental Challenges, Winter 2011, 2012

I designed lesson plans and delivered 3 lectures on topic of energy and environment to 150 students for two consecutive years for this core course in environmental studies.

Guest lecturer (2011 – current)

I designed and delivered 45 – 90 minute lectures on various topics including rural landscape change, Ontario energy policy, qualitative research methods, sustainable community development, rural sustainability, ethanol fuel regulation and wind energy planning for the following courses.

Canada and its Regions, University of Ottawa, Winter 2011
Climate Change, Queen’s University, Fall 2014
Environmental Issues, Carleton University, Fall 2011, 2012
Environmental Studies Graduate Seminar, Queen’s University, Fall 2013
Envisioning Earth’s Environments, Carleton University, Winter 2014
Global Environmental Challenges, University of Ottawa, Winter 2010, 2011
Legal Approaches to Environmental Issues, University of Ottawa 2009
Mechanical Engineering – Wind Energy, Queen’s University, 2015
Natural Resource Management, University of Ottawa, winter 2016
Nature, Environment, Society, Carleton University, Fall 2014
Places and Spaces of Human Activity, University of Ottawa, Fall 2012, 2013, Winter 2014
Research Methods in Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Ottawa, Fall 2014
Sustainable Rural Livelihoods, University of Ottawa, Summer 2010, 2011, 2013

Student supervision

Ola Ogunleye 2016-2018. Masters of Environmental Science. University of Ottawa Thesis title “Power to the People: Assessing Renewable Energy Co-ops in Ontario”

Examining Committee

Matthias Purdon (M.A. Sustainability Studies, Trent University, 2016)

Evidence of Teaching Innovation

I introduced the use of learning checks in my lecture courses. These are ungraded but mandatory quizzes on the material from past lectures that allowed me to gauge which concepts were poorly explained and to go over problematic areas of the course before exams.

I incorporate meetings with practitioners in the field of study for all of my courses. In many of my courses I have asked students to take on the role of “consultants” charged with delivering on clients’ needs and preparing reports. These reports are shared with practitioners at the end of the course.

I use a peer review system in group work where group members evaluate their own contribution and team member contribution.

I completed a semester long training course entitled Theory and Practise of Undergraduate Teaching delivered by the Center for University Teaching at the University of Ottawa.

Evidence of teaching success

Student Evaluations*
for ENV 4910 (environmental studies field course)

Average rating	Question	Ranking choices
4.34 / 5	I find that the professor as a teacher is	Excellent, Good, Acceptable, Poor, Very Poor
4.46 / 5	I think the professor conveys the subject matter effectively	Almost Always, Often, Sometimes, Rarely, Almost Never
4.26 / 5	The professor’s teaching is stimulating	Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree
4.61 / 5	I find the professor well prepared for class	Almost Always, Often, Sometimes, Rarely, Almost Never

* these evaluations follow University of Ottawa guidelines. 

For the forest resources class taught fall 2013 I launched a partnership with the local public works department to contribute to urban forest planning needs. This involved several initial meetings with City officials and asked students to take on the role of consultants tasked with one of three assignments: assessing Kingston’s urban forest management plan against three other cities; designing a method to assess the ecosystem value of the urban forest; or to assess the urban forest public communication efforts against objectives set in the management plan. City planners and students were both positive about the experience and would like to repeat the exercise.

64% of students agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “Compared to assignments I’ve had in other courses, the GPHY 104 group assignment made me think more”

Some selected statements from students are listed below.

“Good instructions, good help and feedback, allowed us to do our own research and thought process. Again, very cool.”

“I liked that it was relevant to me/Kingston today rather than theories that are more overarching and cannot be changed by one person. I think it is really neat that some of the recommendations we made might actually get put to use, that we may have had an impact and instigated change.”

“i like how people came into class and gave us feedback on our work, i enjoyed the real life implications of the report and how something similar to our report is written and used in a real life work setting”

“Out of my 4 years here, I have never done an assignment like this before where we got to interact with the ‘client.’ This was interesting!”