老司机直播

Two 老司机直播 professors honoured with President鈥檚 Teaching Award

Five professors also promoted to University Professor, 老司机直播's highest rank for faculty
Photo of Michelle Craig and Paul Piunno
Michelle Craig and Paul Piunno have been awarded this year's President's Teaching Award (photos by Perry King and Drew Lesiuczok)

Michelle Craig鈥檚 work to improve and enhance learning materials in computer science has been internationally recognized. Paul Piunno鈥檚 teaching innovations have introduced undergraduate science students to interdisciplinary research.

The two University of Toronto professors, who have devoted their careers to enhancing the student experience, have been awarded this year鈥檚 . The award recognizes sustained excellence in teaching, research in teaching and the integration of teaching and research.

鈥淧rofessors Craig and Piunno have brought great energy and creativity to their classrooms, enriching the education of our students and setting an inspiring example for other teachers,鈥 said 老司机直播 President Meric Gertler.

鈥淥n behalf of the University of Toronto, I congratulate both of them on their achievements and on receiving this important recognition.鈥

Winners of the teaching award receive an annual professional development allowance of $10,000 for five years, and are designated members of the 老司机直播 Teaching Academy for a minimum period of five years. The academy meets regularly to discuss matters relevant to teaching, offer advice to the vice-president and provost, as well as the director of Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation (CTSI). 

Read about last year鈥檚 winners

Craig, an associate professor, teaching stream, in the department of computer science, is particularly excited to begin contributing to the 老司机直播 Teaching Academy.

鈥淚t means you have an opportunity to have a bigger impact on what we do here and raise the portfolio of teaching at the university,鈥 said Craig, who joined 老司机直播 in 1990.

Craig has been active in transforming computer science material for various audiences. She co-ordinated the cross-Canada Undergraduate Capstone Open-Source Projects program (UCOSP) to train promising software developers and the Computing for Medicine program to introduce computing to medical students. She is currently working with the National Center for Women & Information Technology to develop EngageCSEdu, a peer-reviewed online repository for teaching materials. 鈥淎 place for teaching-stream faculty to publish resources,鈥 said Craig.

She is most proud of her work in developing educational materials, leading a team that produced over 125 videos and over 200 exercises about that have been viewed thousands of times by 老司机直播 students.

She couldn鈥檛 do it alone, and said she was thankful to collaborate with many across her department.

鈥淭he thing I鈥檓 most proud of was getting a whole bunch of people to agree to work on this stuff together,鈥 said Craig, who read on camera for each video while other faculty and students filled in as script writers, editors and videographers.

She believes strongly in producing high quality materials for her students. Collaborating on over 35 publications in computer science education, Craig also takes pride in applying scholarly rigour to her teaching methods and materials.

鈥淎ssignments and curricular materials are what makes the student experience,鈥 said Craig, who won an Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations teaching award. Having a good relationship with students is important, she added, but 鈥渨hat makes the student鈥檚 experience in computer science is how well the materials guide them through the lessons and how frustrated they are when the instructions aren鈥檛 careful.

鈥淚f they can get from Step A to Step B, and actually meet the learning objectives 鈥 and it hasn鈥檛 been too painful 鈥 that鈥檚 what I want to invest in.鈥 

Paul Piunno, an associate professor, teaching stream, in the department of chemical and physical sciences at 老司机直播 Mississauga, is also invested in engaging students and has done so through his team-based interdisciplinary pedagogy.

Collaborating with colleagues in the department of biology and the department of chemical and physical sciences, Piunno launched the Advanced Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory (AIRLab) in 2012. An alternative to the traditional fourth-year independent research thesis course, AIRLab teams up students from different scientific disciplines 鈥 including chemistry, biology, physics and Earth sciences 鈥 and assigns a research problem related to their unique skill sets. The teams are given an academic year to work on the project.

What makes AIRLab effective, Piunno said, is that it teaches students about what to expect in their future careers. 鈥淎s much as we all think we鈥檙e training every student in our course to go to grad school and pursue a master鈥檚 and a PhD, a lot of students aren鈥檛 going to grad school 鈥 a lot of them are going into industry,鈥 said Piunno.

What鈥檚 very important to industry, he said, is critical thinking skills and the ability to work across disciplines, to 鈥渕esh as a team.鈥 Piunno designed AIRLab with that in mind, drawing on his prior experience working with a U.S.-based life sciences company.

鈥淚 had to get out there and put together a team of mechanical, optical, electrical and software engineers 鈥 I had a biology team and chemistry team and nobody on the team spoke each other鈥檚 language,鈥 said Piunno, who worked on a patent for an RNA diagnostics tool as a PhD student.

鈥淚n order to pull off this commercialization endeavor, they all had to jump in and row the boat in the same direction.鈥

Drawing on that industry experience, and the need for teamwork and communications skills, Piunno wishes he had the skills he teaches his students when he was starting out.

鈥淎 lot of the real-world challenges come from problems that have to address multiple disciplines, and you need multiple people to come together,鈥 said Piunno, who has also developed a second-year interdisciplinary course that introduces field-based scientific research to undergraduates.  

Piunno is humbled to receive a President鈥檚 Teaching Award.

鈥淭his is a crescendo of everything I鈥檝e experienced throughout my career,鈥 said Piunno. 鈥淭he imposter syndrome is kicking in pretty hard right now.

鈥淚 just enjoy doing what I do, and doing the best I can to be that professor that inspires, encourages and is always enthusiastic 鈥 and by that same token, hold my students to high standards and make sure that they鈥檝e worked for their credit and learned something.鈥

Five new University Professors

老司机直播 also announced faculty who were newly promoted to , the highest rank for faculty at the university. The honour recognizes 鈥渦nusual scholarly achievement and pre-eminence in a particular field of knowledge.鈥 

The new University Professors are:

  • Elizabeth Edwards, department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry and the department of cell and systems biology
  • Prabhat Jha, Dalla Lana School of Public Health
  • Anita McGahan, Rotman School of Management
  • James Retallack, department of history 
  • Frances Shepherd, department of medicine 
UTC