Celebrating Canada, breakthrough research; remembering Andrei Anghel

By: Feridun Hamdullahpur

Our 30^th Canada Day celebration was a smashing success, thanks to the hard work of our community relations and events team, our Federation of Students, over one hundred volunteers, and a broad range of staff from across campus.

This event was an outstanding way to celebrate Canada’s confederation 147 years ago, and to show our gratitude and pride in all that it has become.

In bringing our community to campus, the University and our students had an opportunity to say “thank you” to our partners and neighbours in the Waterloo region. The University of Waterloo’s story, right from our founding, is tightly woven into the history and development of the broader Waterloo region we know and love. Celebrating that sense of shared identity and unity of purpose was immensely rewarding – and lots of fun.

If you haven’t seen it yet, stop over at the Canada Day Celebration web page and watch the wrap-up video. It’s more than worth the couple of minutes to watch.

As July approached, we said farewell to our outgoing provost and stalwart supporter of this institution, Geoff McBoyle, and welcomed his successor, Ian Orchard, to campus. I have been delighted to work closely with Ian during his first month on our team.

Our new provost been working hard this month getting to know our university community, and getting up to speed on his large and complex portfolio as provost. As so many of you have already fed back to me: he’s doing a superb job. We are fortunate to have a researcher and administrator of his caliber in such a key role with our administration. He has been touring campus extensively and taking immense care to develop an appreciation for Waterloo’s culture, strengths, and opportunities.

Some of our research strengths were in fact on full display this month: I was delighted to join with Peter Braid, our local Member of Parliament, to make the local announcement for the University of Waterloo’s NSERC Discovery Grant recipients. As many of you know, the Discovery Grants Program is designed to convert potentially ground-breaking research projects into reality by providing it with that extra support at critical research phases.

Two of Waterloo’s leading researchers, Professor Zhongwei Chen (Chemical Engineering) and Professor John Watrous (David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, Institute for Quantum Computing), were on hand to tell us about their research and about the positive impact the Discovery Grant program is having on Waterloo’s commitment to generating transformational research.

While I am tempted to continue on with more comment about the many positive things that took place on campus over the last few weeks, I must make a somber mention at this time.

As you know, the University of Waterloo lost a member of our family in July, when alumnus Andrei Anghel (B.Sc., ’12) was killed in the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 on July 17. As I expressed in my statement following the tragedy, our entire University of Waterloo community was shocked and saddened by the news. I must also reiterate that Andrei was an active researcher and M.D. candidate, whose work held promise both from a scientific and healthcare perspective. We are as proud of Andrei’s deep commitment to research and humanitarian causes as we are profoundly  sorrowful to have lost him.

Our hearts and minds are with Andrei’s family members and friends at this extremely difficult time. He is missed, and will be always remembered, especially in the ongoing work of scientific discovery and the advancement of research and education.

Those efforts continue unabated here at Waterloo. July has been an enormously productive month, not only in the ways I’ve mentioned above, but also in the further development of our campus facilities and buildings, and in so many other areas. Our administration team has been laying excellent track in supporting Waterloo’s growth as a world-leading institution of research and learning over these summer months, and I look forward to reporting back to you on some of this progress in the months to come.

Wishing you all the best for an excellent weekend,

Feridun

 

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Tales of a Teacher: Hilary Bergsieker

by Zahra Razavi. This is the third of three Centre for Teaching Excellence Teaching Stories that will appear in the Daily Bulletin this week. The full versions of each piece first appeared on the Centre for Teaching Excellence's website.

“What is your relationship status?” asks Dr. Hilary Bergsieker in a lecture about relationships in her Social Psychology course.

After making it clear that responding to this question is completely optional, and that responses are anonymous, Bergsieker asks this question using Top Hat, a classroom engagement technology developed in 2009 by two uWaterloo graduate students. After students answer, Bergsieker realizes that 20% of the individuals who responded have never been in a romantic relationship. With this new information about her students, Bergsieker tailors her lecture for that day. “I knew to talk more about family relationships and friendships, and make the lesson more relatable for these individuals,” states Bergsieker.

Making her lessons more relatable for her students is one of the many ways Bergsieker, an Assistant Professor in Psychology who joined the University of Waterloo in 2012, modifies her lessons in order to make them more effective. “I believe that a course’s framing influences students’ receptiveness to and engagement with its content,” Bergsieker explains.

Professor Bergsieker states that for her, a main concern in teaching is that it is often hard to gauge what the student response is after a long lecture in a large class. In order to solve this issue, Bergsieker collects feedback in class using multiple methods, and adjusts her lessons using this feedback. Because the Top Hat technology allows the instructor to ask several types of questions, Bergsieker uses this tool each lecture to collect thorough and rich information from her students, a task that would otherwise be very challenging in a class of 300. Using this information, she decides how much time she needs to spend on an idea, the depth to which she should delve into a subject, and which teaching strategies work best for each concept.

Having a live Top Hat discussion thread active during class is another method Bergsieker uses to collect feedback and adapt her lectures. Bergsieker explains that many students have expressed anxiety about commenting or asking questions in class, stating that they are concerned about what their peers might think of them. Not wanting this concern to prevent students from participating in her class, Bergsieker uses an anonymous discussion thread every lecture that is monitored by herself as well as a teaching assistant. Students have the ability to “endorse” a question asked by another student on the discussion thread, allowing Bergsieker to know which questions will be the most beneficial to answer in class.

Students express high levels of satisfaction with Bergsieker’s efforts to increase their engagement, and to incorporate their feedback into her classes. One student states, “Professor Bergsieker was amazing. She really put a lot of effort into the presentation of the material, and she was able to get the class involved in the discussion. I’ve never seen a psych class this large have so much involvement. She was great at provoking discussion.”

Another concern stated by Bergsieker is that students often defer their weekly readings to the last minute, resulting in them being overwhelmed by an overly large reading load the night before an examination. In order to prevent this accumulation of readings, Bergsieker asks a number of questions exclusively from the readings during class using Top Hat. She explains that these questions only account for a very small percentage of their final grade; however, this approach does provide an incentive for students to complete their readings on time.

Dr. Bergsieker’s passion for her field is evident to her students. She strives to make the content of her course relatable to them and applicable to their lives, and to have her students appreciate social psychology as a science. As a student in her Social Psychology course noted, “Dr. Bergsieker’s use of technology in class helps her be responsive to student needs and interests. It creates an effective feedback loop that really enhances the course.”

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Building a difference at home and abroad

By: Community Relations and Events

A group of Waterloo faculty, staff and alumni are hoping to make a difference one brick at a time.  On August 2^nd, 2014 this group will depart Waterloo and head to Whitehorse, Yukon to build a house as part of Habitat for Humanity’s Global Village program. 

 

From Left to Right, Front row: Michelle Burlock, Jennifer Jantzi, Olivia Roth, Ralon Nazareth, Ann Kallin, Debika Burman.Back Row: Erin Smith, Mike Marshman, Barry Ferguson, Bev Marshman, Rod Smith (Absent: Angela Googh)

The team, led by Michelle Burlock and co-leader, Erin Smith, are part of the first annual University of Waterloo Habitat for Humanity build.  Michelle, Erin and Steve Krysak (who was not able to join the Yukon trip) have participated in various builds in the past and always meet people with affiliations to the University of Waterloo along the way. 

It was this revelation that sparked the idea to organize a formal UWaterlooteam.  “Over the past 10 years, we’ve met so many people – current students, staff, and alumni – that are involved in Habitat’s Global Village program. It seemed like a great opportunity to put all that enthusiasm and adventure into a special team to show how much Waterloo people care about having a lasting impact in the community" said Erin Smith.  

In the lead up to the official University of Waterloo build, members of the Whitehorse team and others interested in making a difference locally, donned their steel toe boots and hard hats to hone their skills at a local build.

On July 17, 2014, eight UWaterloo participants informally volunteered with Habitat for Humanity Waterloo Region and helped with the local Kehl Street development in Kitchener.  “As interesting and exciting as it is to travel to exotic locales for Habitat builds, we always try to remember that there are people in our own backyard that need a ‘hand-up’ from Habitat", said Michelle Burlock. "By offering builds within Canada, and within our own city, Habitat for Humanity gives opportunities for people to volunteer, regardless of how much time or funds they have to contribute."  As part of the Kehl Street development Habitat for Humanity Waterloo Region will build 7 new housing units this year.

You can follow the adventures of the University of Waterloo  team while in Whitehorse, Yukon via their blog.

 

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