The Certificate in University Teaching (CUT) program provides a comprehensive teacher development experience that is open to PhD students at the University of Waterloo. Completion of the program is recognized by a certificate issued by Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs and listed on the participant’s transcript. Each year, the Centre for Teaching Excellence and Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs award one recent CUT program graduate in recognition and celebration of effort, reflection, and commitment to teaching development demonstrated during their participation in the program.
We are excited to announce that the 2022 CUT Award has been awarded to Tim Alamenciak, a PhD student in Social and Ecological Sustainability, in the Faculty of Environment. We spoke to Tim about his experience with the CUT program and his thoughts about teaching in a post-secondary environment.
Can you tell me a little bit about your graduate research? What drew you to it, what aspect do you find most interesting?
My PhD research is investigating how to engage more people in ecological restoration. I am looking at what motivates volunteers to participate in ecological restoration, how to structure volunteer-based organizations to maximize engagement, and the use of ecological restoration as a convivial community tool through the case study of a native seed library.
Ecological restoration is a growing professional field. There are countless “non-professionals” who may not have gone to school for restoration, but still practice it. My research is focused on how people in that category can be engaged and supported, with the goal of increasing the openness of ecological restoration. I believe very strongly in knowledge sharing and accessibility. Everyone should have access to the knowledge and tools they need to restore ecosystems.
The United Nations declared this decade the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), with the explicit goal of establishing a “culture of restoration.” We need to engage as many people as possible if we have any hope of achieving that goal.
What I find most interesting about my work is talking to people who are just getting started on the path. For example, they have just started planting native plants. I love hearing about what prompted them to make the shift and thinking about how we can get more people on board. I am committed and passionate about making restoration as open and accessible as possible.
I know that for the CUT program, you worked on an inquiry-based learning and developed a pedagogical workshop titled, “Inquiry in the Living Lab.” What did that process look like for you?
The CUT program was such a wonderful experience, and the workshop was a great way to cap it off. I focused my research on inquiry-based learning (IBL) because it is a method with transformative learning outcomes. Students who engage in IBL internalize the lessons they experience and carry them forward into their working lives, rather than forgetting everything after the exam.
Reviewing the literature highlighted a familiar challenge: for IBL to be effective, it needs to be widely embraced. The term “scaffolding” is used to describe the practice of having first-year students start with basic forms of IBL and then guiding them towards more advanced forms. This means the whole department needs to embrace this approach and embed it in coursework for the students to be properly scaffolded. I designed the workshop with that goal in mind, hoping to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.
It sounds like the CUT team was impressed by the ways in which you sought to integrate socio-ecological justice frameworks into your classroom and outreach pedagogies. Is there any more you can say about that?
Integrating socio-ecological justice is a crucial piece of the work of university-level teaching. In my teaching, I have had a lot of help unlearning and learning from mentors and friends. I am still very much learning and working on this aspect of my work, but I am glad that the team recognized that effort.
The damage that ecological restoration is seeking to heal is the direct result of colonialism. The injustice persists to this day in places like Aamjiwnaang and Grassy Narrows. Resource extraction, logging, invasive species, development – these were and are all colonial endeavors. History and relationships are inseparable from the land. I think that we would be making a terrible mistake if we tried to treat ecology as somehow separate from crucial issues like systemic (and environmental) racism, colonialism, and inequality.
What did you get out of the CUT program? How do you hope to apply what you have learned?
The CUT program has unquestionably made me a better teacher. The workshops and assignments taught me how to create a welcoming and inclusive class, how to make assessments feel more like learning opportunities, and how to give motivating and helpful feedback. From the microteaching sessions in the Fundamentals of University Teaching certificate to the final research report, every exercise sharpened my capacity to teach. The staff who run the program are fantastic and I have been grateful for their mentorship along the journey.
I have used the skills from the CUT program to design workshops and presentations in my current role as communications manager at REEP Green Solutions, while I continue to work on my PhD part-time. I am very much looking forward to returning to teaching at the University of Waterloo when there is an opportunity to do so.
Do you have any future plans that you can talk about?
This summer, we will be mapping ecological data collected by students as part of the effort to make the campus a living lab. We are calling it the Campus EcoMap. Shefaza Esmail and I received funding from the Sustainability Action Fund to hire two brilliant, over-qualified research assistants to work on the project part-time for the summer. The goal is to produce an interactive map of datasets that are collected by students, a process to allow instructors to upload data in the future, and a preliminary biodiversity report.
We are working across multiple faculties to create a platform for student-collected data that will allow other students and staff to meaningfully synthesize the data. Students are out there throughout the field season, wading in Laurel Creek and trekking through the environmental reserve to collect data all the time.
This project will provide a way for that data to be used and re-analyzed in the future. It is an exciting teaching tool and a great way to improve the environmental stewardship of campus. It really speaks to my teaching philosophy as well. Getting out there and collecting data, then having it used in meaningful ways, turns coursework from an isolated activity into a vital contribution to the ecological health of campus.
Anything else you would like to share about yourself or your experiences at Waterloo or in the CUT program?
The staff at the Centre for Teaching Excellence are truly incredible and so committed to enhancing learning at UW. The workshops were some of the bests I have ever taken and have changed the way I look at running seminars. It is amazing that this certificate is freely available to students, and I am so grateful for the time and energy put into developing it.