Thursday, July 5, 2018

Construction begins on new Student Service Centre

Construction has started on the Student Service Centre. The Centre is a new student service unit that was formally created in November 2017 to address the challenges students face when navigating services across campus. The Centre will open late fall 2018 on the first floor of Needles Hall.

Upon opening, The Centre will amalgamate the front-line services of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs, the Registrar’s Office (including Student Awards & Financial Aid), and the Student Success Office. Some services of other units, such as Finance - Student Financial Services, will also be incorporated. WatCard and Parking Services will have a presence during the start of term, with the possibility of other units joining in the future. This initiative addresses the Strategic Plan’s Vibrant Student Experience theme to “enrich the student experience with a student-focused approach to services”. 

The Centre will be an open and welcoming space for students to accomplish tasks, get advice, and receive information quickly and efficiently. It will include self-service stations, wickets, consultation rooms, and a waiting room/study space. Case management and queuing software will help improve student wait times and the overall experience. The current “Pit” in Needles Hall will be levelled and the hallway from Needles Hall to the expansion (Needles Hall North) will be connected. A large welcome/information desk will be located in the former “Pit” space and will straddle the two hallways that lead to The Centre.

The Centre is currently operating out of the Registrar’s Office. Recent improvements to the student experience include extended hours during busy periods, the ability to pay fines within the Registrar’s Office, an expanded e-commerce platform, and on-the-spot transcripts for undergraduate students. Other improvements being planned include: additional online forms and services, online appointment bookings, a knowledge base platform, website, and multiple Quest enhancements, including a self-serve Proof of Enrolment letter is expected to go-live mid-July. Stay tuned!

For more information, visit the Student Service Centre website.

Record attendance for Teaching and Learning Conference

by Lisa Kabesh. This article was originally posted on the Centre for Teaching Excellence website.

How do you motivate your students to learn? And what keeps you motivated as an instructor? On April 26^th, faculty, staff, and students from across campus and beyond gathered to explore these questions at the University of Waterloo’s 10^th annual Teaching and Learning Conference: Motivating Our Students and Ourselves.

Joe Kim, Associate Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour at McMaster University, kicked off the conference with an exciting keynote talk exploring the connections between student motivation and what Kim calls “durable learning” — learning that remains with students long after the final exam.

The key to durable learning, according to Kim, is learning how to learn. This focus on metacognition was a key take-away for one of the conference attendees, Derek Robinson, Associate Professor of Geography and Environment and one of the Faculty of Environment’s Teaching Fellows. “If we can learn to self-regulate,” Robinson explains, “delaying immediate gratification now for greater reward later, then we would reduce mind wandering, focus our attention on a specific task, become more efficient, and subsequently be happier and less stressed.”

Funded by the Office of the Associate Vice-President, Academic, the conference offers participants a full day of learning with their colleagues and peers as they share their educational research, teaching strategies, and more in interactive workshops, panel discussions, and presentations.

“It helped me build a more holistic view of motivation,” said one participant, Amanda Garcia, a PhD candidate in Systems Design Engineering and recipient of the 2018 Amit and Meena Chakma Award for Exceptional Teaching by a Student. “Each of the sessions brought its own unique take on ways to motivate students, whether it be through the use of technology, classroom strategies, or teaching methods.”

Garcia, who also teaches in the Faculties of Engineering and Environment, commented on how important the annual conference is to sustaining her own motivation as an instructor: “The conference is very special to me. It brings together such a wonderful teaching community. Knowing that other instructors are trying new things and taking risks gives me the impetus to do so as well.”

Over 330 participants attended the conference this year, and over 150 authors contributed to the 66 sessions that filled the day – a high-water mark for conference organizers. “It was our biggest conference yet,” said Crystal Tse, chair of the conference organizing committee and an instructional developer at the Centre for Teaching Excellence.

Tse attributes much of that success to participants. “Each year, participants share their feedback with us, and we listen. Last year’s poster session wasn’t well attended, so this year we approached the session in a new way. We were delighted to see so much engagement at the end of a long conference day.”

Other new initiatives focused on inclusivity and accessibility. Name badges included a space for participants to indicate their pronouns, and were accompanied with a brief explainer on gender identity and pronoun use. The conference website linked to maps showing the locations of accessible entrances, elevators, and barrier-free and gender-neutral washrooms, and the organizing committee developed a new resource for presenters on how to design and deliver accessible presentations.

“It’s not about growing larger each year,” Tse says. “It’s about creating a rich, meaningful environment for instructors at Waterloo to learn from and with one another about teaching and learning. We’re so thankful to our volunteers, peer reviewers, and presenters for helping to make the day a success.”

Students sink competition at AquaHacking semi-finals

WaterPuris team members (from left to right) Rachel Tao, Oliver Witham, Robert Liang, Ivana Zurakowsky

This article was originally posted on the Water Institute website.

Institutions around the Great Lakes gathered at the 2018 AquaHacking semi-finals in Toronto to present their solutions for the issues facing the Great Lakes. Competing teams were given five minutes to pitch their idea to judges throughout the afternoon at the RBC WaterPark Place.

Five of the 16 teams that competed were selected to move on to the finals in October, including a University of Waterloo team, WaterPuris, that is tackling the issue of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDC) in our Great Lakes.

“I was exposed first-hand to the serious affects that EDC’s are having on the environment while working with Mark Servos, analyzing rainbow darter fish in the Grand River Watershed,” said Robert Liang, postdoctoral student in Waterloo’s Faculty of Engineering and founder of WaterPuris. “If EDC’s could affect the behaviour and fertility of male rainbow darters, this problem could potentially be transferred to humans.”

WaterPuris, a team lead by Waterloo Engineering students, is tackling the problem of the accumulation of EDC’s in Lake Ontario and surrounding aquatic ecosystems by applying advanced oxidation processes in point-of-entry (laundry, faucets, and toilet) applications.

The accumulation of EDCs is not just limited to Lake Ontario. In 2012, Water Institute member Mark Servos discovered a high population of intersex male rainbow darter fish in the Grand River. These intersex fish were a result of exposure to natural and synthetic hormones in the water, which caused eggs to appear in male testes or tissues.

Endocrine disruption in water systems is a worldwide phenomenon. Estrogen in birth control pills and other chemicals that mimic natural hormones are known to impact fish health in trace amounts as low as one part per trillion, far below what conventional wastewater treatment can typically remove.

WaterPuris is tackling this issue at the source – your toilet. By breaking down and removing the EDC’s before they enter wastewater treatment plants, their hope is that their technology will lessen the load for the treatment facilitates, allowing them to run as efficiently as possible.

For a list of semifinalists, visit the full article on the Water Institute website.