Congratulations to Sean Monahan, a recipient of this year’s Amit and Meena Chakma Award for Exceptional Teaching. The award ($1000), which is given to up to four recipients annually, recognizes excellence in teaching by students, including intellectual vigour, skill in communication and presentation of subject matter, and concern for the needs of students.
Sean Monahan is a fourth-year PhD student in Pure Mathematics. In addition to TAing multiple courses, Monahan has taught Math 135: Algebra for Honours Mathematics (Fall 2022) and Math 115: Linear Algebra for Engineering (Fall 2023).
“I was very excited and surprised when I heard that I won this award,” Monahan says. “It means a lot to me that my students liked the classes that I taught, and that even one of them would nominate me for an award like this.”
While Monahan acknowledges that it can be challenging to balance his PhD research with teaching, he says that his teaching experience has been a major highlight of his time at Waterloo so far. He loves work one-on-one and in small groups with students to help them understand, and helping them get excited about mathematics. One of the best parts of teaching, he says, was getting to teach mechanical engineers in Math 115. “They had a day where they showed off all their term projects – mechanical things they built for their engineering courses – and I got to go around and see all their cool projects and talk with them about the creative stuff they made. I felt very proud to be their teacher.”
In Monahan’s nomination, his students noted that he was always happy to answer questions during class and outside of class, and that he frequently made difficult concepts entertaining and fun. “Sean is an incredibly driven, capable, resourceful, reliable, and compassionate person that brings these qualities to all his endeavours,” said an anonymous colleague.
Monahan bases his teaching style on his own memories of being an undergraduate student, and adjusts his assignments and lectures accordingly. He also advises other student instructors to reach out to experienced teachers and friends to get feedback on their teaching.
“I am extremely grateful to Yu-Ru Liu for being the first person to watch one of my lectures and give me feedback, and for supporting my teacher career every since,” he says. “Blake Madill also gave me great advice and feedback; J.P. Pretti, Judith Koeller, and Shane Bauman were very supportive and encouraging and helped me learn the ropes during my first-time teaching, and Graeme Turner gave me great advice and guidance on the coordination side of teaching. Last but not least, of course, I’m so thankful to my students for making teaching so fun!
You can learn more about the Amit and Meena Chakma Award for Exceptional Teaching, and see a list of the other winners, on the Centre for Teaching Excellence website.