Learning

'Re-imagine everything': How U of T's Francisco Ibáñez-Carrasco helped profs adjust to online teaching

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 17 Jun 2021 19:54:10 +0000

'Re-imagine everything': How U of T's Francisco Ibáñez-Carrasco helped profs adjust to online teaching

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 06/17/2021 - 15:54

Cutline

Francisco Ibáñez-Carrasco, a part-time assistant professor of learning innovation at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, says his life experiences taught him that upheaval is an opportunity to be embraced, not feared (photo by Adam Coish)

Heidi Singer

Topic

Our Community

Coronavirus

AIDS

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

HIV

Learning

LGBTQ

A longtime AIDS activist and community based researcher, Francisco Ibáñez-Carrasco was tapped to be online engagement guru at the �ؿ�ζSM’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health last summer – just as the school was making the transition to online instruction.

The 58-year-old former Vancouverite was asked to join the school to help professors – who are often much younger than himself – learn how to teach online.

Ibáñez-Carrasco says he has heard many reasons why online education isn’t as good as in-person instruction – but he has a solution for seemingly everything. The most common complaint, he says, is that virtual experiences can’t replicate the intimacy of in-person. His response? If people can have sex online, they can engage with each other online to learn.

“It’s been an amazing opportunity to be able to stir a culture from the inside,” says Ibáñez-Carrasco. “Faculty members are embracing a new way of doing things, but the main change has been grappling [with unexpected realities.] From technical issues to worrying about privacy issues around lectures ... faculty members – no matter how established – feel very vulnerable.”

However, Ibáñez-Carrasco maintains that a little uncertainty can be a good thing – an observation supported by his own personal experience. He was a 22-year old high school teacher when he fled the fascistic dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in 1985, landing in Vancouver where he was soon handed an HIV diagnosis – a death sentence at the time.

“The physician said, ‘Well pal, you’re HIV-positive – another immigrant coming here to die of AIDS. Here’s your list of opportunistic illnesses. One of them will kill you.’”

The diagnosis was terrible, but Ibáñez-Carrasco says it freed him to think fearlessly about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He’d always loved studying, teaching and books, so eventually Ibáñez-Carrasco went back to school, earning a PhD in education from Simon Fraser University. And he wrote books.

His diagnosis also kicked off a lifelong interest in public health. Straddling the worlds of education and advocating for the sexual health of marginalized communities, his work still aims to bridge the communication gap between provider and patient.

Ibáñez-Carrasco has lived in Toronto since 2012, when he became director of education and training at the Ontario HIV Treatment Network. There, he trained 70 emerging Canadian HIV researchers and community leaders from 2009 to 2017, earning a Red Ribbon award from the Canadian Association for HIV Research in 2017. He then served as a senior research associate at the Centre for Urban Solutions at Unity Health. Days after learning U of T would pivot to online instruction in the face of COVID-19, Professor Dionne Gesink, the Dalla Lana School of Public Health’s associate dean of academic affairs, asked Ibáñez-Carrasco to join the school at the recommendation of Professor Carol Strike, who knew about his longtime leadership in online education.

“Francisco has been a ray of sunshine piercing through the storm clouds,” says Gesink, herself a sexual health researcher. “He has supported faculty and student learning, remote delivery, gamifying learning activities, alternative methods of evaluating student learning. He has coached faculty in pedagogy, and the list goes on.

“Francisco is warm and approachable, makes people feel comfortable and confident, somehow makes work playful and really helps foster a sense of community.”

Although not a traditional expert in technology, Ibáñez-Carrasco is passionate about teaching and engaging people despite barriers – whether they be technological, cultural or psychological.

He says he finds sudden change invigorating, loving the “messiness” and the freedom to create something new. That applies not just to online teaching but also the current upheaval around traditional gender and sexual identities and anti-oppressive teaching practices, he says.

“I love the complexity of queer communities. Emerging communities of transgender, nonbinary folks have something to teach me. Understanding diversity was something we preached in the 80s and 90s. And now they’re in my face – good!”

His fondness for mess is rooted in childhood. Ibáñez-Carrasco was 10 when Pinochet seized power, and he remembers the fascist oppression to conform or die that descended on Chilean society.

“You had to toe the line. Everything was redacted: television, textbooks and your conversations had to be edited as such,” he recalls. “There were curfews for many years. People whispered for two reasons: when someone had cancer and when someone was involved in politics.”

Informed by that history, he has fought stigma and secrecy of all things that bring shame, including sexualities, medical conditions such as HIV and the use of drugs. “Patients understand everything if they are given the right opportunity – including patients we see as complex,” he says. “They understand very well because many are living multiple pandemics – HIV, the opioid crisis and COVID.”

Looking forward, Ibáñez-Carrasco sees huge opportunity for the field of public health – providing practitioners are willing to embrace the upheaval.

“For public health schools, it’s a golden opportunity on a silver platter,” he says. “You can re-imagine everything. In fact, we must reimagine everything: learning, research, clinical practice and policy-making. All of it has been thrown into a blender. What a magnificent opportunity.”

U of T researcher works with local communities to boost play-based learning in Canada's North

rahul.kalvapalle — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 19:55:53 +0000

U of T researcher works with local communities to boost play-based learning in Canada's North

rahul.kalvapalle Wed, 08/19/2020 - 15:55

Cutline

In partnership with local teachers, OISE's Shelley Stagg Peterson is leading a project to boost literacy skills in northern schools while incorporating Indigenous languages and cultural learning (photo by Barry Stagg)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Indigenous

Learning

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Ted Sargent

Over the past seven years, the Northern Oral Language and Writing through Play (NOW Play) project has successfully helped boost the literacy skills of children in rural northern communities through play-based learning.

Now, the �ؿ�ζSM-led project is poised to take the next step in its evolution with a focus on Indigenous language and cultural learning in communities in northern Alberta, Ontario, New Zealand and Sweden.

Shelley Stagg Peterson, a professor in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) who is leading the project, says the first cycle of NOW Play was in part driven by concerns raised by kindergarten and Grade 1 teachers in Canada’s northern communities about the language skills of their students.

“Working with northern teachers, we focused on oral language and writing, thinking about ways to incorporate play into classroom teaching and learning,” Stagg Peterson says.

While the project was deemed a success, local teachers also expressed a desire to be able to support Indigenous language development in their classrooms, too.

“Teachers and community educational leaders think it’s important to address the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls for action on language and cultural revitalization,” Stagg Peterson says.

The current project, dubbed NOW Play 2, aims to incorporate Indigenous language development into play-based learning by building teaching capacity in northern and rural communities while generating knowledge and resources for educators. It is being supported by a recent $2.5-million Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grant (the first project also received a partnership grant in 2013).

“The team is doing crucial research that has had – and will continue to have – strong positive impacts in collaboration with Indigenous communities in Ontario, in Canada, and beyond,” said Michele Peterson-Badali, OISE’s associate dean, research, international and innovation.

“The NOW Play partnership exemplifies OISE’s mission to enhance the social, economic, political and cultural well-being of individuals and communities locally, nationally and globally through leadership in teaching, research and advocacy. I wish them continued success in this collaboration with their research and teaching partners.”

Stagg Peterson – a former classroom teacher in rural northern Alberta – says NOW Play 1 was shaped by teachers’ priorities and concerns from the beginning.

“The teachers designed their own projects, they carried out the activity, gathered the data – and then, together with my colleagues and me, looked at what the data were showing us,” she says. “We learned from each other.”

Over the seven years of the first project, a range of play activities – incorporating elements of writing, language and local cultural references – were introduced to kindergarten and Grade 1 classrooms. The resulting classroom ideas, models and research papers written by the many researchers and graduate students involved in the project are available for free on the NOW Play website.

NOW Play 2 will address similar issues up to Grades 4, 5 and 6.

“This latest SSHRC Partnership Grant is an important recognition of the progress made by NOW Play in working closely with partners in northwestern Ontario and northern Alberta to lever play-based learning to improve the writing and language skills of children in those communities,” said Ted Sargent, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives.

“This second iteration of NOW Play exemplifies the value of collaborative action research, with university researchers and community partners learning from one another and working together to advance knowledge on a crucial issue – in this case the language skills of young children in remote northern communities.”

Children who benefited from the first iteration of the NOW Play project will be able to carry on their progress with the latest version.

“We’re thinking we can develop capacity so that the children whose language and writing are now stronger can now be supported by teachers who know how to build on that enhanced knowledge,” says Stagg Peterson.

As for the increased focus on Indigenous languages, Stagg Peterson says that in many Indigenous communities, children are growing up speaking English. “So, we’re going to gain insight into children learning Indigenous languages when English is the language spoken at home.”

The project will also involve gathering more input from community and family members on each Indigenous community’s approach toward teaching and interacting with children.

“The approaches and different tools we will be developing will come from Indigenous ways,” says Stagg Peterson. “They may turn assumptions about what it means to teach language and writing on their heads.”

Stagg Peterson says she hopes the second cycle of the project will have a multi-pronged effect by boosting children’s Indigenous language and cultural knowledge and literacy skills, generating research and resources and strengthening teachers’ skill sets.

“I love the North and, from my own teaching experience in northern Alberta, I know how challenging it is for professional development opportunities to be brought to northern communities because of the logistics and cost. I have a lot of faith in action research, both for producing new knowledge and also for teachers’ professional development,” she says.

“If you look around at educational research in Canada, especially in the literacy field, I would say 90 per cent of it is conducted in urban or suburban communities – not in northern communities. We may be able to address the gap in the broader knowledge base about social and cultural influences on children’s learning by introducing northern rural and Indigenous contexts.”

SSHRC Partnership Grants support formal partnerships between post-secondary institutions and other organizations “that will advance knowledge and understanding on critical issues of intellectual, social, economic and cultural significance.” In NOW Play’s case, the project involves academics from OISE and numerous Canadian universities, research partners in the University of Auckland in New Zealand and Umeå University in Sweden, as well as community organizations and partners in northern Ontario and Alberta.

U of T School of Continuing Studies launches fund to support students, those seeking to upskill

rahul.kalvapalle — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 19:50:06 +0000

U of T School of Continuing Studies launches fund to support students, those seeking to upskill

rahul.kalvapalle Tue, 04/28/2020 - 15:50

Cutline

For eligible students, the Opportunity Fund will provide a one-time bursary of up to $750 towards the cost of a U of T School of Continuing Studies course (photo courtesy of School of Continuing Studies)

Topic

School of Continuing Studies

The �ؿ�ζSM’s School of Continuing Studies has launched a new fund to help those experiencing financial difficulties due to COVID-19 pursue their education and upgrade their skills.

The Opportunity Fund will provide eligible students a one-time bursary of up to $750 towards the cost of a School of Continuing Studies course. New and existing students are encouraged to apply, including students from other provinces.

The school offers around 700 courses in 40 program areas, with nearly half the courses moved to online and remote delivery in the wake of physical distancing measures put in place to suppress the spread of COVID-19.

While the school already offers various monetary awards – including bursaries for women in finance and technology and Indigenous students – Dean Maureen MacDonald says there was a need for a specific fund that helps students who are struggling due to the financial hardships brought about by COVID-19.

“Many of the folks in our learner community are being adversely affected by the COVID-19 situation, whether they’re finding themselves unemployed or less employed than they were,” said MacDonald, adding that many students who had already paid for courses sought withdrawals in the wake of the pandemic. “It was becoming increasingly challenging for some of them to be able to afford the tuition that’s associated with some our courses.

“We thought that, by creating this fund, we might be able to support some of our existing learners but also perhaps attract some new learners to the School of Continuing Studies.”

Maureen MacDonald, dean of U of T’s School of Continuing Studies, says many have been “adversely affected by the COVID-19 situation, whether they’re finding themselves unemployed or less employed than they were” (photo by Romi Levine)

Bursaries will be given out by randomly drawing from a pool of applicants who have demonstrated that they have been financially impacted by COVID-19 and could put the funding toward their learning goals. The first draw will take place May 4.

MacDonald says there has been significant interest in the program, with over 100 applications submitted in the first week alone from four provinces. Women comprised nearly two-thirds of applicants, according to MacDonald.

She adds that the school is pleased to support the learning objectives of people hailing from diverse educational backgrounds, career stages and socio-economic situations.

“We have a community that’s made up of people who are early in their careers, mid-career and wanting to make a change – or they’re new Canadians looking for a Canadian credential, or people looking to stay current with the changes in the industry,” says MacDonald.

“We felt the Opportunity Fund was a way to help some of those folks access funds for tuition that would enable them to keep pursuing their careers, whether they’ve been side-tracked from them and are looking to explore new things, or whether they’re just wanting to keep going while they’ve maybe got a little bit more extra time on their hands.

“This was a way to do that and support people in continuing their learning journeys.”

Neuroscientist Graham Collingridge is new director of U of T's Tanz Centre

noreen.rasbach — Tue, 17 Sep 2019 04:00:00 +0000

Neuroscientist Graham Collingridge is new director of U of T's Tanz Centre noreen.rasbach Tue, 09/17/2019 - 00:00

Cutline

Professor Graham Collingridge was one of three recipients of The Brain Prize in 2016, the world’s most prestigious neuroscience award

Topic

Subheadline

Professor Graham Collingridge, a world-renowned expert in learning and memory, has taken over as the new director of the Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases.

Collingridge works in the area of synaptic plasticity, which is considered the neural basis of learning and memory. His research identifies the molecules and mechanisms in the brain that underlie learning and memory to determine how errors in the process of brain cell signalling and flexibility contribute to major brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and fragile X syndrome.

In 2016, he was one of three recipients of The Brain Prize, considered the world’s most prestigious neuroscience award, bestowed by the Lundbeck Foundation in Denmark. The award recognizes Collingridge’s research into “long-term potentiation,” a model for understanding how memories form. Earlier this year, Collingridge was appointed commander of the Order of the British Empire for his contributions to biomedical science.

“We are so pleased to have attracted someone of Graham’s calibre to lead the Tanz Centre,” says Professor Trevor Young, dean of the Faculty of Medicine. “His deeply impressive body of research into the neuroscience of learning and memory and its role in brain disorders holds great promise in helping millions of people affected by Alzheimer’s and other devastating neurological conditions.”

Under the direction of Dr. Peter St George-Hyslop, who served as director from 1990 to 2019, the Tanz Centre has become a global leader in neurodegenerative disease research, transforming our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, prion diseases and other neurodegenerative conditions.

“Peter is a giant in the field of neuroscience,” says Collingridge. “When he began his pioneering research into Alzheimer’s in the 1980s, the disease was little understood. Today, thanks to Peter’s leadership and the Tanz Centre’s approach to pursuing basic scientific discoveries and translating these into therapies, we are able to more definitively diagnose and offer better treatment options to those suffering from these dreadful disorders of the central nervous system.”

Collingridge and his team hope to build on the Tanz Centre’s success by focusing on promoting excellence in research and fostering collaborations withinthe centre, across the Toronto Academic Health Science Network (TAHSN), and internationally.

“My first goal is to maintain and build upon the scientific excellence at the Tanz Centre by defining long-term objectives and securing the funding to bring even more outstanding investigators to work here,” says Collingridge. “Neurodegenerative disease is a huge problem facing people all over the world, and trying to understand the root causes is best tackled with collaborative, multinational efforts. Here in Toronto and Canada, we are extremely well positioned to do just that.”

From the outset, philanthropy has played an essential role in establishing and supporting the Tanz Centre and the leading researchers who work there.

After witnessing his mother Gertrude suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, Mark Tanz was determined to speed the progress of Canada’s research efforts to address the debilitating condition. In 1987, he donated $3.4 million to help establish the Tanz Centre. Since that time, he has contributed an additional $6.1 million to support the Centre.

Jacqueline and Mark Tanz

More recently, the Tanz Centre once again benefited from the support of a visionary group of donors, including a $2-million gift from the Krembil Foundation to establish the Krembil Family Chair in Alzheimer’s Research, to be held by Collingridge as the centre’s director. A commitment of $1.5-million from Mark Tanz’s son, Stuart Tanz, will provide critical support for the Director’s Priority Fund.

Stuart Tanz, who recently assumed his father’s role as chair of the Tanz Centre steering committee, says it’s a great honour to continue his father’s legacy. “It is enormously gratifying and a great privilege to represent my family and fulfil my father’s vision to boost global research and education in neurodegenerative disease,” he says.

Mark Krembil, president and CEO of the Krembil Foundation, who also serves on the board of Brain Canada, U of T’s Governing Council and on the Tanz Centre steering committee, believes that groundbreaking discovery requires both recognition and support.

“We have great faith in Professor Collingridge’s ability to oversee the exciting next chapter of the Tanz Centre story,” he says. “Our combined support was our way to ensure the centre remains at the forefront of international efforts to untangle the brain’s mysteries.”

This generous donor support that led to bringing Collingridge to the Tanz Centre will enable the centre and its researchers to harness more effectively the knowledge and resources needed to drive discovery.

“It is an incredible honour to take over the helm of such an outstanding research centre as the Tanz,” says Collingridge. “Few places worldwide are as well positioned as the �ؿ�ζSM to lead the global effort to understand, treat and prevent these complex neurodegenerative conditions. I look forward to building our network of researchers, and to the continued support of our community to help us make significant progress in such a socio-economically important field.”

U of T psychologist Amy Finn reveals insights into the implicit learning that helps make us human

noreen.rasbach — Mon, 29 Jul 2019 13:33:25 +0000

U of T psychologist Amy Finn reveals insights into the implicit learning that helps make us human

noreen.rasbach Mon, 07/29/2019 - 09:33

Cutline

Research by U of T's Amy Finn focuses on the learning and memory systems of our brains (photo courtesy of Amy Finn)

Chris Sasaki

Topic

Breaking Research

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

Learning

Psychology

Research & Innovation

In 1952, 27-year-old Henry Molaison underwent brain surgery in an attempt to combat his increasingly debilitating epileptic seizures. The surgery, which involved the removal of his hippocampi and amygdalae, was a success and the seizures were brought under control.

But the radical procedure also erased many of Molaison’s memories and rendered him incapable of creating new ones. He didn’t recognize people he met with every day. In the afternoon, he couldn’t recall if he’d eaten lunch.

And yet, Molaison was able to learn certain tasks – something psychologists and neuroscientists didn’t expect. They thought people learned thanks to a single system of learning. Post-surgery, Molaison shouldn’t have been able to learn any more than a car engine should run with the spark plugs removed.

But he was able to draw an accurate floor plan of the home he occupied for years after his operation. Over time, he improved his performance at a star-tracing exercise. In other words, he was still learning – just not in the way researchers would have defined it.

Henry Molaison, or H.M., one of the most studied and famous patients in medical history (photo courtesy of The Brain Observatory)

Molaison, who would become one of the most studied and famous patients in medical history, and who became known simply as H.M., was operating outside the well-established realm of explicit learning in which you are aware you are learning and can articulate what you are taking in. An example of explicit learning is when you learn the rules for how to multiply or memorize a list of capital cities.

Instead, Molaison was learning implicitly.

“Implicit learning is the learning you do without conscious awareness that you’re learning,” says psychologist Amy Finn, an assistant professor in the �ؿ�ζSM's department of psychology in the Faculty of Arts & Science. “You don't have conscious awareness of the knowledge you've gained. You can't verbalize what you've learned, but it's there.

“Implicit learning is an important pillar of human cognition about which little is known, especially in comparison to explicit learning,” she says. “But it plays an important role in learning language and helps explain how children learn to speak without a single grammar lesson. We rely on implicit learning when we engage in complex motor activities like learning to ride a bicycle or dance.”

Finn and her colleagues have increased our understanding of the role implicit learning plays in human cognition while raising questions about how we define “intelligence.”

In a paper published in the journal Cognition, the researchers show for the first time that the capacity for implicit learning varies from individual to individual but is stable within individuals – at least over the week- to month-long period of their study.

“We didn’t previously know whether implicit learning could be thought of as a stable trait,” says Finn. “These findings are important for researchers working on learning in visual-motor, cognitive, linguistic and perceptual domains.”

In the study, Finn and her collaborators – colleagues from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – measured implicit learning in 68 volunteers between the ages of 16 and 22 using a set of standard tasks or tests. The tasks gauged traits that play a role in implicit learning such as pattern recognition.

In the artificial grammar learning test, participants viewed strings of letters such as XVXJ, XXVT, VTVJ or VJTVX and were asked to write them down. While not immediately obvious, the strings followed consistent rules of “grammar.” For example, pairs of Xs were always followed by the letter V; and the strings never contained the pairs VV or TT.

Participants then viewed a new series of strings comprising the same strings of letters and new strings of letters that did not follow the rules; for example, XXTX and XXVVJ. With no awareness that they’d learned the rules, participants were nonetheless able to identify the new, “un-grammatical” strings – thanks to implicit learning.

According to Finn, this work has the potential to expand our thinking about learning, intelligence and human cognition in many ways and provides insight into the vast differences in the learning abilities of individuals.

For example, IQ tests are commonly used to determine placements for students and children with developmental delays, autism and behavioural issues. But by measuring IQ the way we currently do, Finn explains, we're missing a big part of what makes humans capable learners.

“Ideas about IQ being a single, global indicator of intelligence need to be expanded or revised to include this stable aspect of human cognition. If we’re trying to capture a person’s ability to learn with something like an IQ test, that's a big mistake.”

It also helps researchers take individual differences into account when looking at clinical populations for which implicit learning ability is thought to be impaired – for example, in individuals with ADHD, specific language impairment and dyslexia. In other words, understanding how individuals differ in their implicit learning abilities could help us understand what underlies these developmental disorders.

What’s more, a better understanding of implicit learning can help in training and interventions to boost learning outcomes. For example, an individual could receive training to enhance their implicit learning abilities and that could lead to improved learning outcomes in language, sports and other endeavours.

As deep as the practical implications run, Finn thinks the ramifications of her research run deeper.

“Without implicit learning,” she says, “we wouldn't be able to speak languages or write, we wouldn't be able to play music or dance. These are the things that make us uniquely human. These are the things that make us who we are.”

Daily planning app from U of T entrepreneur helps children with behavioural and learning challenges

ullahnor — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 20:19:48 +0000

Daily planning app from U of T entrepreneur helps children with behavioural and learning challenges

ullahnor Tue, 03/21/2017 - 16:19

Cutline

Pierre Séguin (left) and his son, Leo (right), show off Brili, a daily planning app for kids

Dan Haves

Author legacy

Dan Haves

Topic

Breaking Research

Medicine

Children

Faculty of Information

App

Behaviour

Learning

For children with behavioural and learning challenges, getting ready for the day can be a struggle. Waking up, getting dressed, eating breakfast and heading out the door on time is never a guarantee.

Pierre Séguin, whose son faced some of these challenges, knew all too well how difficult it could be for kids to organize their day, even with the help of their parents and caregivers. His solution?

He took some of the features of project management software he was using every day at work in the tech industry and used them to create Brili, a mobile-based daily planner that makes a game out of routine tasks. Brili is part of the Faculty of Medicine's Health Innovation Hub and the Faculty of Information's Semaphore Research Cluster. Séguin is an expert-in-residence with Semaphore.

Learn more about Entrepreneurship@UofT Week March 27-31

He spoke with U of T's Dan Haves about how Brili works and the future of this software.

Where did you get the idea for Brili?

My son had various behavioral challenges when he was very young and daily routines were awful for our family. We spoke to many experts as we tried to help him. They advised us to give our son structure and consistency, and use lists, pictures and timers to help him remember steps in the routine.

I was a software product manager working with teams that used big LCD dashboard screens to show a project’s status and keep multimillion-dollar technology jobs on track. So I thought, ‘Why can’t we create something like this for kids?’ Daily routines are just little projects that happen every day, and our son needed a dashboard of his own. That realization unleashed a flurry of ideas to gamify routines.

What are some of the challenges that Brili helps children overcome?

Brili is especially helpful to kids who have trouble with executive function (EF). EF is the role our brain plays in impulse control, keeping us focused, aware of time passing, remembering what we’re supposed to be doing and other functions many people take for granted. ADHD, autism and other learning challenges directly impact EF.

Brili gives kids gentle and consistent prompts to start regular routines like getting ready for school or bedtime, and helps them stay on task with audible reminders and visual cues.

For example, parents can program Brili to give their kids reminders to do things like get dressed or brush their teeth during the morning routine before school. The app also factors in the time available to complete each item on the list. The prompts can also help parents check in with their kids to ensure they get help when they need it.

What’s next for Brili?

We’re building new features into Brili that will make it helpful in a classroom environment so kids can benefit from the program at school.

We started Brili to give every child and parent access to fun, stress-free daily routines so families can just enjoy being families. As mobile technology becomes more accessible, it’s exciting to see our goal become reality. Next, we want to help people of all ages in more contexts to manage and use their time better.

First in Canada: U of T Engineering offers course and new certificate in Forensic Engineering

geoff.vendeville — Mon, 02 Jan 2017 16:34:22 +0000

First in Canada: U of T Engineering offers course and new certificate in Forensic Engineering

geoff.vendeville Mon, 01/02/2017 - 11:34

Cutline

The 2008 Sunrise Propane plant explosion in Toronto is one of the case studies to be taught in Professor Doug Perovic’s Forensic Engineering course (photo by Michael Gill via Flickr)

Krista Haldenby

Author legacy

Krista Haldenby

Topic

Our Community

Engineering

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Education

Learning

Subheadline

Expert Doug Perovic, leader of more than 500 investigations, will teach students how to analyze and prevent disasters

When the Sunrise Propane plant exploded in August 2008, killing plant worker Parminder Saini, police, fire and ambulance were called first – and then forensic engineers.

Forensic engineers are trained to find and analyse data from disasters, accidents and failures, and present an unbiased assessment of what the underlying cause may have been.

“Unlike some witnesses, physical evidence has no opinion, no bias and never lies,” says forensic engineer Doug Perovic, a professor in the department of materials science and engineering at the �ؿ�ζSM.

The Sunrise Propane explosion is one of the cases taught in Perovic’s Forensic Engineering course. Other cases include the Radiohead stage collapse in 2012, falling glass from the Shangri-La hotel in Toronto, and the painful fracture of an Ottawa woman’s prosthetic hip implant.

The course is the first of its kind in Canada and now core to a new Certificate in Forensic Engineering offered by the �ؿ�ζSM’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. The certificate will be offered to undergraduate students starting in 2017-2018.

Read about the course in The Toronto Star

See the CBC story

Perovic is one of the top experts in his field, having led more than 500 product liability investigations over a 25-year career. In his course, students are exposed to investigative techniques such as how to conduct destructive and non-destructive testing, how to interpret the evidence left behind on a fracture surface or at the scene of a vehicle collision, and how to narrow down the origin and cause of a fire.

The course features renowned guest experts from Canada’s top forensic engineering firms to cover principles of investigation involving product failure, automobile and aircraft accident reconstruction, and fire and explosion. It concludes in a mock trail, with lawyers from top law firms participating in demonstrations of expert witness cross-examinations.

“Most importantly, this course teaches students how to apply their engineering knowledge to ask the right questions when investigating a complex, often messy, real-world problem from beginning to end,” says Perovic

(At right: experts inspect propane tanks; photo courtesy Doug Perovic)

Students will examine physical evidence using sophisticated lab equipment at the Ontario Centre for the Characterisation of Advanced Materials (OCCAM), jointly operated by the materials science and engineering department and the chemical engineering department. OCCAM’s scanning electron microscopes are a powerful tool for forensic engineers – they can produce high-resolution images of a fracture surface, which can help identify the fracture origin and indicate the mode and mechanism of failure.

Components from surgical implant failures, athletic equipment failures, corrosion investigations and foreign materials and residue analysis are a few examples of the evidence that has been brought to OCCAM for investigation by forensic engineers.

“This new certificate will create a unique opportunity for students to gain specialized expertise and recognition for a personal and professional commitment to enhanced engineering investigation skills,” explains Perovic. “Learning how to think more logically is crucial for the development of good forensic engineering skills.”

Course evaluations: report cards for your professors

geoff.vendeville — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 16:48:28 +0000

Course evaluations: report cards for your professors

geoff.vendeville Wed, 11/30/2016 - 11:48

Cutline

Lera Nwineh, a double major in philosophy and political science, talks about a prof that has made a huge impact on him this year

Geoffrey Vendeville

Author legacy

Geoffrey Vendeville

Topic

Undergraduate Education

Faculty of Arts & Science

Political Science

Teaching

Learning

�ؿ�ζSM students can now fill out online course evaluations, sharing their ideas about what works – and what needs work – in the lecture halls and labs across campuses.

Faculty – like David Roberts, an assistant professor, teaching stream, of urban studies in the Faculty of Arts & Science – say that feedback makes a big difference.

After reading one criticism about how his course on cities and pop culture was too focused on North America, Roberts says, he added a week on Godzilla and monster movies in post-war Japan.

And when students said they had trouble understanding the takeaways from assigned reading, Roberts began providing questions with the readings – to help students read more effectively.

“There are lots of ways that we as professors learn to do our jobs better because of the feedback we get from the students,” he says.

But what does it feel like to read the evaluations?

“It just reminds you of being a student again where you take a deep breath before you check your mark. It's the same thing. These are our marks, in some capacity."

Assistant Professor David Roberts of urban studies says course evaluations help him improve lessons and reading material

Teodora Pasca, a third-year double-major in criminology and ethics, society and law, says often students get busy studying for exams and forget to fill out the evaluations.

But she usually makes it a point to set aside time for the evaluations. She says it's important to give professors feedback to improve the quality of teaching next year or to compliment a great instructor.

This year, she plans to praise a teacher whose course on policing made her want to delve deeper into the subject.

“I think those are the best profs – the ones who encourage you to find out more,” she said.

U of T News asked students to write a note to their favourite prof – see a photo gallery of the results:

Ryan Hurl in the department of political science says the best comments are those that help him improve the course – when students point out gaps in the reading material, for example.

Because he teaches a large introductory course on American politics, he says he also appreciates when students say when they have already covered a topic on the syllabus in high school – or when their professor’s pop culture references are a little dated.

“As I head into my mid-40s, I think of the present as anything that happened since 1996. You forget that young people don’t see the world that way,” he says.

Read about last year's course evaluations

All evaluations are confidential.

A sense of humour occasionally comes in handy. Years ago, Hurl says, he received a fashion critique comparing his style to that of Napoleon Dynamite but “that was in the early 2000s so maybe my clothes have gotten better since then.”

And professors say they cherish constructive and positive comments.

“Maybe some students feel bad sending a direct email to say they’ve enjoyed the course,” Hurl says. “Every time that happens it feels great, but I’ll take anonymous praise as well.”

Learn more about course evaluations and how to complete them

#UofTBTS16: New Engineering prof eases the transition

ullahnor — Thu, 01 Sep 2016 17:42:25 +0000

#UofTBTS16: New Engineering prof eases the transition

ullahnor Thu, 09/01/2016 - 13:42

Cutline

“Engineering is about more than just math and science — it’s about problem-solving, it’s being passionate about what you do, and communicating that effectively to others,” says Chirag Variawa

Marit Mitchell

Author legacy

Marit Mitchell

Topic

Starting university is a big adjustment for any student. For Engineering students, they’re dealing with finding new classes and moving into residence, alongside learning new physics equations and technical terms.

Thankfully, new U of T Engineering faculty member Chirag Variawa is there to help first-year students get it, presenting unfamiliar engineering concepts in accessible ways.

“Engineering is about more than just math and science — it’s about problem-solving, it’s being passionate about what you do, and communicating that effectively to others,” he says. “I feel that having students remember how exciting engineering is, and carrying that forward with them is incredibly important.”

Variawa’s research addresses the unseen barriers to learning. As students return to campus for the fall semester, Engineering’s Marit Mitchell sat down with Variawa to hear more about his unique approach to teaching and what brought him back to Toronto.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

You are rejoining U of T Engineering after several years in Boston, teaching at Northeastern University — welcome back! Tell us about your background.

I completed my undergrad here in Materials Science & Engineering mentored by the late Professor Torstein Utigard as my thesis supervisor, then my PhD here with Professor Susan McCahan, now Vice-Provost, Innovations in Undergraduate Education. After my graduate program was complete, I moved to Boston, Massachusetts, as an assistant teaching-stream professor of engineering and taught there for two and a half years.

I'm a first-generation Canadian, the first in my family to go through university, and it’s certainly a pleasure and privilege to give back to the institution that gave me so much. As a student here, I volunteered on the committees that designed and approved the new engineering building, the Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CEIE). Today, returning full-circle as a professor, I hope to stand in the rooms of that building and give back all that I can to fully support the development of each and every student. It’s a very powerful statement to stand in a CEIE room and say, yes, I helped design this as a U of T engineering student. Now, having had the pleasure and privilege to see the design become reality, I want to see to it that each of our students has the facility to do even greater things, and continue to be relentlessly curious.

Tell us more about your research.

My work looks at accessibility in engineering education. My past research has been to use algorithms and AI (artificial intelligence) to make the language of engineering education more accessible.

For example, if you’re taking a Materials Engineering class, and on the final exam one of the questions is “Calculate the stiffness on the bonnet of a vehicle.” You’re expected to know what “stiffness” is because it’s a materials term. But the word “bonnet” might throw you off. So you’re now being assessed on your cultural proficiency, rather than your mastery of course concepts. It’s language that’s used to create a more authentic learning environment, but it might alienate some students. We want to encourage the development of authentic contexts and rigorous learning material, but we also want to be aware of and mitigate learning barriers.

I designed an algorithm that looks at all of the language that is currently available on all of the exams that U of T has created in Engineering. I have a whole repository of U of T Engineering exams with millions of words, and the algorithm went through many of those exams and came up with word lists.

For example, for MSE101 I can say, “These are 25 words that are specific to your course and are appearing in your discipline.” I can then give out this list of 25 words at the beginning of class and say, ‘You’re expected to know what these words mean. On a final exam, they’re going to show up. But if you hear other words like ‘bonnet,’ ‘kettle,’ or culturally specific words, ask for clarification because we’re not expecting you to be knowledgeable in the cultural aspects of this.”

How is teaching first-year students different, and what will you bring to your new role as a professor?

First-year students are acutely aware of their surroundings — however, they might not be able to detect the barriers between themselves and the learning material. There are blind spots that students have as they come from being at the top of the world’s best high schools to first-year engineering. They might think that they can get through absolutely anything, and they can, but I want to make sure that they are aware of the barriers that exist and how to overcome them systematically.

First-years also bring with them a lot of excitement. I want to make sure that excitement persists, and they don’t forget about the magic of engineering. Some students are inspired by the events that brought them here. Others don’t necessarily know what engineering is all about, but they’re here anyway to try it out. Some are great at problem solving and they know that. But others are here to find out more about themselves. What I want to do is facilitate learning, rather than tell them exactly what they ought to be doing. My hope is that they can become educated, contributing, passionate members of their community.

How are you going to take advantage of the new teaching facilities that will be available in the Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship?

Active learning — having students engaged with their learning material, rather than absorbing things — is an excellent educational approach. I do not have a cellphone policy in my classroom, and that might be different than what students are used to. I actually encourage students to use them as a tool for communication and learning. I use cellphones as a polling strategy. At the end of every week, I have this online poll in my class. I ask a number of questions, and students use their phones to enter an alias, and answer back. We all look at the results in real time. They really get into it.

I’ve always been about technology, not just for technology’s sake, but using it usefully. I use my smartwatch to see questions come in — I walk around class, holding a tablet. I look forward to how this new landscape of higher education can be shaped by putting students first — each and every one of them!

Innovations in teaching: Greg Evans

sgupta — Tue, 31 May 2016 10:52:47 +0000

Innovations in teaching: Greg Evans sgupta Tue, 05/31/2016 - 06:52

Cutline

“Over the last 15 years the idea that engineers work in teams has become much more prevalent,” Professor Evans says (all photos by Johnny Guatto)

Arthur Kaptainis

Author legacy

Arthur Kaptainis

Topic

Our Community

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Subheadline

Adding teamwork to curriculum in chemical engineering course

Convocation is a time to celebrate U of T's students. Although they may make it look easy, graduating from one of the top-ranked universities in the world is a remarkable achievement.

When the 18,000 members of the Class of 2016 cross the stage at Convocation Hall – including an estimated 13,500 grads this spring – they'll be looking back at years of exams, essays, lab and field work, experiential learning, volunteer stints, creativity and hard work. And almost zero snow days.

On the stage with them – or following via live streams and Instagram feeds – will be some of the professors and instructors who also invested countless hours in their students’ success.

Who are the teachers who helped make this day possible? You can learn about some of them in our Inside Con Hall series from student writer Krisha Ravikantharaja.

And you’ll meet a few more in this series on Innovations in Teaching.

In this second instalment, U of T News writer Arthur Kaptainis profiles Professor Greg Evans of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

Wallberg International is a formidable enterprise.

“It’s a huge company,” Greg Evans, one of three winners of the 2015 President’s Teaching Awards at the �ؿ�ζSM, said with a wry smile. “They have vested interests everywhere.”

Wallberg’s only weakness is that it does not, in fact, exist – except in the minds of the students enrolled in CHE 230, Environmental Chemistry, a course given by the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry at the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, where Evans, a professor and U of T alumnus, has taught since 1990.

Twenty-five per cent of the final mark is based on how students respond to a simulated request for proposals from this fictional company headquartered, not coincidentally, in the Wallberg Memorial Building on the downtown Toronto campus.

One such call for tenders concerned a hypothetical housing development south of Ontario Highway 407. What will the air quality be like?

Another request was to assess the surroundings of an ecotourism resort Wallberg International wanted to build outside Yellowknife. Does an abandoned gold mine in the area pose a risk to the water supply?

“Students create their own environmental consultant companies,” Evans explained. “And these teams will bid on the proposal.”

There are five students per team. Simulation is not merely a matter of assembling statistics and preparing spreadsheets. There is a formal meeting in a boardroom. Proper attire is required, with handshakes and business cards all around.

Receiving the pitch are the president of Wallberg, typically played by someone from the faculty’s Engineering Communications Program, and the technical vice-president, a role sometimes taken by Evans himself. The president knows what is good for the company but does not necessarily have a grip on the technical particulars.

Since enrolment in this mandatory course is around 160, the bidding by more than 30 teams is competitive. Preliminary work includes preparing a budget.

Not that hard science is neglected.

“We want students to go through a simulation of how they would go about doing the sampling,” Evans said. “How do you make measurements, and interpret them in terms of the relevant regulations?

“And how do you explain them to a client or the public? There is a big communications part to this.”

Of course the “president” and “vice-president” eventually step out of their roles and provide feedback. Students also evaluate each other “semi-anonymously” (a student is not told which member of the team is making which observation).

Bidding simulation is just one of the innovations Evans has brought to the classroom. Even in first-year classes he uses the Team-effectiveness Learning System (TELS), a knowledge-sharing program developed by the Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering (ILead). Evans is associate director of this institute.

Much class time in CHW 230 is occupied by problem solving. Students are divided into groups and get busy, while Evans and his teaching assistants walk the floor assessing progress and answering questions. Collaboration is the key concept.

“Certainly over the last 15 years the idea that engineers work in teams has become much more prevalent,” Evans said. “We are still working at learning how to teach ‘success skills’ like teamwork, communication and professionalism.”

But do young engineers thirst after this knowledge?

“The energy level is high. They seem to enjoy it.”

Nikola Andric, a fourth-year student, is one who did.

“Professor Evans is a model of an excellent professor and educator,” said Andric, who is the undergraduate chemical engineering council chair for 2015-2016. “He has the ability to take theoretical concepts and apply them to real-world problems.”

Stephanie Tzanis, a third-year student, said she appreciates the professor's personal touch.

“Professor Evans truly cares about the wellbeing, success and future of every one of his students,” she said. “He takes the time to get to know you, and continues to push you to do your best.”

Evans has earned many honours for his teaching – including the 2010 Engineers Canada Medal, the 2014 Allan Blizzard Award and, from U of T, the Northrop Frye Award for linking teaching and research and the Joan E. Foley Quality of Student Experience Award. He has also been named the inaugural director of the new Collaborative Program in Engineering Education.

This graduate program, operated jointly by Engineering and U of T's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), has acquired 13 masters and doctorial students after only 18 months of existence.

Is there still room for old-fashioned classroom teaching in the era of Wallberg International?

“I still do lectures,” Evans said. “Maybe in a few years I won’t.”