October 24, 1996

Winners of 1996 teaching awards

Name: Peter Benson

Title: Associate Professor of Law

Award: Law Students' Association Teaching Excellence Award

Years at McGill: 12

How would you describe your teaching style?

In both my substantive law and legal philosophy classes, I try to provide students with what I hope is a coherent and plausible systematic argument that can be a basis of critical discussion. It is crucial that students have a clearly articulated point of view which they can then develop or criticize as they see fit. I also encourage students to view the law and their study of it as an engagement in public reason and reflection. Full and rigorous class discussion is essential to this approach and is conducted on the premise that no question will be deemed unworthy of consideration. I try to foster an atmosphere of mutual trust and genuine openness where no one is upset at having his or her opinion corrected or refuted because the object is not so much to express one's point of view as to subject every opinion--including my own--to reasoned examination.

Has technology affected the way you teach?

I don't think it has.

What is your most memorable teaching experience?

Two years ago, I gave a course in legal theory entitled "Public Reason and the Question of Abortion." The class was made up of women and men, anglophones and francophones, students from second, third and fourth year law. The aim of the course was to see whether the extremely difficult issues surrounding abortion can be analyzed on a basis that would be acceptable to most reasonable people--irrespective of their differing religious and cultural points of view. The class was, from beginning to end, exemplary in terms of both the students' self-disciplined, impartial and rigorous examination of the issues as well as their spirit of mutual respect and good will.

What inspired you to become a teacher?

Ever since I was an adolescent, I have had an overriding interest in exploring the content and basis of morals and politics. As a law student, through my own study and with the help of an especially devoted and penetrating teacher, I became persuaded that the law is suited to the fullest rational treatment. I decided this was something I wished to pursue as well as share with others who might be similarly interested.

What is the most important lesson you've learned as a teacher?

I have found that despite the current popularity in academic circles of certain approaches--such as post-modernism or deconstructionism--that deemphasize or dismiss the rational and universal dimensions of law, students need something more and become truly interested when they can glimpse reason at work. Learning begins with and is moved by wonder and therefore a teacher must try above all to help students recognize and heed this sense within them and to try to encourage them in their endeavour to satisfy it. I have also come to appreciate the great importance and challenge of presenting one's ideas in the simplest and clearest form. Sophistication or complication does not necessarily imply depth.



Name: John Chahe Setrakian

Title: Assistant Professor of Medicine

Award: Osler Award for Outstanding Teaching (Medicine)

Years at McGill: 8

How would you describe your teaching style?

I try to make each student understand the concepts rather than acquire factual knowledge. This makes my style of lecturing "interactive spoon-feeding." Interactive doesn't mean the students must talk. Rather, through eye contact with students, I try to interpret constantly the noises or silences of the class, and then act on them, whether they mean, "We're bored," "Speed up!" or "Huh?" Spoon-feeding doesn't mean chewing the food first. It means presenting it in easy-to-chew bites. The aim is to present the material in a form that is ready to be assimilated and retained--minimizing the need for subsequent "reformatting" by the student. One of the main goals of teaching should be efficiency. It should take less time to learn something from a lecture than from a book. Just as everything from microwave ovens to exercise programs are becoming increasingly efficient so that more quality living can be squeezed into a day, teaching should aim to become more efficient and for the same reason.

Has technology affected the way you teach?

The world of computers supplies a very useful conceptual language. "In the 'thyroid' window that you have in your mind's screen, please store the following symptom. Whenever you double-click on that window, ask about this symptom." Sometimes this language simplifies the transmission of ideas to students. In addition, all self-teaching interactive technology is welcome for both students and teachers who aim for efficiency. I sometimes teach with a laptop, projecting from the screen and showing the organization of the information in a way which couldn't be done simply with a transparency. I often wish I could get an animated diagram to illustrate a point. In future, I think we will use such resources increasingly, but this will require computer consultants to assist most of us and the technology is still quite expensive.

What is your most memorable teaching experience?

Once, when I sensed that students were having trouble understanding a concept about diffusion of molecules from the alveoli to the pulmonary capillary vessels, I played the part of an oxygen molecule trying to decide whether or not to jump into the bloodstream. That memory comes to mind, along with the feeling that the students suddenly understood the concept.

What inspired you to become a teacher?

When I was in medical school, I once explained a concept in physiology to myself. It took me hours to reduce it to bite-sized bits. Then I decided to share it with my classmates. That inspired me to teach physiology.

What is the most important lesson you've learned as a teacher?

The most important lesson I've learned as a teacher is that you teach better if you can put yourself in other people's shoes and try to think like them, feel what they feel. I have found that to be true of many other things in life beside teaching.



Name: David Hensley

Title: Associate Professor of English

Award: H. Noel Fieldhouse Award for Distinguished Teaching (Arts)

Years at McGill: 9

How would you describe your teaching style?

I do my best to make rather alien, daunting or indigestible materials--Kant's aesthetics, hermeneutics, multivolume 18th century novels, or Pope's couplets--seem worthwhile reading challenges. I encourage students to recognize ways in which the problems explored or suppressed in these documents are our own problems. Insofar as possible, I want to invite students to articulate these problems in discussion that is consciously inseparable from everyday talk.

Has technology affected the way you teach?

Though I hope I am not a dogmatic technophobe, I have not yet learned to enlist the increasing availability and sophistication of computer technology as a substantial advantage in my teaching. In principle, such equipment should make possible significant improvements in students' writing. However, unless our teacher/student ratio enables us to give writing assignments that demand and acknowledge the process of revision in multiple drafts, the potential intellectual benefits of writing on the computer will probably be limited mainly to already exceptionally well-trained and highly motivated scholars who set their own standards instead of drawing them from the requirements of course work.

What is your most memorable teaching experience?

A good number of McGill alumni with whom I first worked as undergraduates are now approaching 30. During the past decade I have had the chance to follow--and in some cases, to assist--them in their professional development and early careers. I am immensely proud of them. Their accomplishments, so to speak, retrospectively give my "memorable teaching experiences" some ongoing real value.

What inspired you to become a teacher?

I grew up in a small town in West Virginia, where some of my teachers were among my best and most generous friends. My undergraduate studies at Yale, with its strong institutional rhetoric of academic community and its practical emphasis on instruction in small seminars, confirmed my sense that teaching was not only an activity of self-enhancing enlightenment but a valuable community-building service.

What is the most important lesson you've learned as a teacher?

Don't be over-anxious about always fitting in, accepting given formats, or smoothly accommodating expectations. I am disappointed that you have not asked (as the Reporter did last year), "What more could be done to support teaching?" I would like to give one specific answer to this question. McGill ought to set up a truly effective University-wide dossier service that would vigorously help undergraduates, graduate students and alumni in applying for program admissions, grants or scholarships and employment. Other major North American universities provide this service. To ensure that McGill's good teaching has successful consequences, we should do the same thing.



Name: Bruce Lennox

Title: Associate Professor of Chemistry

Award: Leo Yaffe Award for Excellence in Teaching (Science)

Years at McGill: 10

How would you describe your teaching style?

Classic--chalk and flailing arms.

Has technology affected the way you teach?

Not really. Students crave clarity and directness. Technology in the hands of the unskilled (i.e., me) doesn't necessarily enhance clarity. Nonetheless, I am learning. We have masters in this department of course, David Harpp, for example. Teaching has to be interactive to be effective. By that I mean that students have to feel that I am speaking directly to them. As long as technology doesn't interfere with this, then it will be effective. I grew up with many of the multimedia experiments in the 1970s and they just didn't cut it as we all know. There was a detachment that was not overcome. I think we always have to ask, "How do students learn?" Technocrats don't always ask this question once they become immersed in these techniques.

What is your most memorable teaching experience?

The strangest experience was when a 50 year-old man sauntered up to the blackboard in the middle of a lecture, picked up a piece of chalk, marked one of my (beautiful) chemical structures with an X, and then quietly shuffled out. It took 10 minutes to get the class settled down. The most meaningful?... the few times a year when a student tells me they used my organic chemistry class to learn how to learn. Organic chemistry is a subject of great beauty and depth... very visual, tactile, even, with a firm basis in physical sciences. Students see it as a chaotic assembly of unrelated facts at first. When they put it all together, they have a real sense of accomplishment.

What inspired you to become a teacher?

I love being able to show how creative both science and chemistry are. We deal with a lot of facts, but the real point is how they can be applied creatively. Undergraduates in particular just don't get enough of a chance to see how creative science is. I spend a lot of time using terms like design, patterns, motifs, intuition, assimilation, integration, etc., in my courses. These are at the heart of experimentation and I enjoy having this revealed to students.

What is the most important lesson you've learned as a teacher?

That the students at McGill are really very sharp and that they accept many challenges. It is far too easy to pile on huge amounts of information in courses. This only makes students work--not learn. Much of teaching comes down to passing on our sense of judgment to students--what is vital to allow them to develop a further understanding of a problem. They won't develop this judgment if we don't pass it on, or even worse, if we don't have it ourselves.



Name: Peter Chauvin

Title: Assistant Professor in the Faculties of Dentistry and Medicine

Award: W.W. Wood Award for Excellence in Dental Education

Years at McGill: 4

How would you describe your teaching style?

I would describe my teaching style as being relaxed and interactive. I adapt my style to best suit the group that I am teaching. My undergraduate teaching is fairly structured--I use traditional lectures using tons of 35 mm slides. The subject of pathology is very visual and I use case presentations to illustrate diseases. Traditional lectures are supplemented by small group sessions. The teaching of residents is usually on a one-to-one basis.

Has technology affected the way you teach?

Technology has facilitated my teaching. My e-mail address is available to all students and I encourage the use of e-mail for communication. I am always available to the students and can answer specific questions following a lecture quickly by e-mail or, if that is insufficient, I can arrange an appointment with a student. This is very useful since my office is not on campus, but at the Montreal General Hospital. Technology has facilitated my access to information through PERUSE (the libraries' computer search system). Advances in technology have also allowed me to develop a multimedia based computer program to supplement my lectures which will shortly be available on the Web along with my course outline and transcribed lectures. Technology can only facilitate teaching and learning in the future.

What is your most memorable teaching experience?

I do not have a particular "most memorable" teaching experience, but a series of very positive rewarding experiences. I enjoy interacting with students and appreciate the instant feedback during interactive lectures or small group sessions. I enjoy observing the development and progression of students through their training and enjoy speaking with recent graduates about their experiences as a student and as a professional.

What inspired you to become a teacher?

I was inspired to become a teacher by all the excellent teachers that I have had in the past. There was a natural progression from my undergraduate to graduate studies and then to academic staff. Becoming an educator is the most rewarding contribution that I can make to society.

What is the most important lesson you've learned as a teacher?

I have learned many important lessons over the past several years. I have learned to always respect other individuals and their opinions, but the most important lesson that I have learned is the potential of students and how they can achieve great things with a small amount of direction or a little encouragement.



Another teaching award winner this year is Joyce Cunningham, a longtime instructor of English as a Second Language in the Centre for Continuing Education's Department of Languages and Translation. Cunningham, who earned the Award for Distinguished Teaching from Continuing Education, has left the University (at least temporarily) to teach English in Japan and was unavailable to be included in this feature. She is the second teacher in a row from the centre's popular ESL program to win a teaching award. Kevin Callahan earned the prize last year.