By centering my teaching around community-focused and experiential-based ideas, students can frame local to global issues within the natural environment—ultimately leading to action, and potentially, even activism.

Roy opens us all to the importance of the natural world—I never realized how learning about nature, ecosystems and climate could affect every aspect of my learning.

Teaching is about creating open, respectful, and safe learner-centred environments in which students feel valued, empowered, and inspired. My approach focuses on students’ active engagement and inquiry, both within the classroom and their studies overall. This requires a dynamic approach to teaching that fosters engagement and collaborative participation in the learning process, as well as creative and non-traditional assignments that encourage in-depth engagement with the subject matter. However, one of the most valuable lessons I have learned is that what you teach is just as significant as how you teach it and, more importantly, how you treat your students. The learners in our classrooms are not just students. They are people with complex needs and lives both inside our classes and outside of university. As educators, we need to remember that kindness, compassion, understanding, and empathy are important educational tools. 

Sarah is one of the most selfless profs I’ve had. She really cares about our well-being and is there for us when we are struggling.

Amidst the role of teacher and students there can exist spaces of dialogue. It’s in these unanticipated and generative spaces that we gain new perspectives and our work becomes further relevant and engaging. – Tia M Smith

Tia Smith not only offers an unconditional amount of compassion to all of her students, but as well has taught me to incorporate that quality when thinking and considering children, families and communities.

I often reflect upon William Butler Yeats’s quote that “education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire”. My role as an educator is to fan those flames with curiosity, wonder, empathy and passion, so that the fire for learning, burns white hot. – Bruce Wilson  “

Bruce is the best. He is unlike any other teacher I’ve ever learned from. Instead of focusing on old-school methodology and standardized testing under, he teaches individuals, not whole classes. I’ve been taken aside several times for coaching on how to achieve my goals and I’ve witnessed this invaluable process with Bruce and other students as well.In these changing times we must reward and value those who operate differently from the pack. That pack is slowing us down. Bruce is an exemplary educator; his passion for student learning trumps all else, even at the expense of ruffling a few feathers along the way. I’ve learned more about the realities of life and my career choices from this one man than I have from the collected lesson plans of several others on campus. He challenges us to think critically in an age where it’s becoming increasingly acceptable to simple listen to your phone and the collective hive mind that it represents. Bruce is a shining light as we stumble into the uncertainties of the modern world’s future.Thank you for everything, Bruce!

“I like to treat all students as individuals and create a classroom community based on respect, trust, fairness and openness. I promote critical thinking and have students apply theory in their everyday life – Greig Gjerdalen”

“He allows his students to absorb and interpret the information and encourages healthy debate on controversial topics. Classes are conducted to reach virtually every learning style: through lectures, readings, quizzes, papers, hands-on projects, discussion, debate, documentaries, field trips, he captures all the senses to fully engage every student.” “It is his passion for the material and genuine drive to be an excellent instructor that make him an inspirational faculty member and an asset to the University.”