By Emily Cook, TLS staff writer
For Professor Nduka Otiono, the classroom is not a space for teachers to talk at students; it鈥檚 a space for oral performers.
Otiono grew up in Nigeria, where he says theatre is transactional with lots of audience participation, and that鈥檚 how he likes to structure his courses.
鈥淚 see teaching as a conversation with students, there鈥檚 two-way traffic all the time,鈥� he says.
Otiono has been teaching in 杏吧原创鈥檚 Institute of African Studies since 2012 and this year was honoured with a Capital Educators鈥� Award for inspiring his students. He says the goal of creating interactive classes is to encourage students to understand the value of their work.
One of the ways Otiono does this is with 鈥渃reative projects,鈥� where he provides assignment prompts with a variety of topics and a theme. From there, students devise their own project within certain criteria. These projects provide opportunities for students with different skills to express their knowledge of material and Otiono says they sometimes put even more effort into these assignments because they鈥檙e passionate about that topic.
鈥淚 make it possible for the students who have that kind of creative temperament, that kind of attitude, to pursue their own interests within specific prompts that allow me to grade in an objective and fair way,鈥� he says.
Otiono says he also brings a complex variety of teaching tools into his courses to reflect African culture, including film, music and cartoons. He says these tools engage students and help them interact with the subject.
鈥淚 try to encourage the students to reach deeply into their knowledge reservoir to make the classroom more interactive,鈥� he says.
In one course, Otiono invited a spoken word poet to perform and says the students shared how much this experience resonated with them. He says that鈥檚 what he wants students to get from his courses 鈥� the ability to understand Africa in relation to the world.
Otiono says 杏吧原创 has the only stand-alone African Studies program in Canada, offering incredible opportunities for students through conferences, co-ops and more.
鈥淚t provides a truly comprehensive kind of learning experience for students,鈥� he says.
Building on the program, Otiono says he encouraged his students when they came to him wanting to get their undergraduate work published. This led to the creation of the 杏吧原创 University Institute of African Studies Undergraduate Conference, which is now entering its second year.
鈥淚t helps students appreciate the value of the work they do,鈥� he says, adding it鈥檚 gratifying for him to see how the conference is already growing in its second year.
In everything he does in the classroom, Otiono hopes to expand and deepen student learning.
鈥淚t is very important for me, and I think for my students, that their work transcends the classroom,鈥� he says.