From left to right: Nduka Otiono, Peter Ricketts (Provost and Vice-President [Academic]), Christopher Dieni and Martin Geiger.

The three ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ educators were among 18 winners who were celebrated during EduGala 2016 at Algonquin College on May 19. The recipients were selected from a pool of 63 finalists from elementary, secondary and post-secondary institutions.

All three ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ winners were recognized for their passion for teaching and dedication to student success.

Dieni’s nominator noted that he goes above and beyond by sharing extra material that is directly related to the course. He is always readily available to his students and encourages them to participate in classroom demonstrations.

Geiger creates assignments that allow students to grasp difficult concepts while enhancing their overall learning experience. His nomination letter highlighted his unwavering dedication to fostering students’ careers and academic goals.

Otiono advocates for his students to showcase their talents and be leaders within their academic communities. His nomination showcased his passion for getting students to question their established views, re-evaluating their ideas on academic, professional and personal levels, to leave them feeling inspired.

The Capital Educators’ Awards recognize outstanding educators’ achievements and celebrate public education in the Ottawa area. For more information on the awards and this year’s winners, visit .

Laura Banducci (College of the Humanities – Greek and Roman Studies), Jeff Dawson (Department of Biology), Christopher Dieni (Institute of Biochemistry), Martin Geiger (Department of Political Science), Kelly Lauzon (Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice) and Nduka Otiono (Institute of African Studies) were named among 63 finalists from across the city.

The Capital Educators’ Awards recognize individuals who have displayed excellence in teaching and made a significant impact on the lives of their students by acting as a positive role model. A community panel of judges will select 18 award recipients.

The 2016 award winners will be announced on May 19 at the annual EduGala event hosted at Algonquin College.

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Troy Anderson and Maria DeRosa pose with their 2015 Capital Educators’ Awards. (Photo: Mike Pinder)

ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University is proud to announce that Maria DeRosa from the Department of Chemistry and Troy Anderson from the Sprott School of Business have been honoured with 2015 Capital Educators’ Awards.

The awards recognize outstanding educators’ achievements and celebrate public education in the Ottawa area. The two ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ professors were among 18 winners who were celebrated during EduGala 2015 on May 21 at Algonquin College. The recipients were selected from a pool of 62 finalists from elementary, secondary and post-secondary institutions.

Both ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ winners were recognized for their ability to connect classroom learning to the real world. DeRosa has been a “bridge-builder” for her students, linking the fundamental concepts of chemistry to real-world applications and linking textbooks to research. She includes innovative learning support methods in the classroom, and is always volunteering to incorporate and test new teaching technologies.

Anderson introduced the new course Developing Critical Thinking into Sprott’s curriculum, which gets interdisciplinary student groups to work on real-world projects. Student testimonials praised the depth of learning and practical experience they gained in his courses.

For more information on the awards and this year’s winners, visit .

Five of ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´’s finalists for the award get together for a group shot at Edugala 2015: Troy Anderson, Tom Sherwood, Maria DeRosa, Vincent Kazmierski and Wayne Horn (Photo: Mike Pinder)

Maria DeRosa (Department of Chemistry), Tom Sherwood (Department of Sociology and Anthropology), Troy Anderson (Sprott School of Business), Vincent Kazmierski (Department of Law and Legal Studies), Wayne Horn (School of Mathematics and Statistics) and Xiao Huang (Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering) were named among 62 finalists from across the city.

The Capital Educators’ Awards recognize individuals who have displayed excellence in teaching and made a significant impact on the lives of their students by acting as a positive role model. A community panel of judges will select 18 award recipients.

The 2015 award winners will be announced on May 21 at the 14th annual EduGala at Algonquin College.

Claudia Buttera’s classroom is a bit different than one might expect at a university.

Instead of a large lecture hall, her teaching domain takes place among microscopes, chemicals and plants. And she couldn’t be happier about that.

Buttera is a lab co-ordinator with the biology department and a newly minted award-winning educator. She was , selected from a pool of 65 finalists.

“It was humbling and exciting to be appreciated and recognized for the contributions that people like myself make to the education of students,” she says.

As a lab co-ordinator, Buttera works with undergraduate and graduate students and is responsible for preparing the technical side of classwork, designing new experiments, and instructing students on how to use the equipment and materials. She also trains and supervises teaching assistants to help students in the lab.

Despite not having to teach a large classroom full of students like others in her department, her work is far from easy.

“Some of us run seven labs a week, with up to 65-70 students in each one,” she says, adding that she’s in the lab “all the time.”

Buttera is responsible for co-ordinating two biology courses: plant form and function and plant physiology and biochemistry. One of her greatest challenges, she says, is keeping her students engaged in material they might not find intriguing right off the bat.

“That’s a really big challenge in general, but in my courses in particular because not a lot of students are excited about plant cells. They want to learn about animals,” Buttera says. “I really make an effort to make things exciting by introducing plants into the lab that they might be familiar with or they would relate to, or one that has some exciting, interesting element to it.”

Her work seems to be paying off. In an award nomination one former student wrote that “[Buttera] creates a passion and excitement in students and can light a spark in an individual that can be harnessed for years to come.”

To Buttera, it all comes down to helping her students who never realized the rewards that plant biology can offer.

“For the students who come in not wanting to be there, when they get excited about coming to the next lab and they’re engaged and asking questions, that’s great.”

The award is given out to individuals who have displayed excellence in teaching and made a significant impact on the lives of their students by acting as a positive role model.

For more information and to complete the nomination form, please visit .

It’s not every day that a professor who is technically retired receives an award for a class he’s been teaching since 1968. Of course, Carter Elwood is not just any professor.

Elwood, a veteran teacher of Russian history at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, won the 2013 in May on the recommendation letter of a student in his class.

“He has an uncanny and, in my opinion, unmatched story-telling ability that makes history come alive. And we, as his students, are part of that process,” wrote the student who nominated him.

Elwood is a lecturer by training, and says he likes to keep it simple in the classroom. His lectures aren’t new each year, but he says he takes time to refresh them and put a new spin on each topic he crafts.

“To a certain extent, it’s a reflection of my own training and how I was taught. It’s from the good teachers I had and what they did,” he says.

“The good undergraduate teachers I had were well organized, tried to give students their monies worth, and tried to get them interested in history. I try to perpetuate those things.”

Having been teaching at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ since 1968, Elwood has had to adapt to the changing technological world that permeates the classroom, sometimes with humorous results.

“No sooner had I started using overhead that all my colleagues started using PowerPoint!” he laughs.

Now, Elwood uses a PowerPoint presentation to show illustrations and maps he can refer to during his lecture for supplementation. He also features two or three Soviet-era films in each course to give students a real look into the material they’re studying.

One of his unique traits is the lack of teaching assistants in his courses. He prefers lectures with the professor to discussion groups, which he says his students wholeheartedly agree with.

Now that he’s retired, he enjoys doing marking himself, hoping that students can learn something from being graded by someone with years of experience.

For a professor who has had so much experience moulding young minds, he says the secret to teaching is much simpler than expected.

“I try to interest them in history, in Russian history especially, and get them involved in it. And I think if I have their attention at the end of an hour and a half, it’s been reasonably successful.”

For a professor who says he doesn’t know much about teaching and likes to stick to the “old school” style, Craig Bennell sure has a lot of grateful students.

That’s why, before he walked onstage to receive a teaching award in May, he was treated to snippets of the numerous nomination letters his students had submitted.

“I’m not a very touchy-feely guy, but it certainly is a sentimental time when you hear the letters being read out, those ones initiated by your students,” says Bennell.

Bennell, an associate professor of psychology at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, was one of the winners. The awards are given to outstanding educators in Ottawa who are nominated by students or fellow faculty.

He says that his situation was unique. Instead of only undergraduate students submitting nominations, most of the letters came from his work supervising psychology graduate students.

“With grad students, you’re with them for so long. I have PhD students I’ve been with for six or seven years, so you do develop a personal relationship with them. It’s beyond a supervisor-student relationship, you really do want the best for them,” says Bennell.

When he’s not supervising his grad students, Bennell can be found working at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´â€™s , where he’s the director, and as a professor teaching forensic psychology to undergrads.

The trick to getting—and keeping—students engaged is simple, he says.

“Knowledge and understanding of the area is key, but you need to deliver it in a fun, exciting, interesting way. That’s pretty much it, it doesn’t get much more technical than that,” he says.

Bennell says that the difficulty he faces is helping students relate to the course material. While he says forensic psychology attracts students more than other classes, most of his students haven’t experienced police interrogations or spent time in a federal penitentiary.

The solution? Bennell uses a mixture of personal stories and videos to get the point across. It seems to be working—he says he’s lucky to have students that are so enthusiastic about the subject, making it “not a lot of work.”

“The students I interact with are engaged, excited, knowledgeable, they want to learn. They’re smart and they’re hard workers, they take on a lot. I have a hard time keeping up with them.”

The nomination period for the 2014 Capital Educators’ Awards will open this month. .

The awards were presented during EduGala 2013 on Thursday, May 23. Elwood and Bennell were among 62 finalists from elementary, secondary and post-secondary institutions in the Ottawa area.

A ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ student who nominated Elwood noted that many students appreciated his creative approach to teaching. “He has an uncanny and unmatched storytelling ability that makes history come alive and we, as his students, are part of that process,’’ said his nominator.

One of the students who nominated Bennell emphasized “his true care for educating students by creating a positive learning environment for everyone in his class.” The nomination also highlighted his contagious passion, his energy and his presence in the classroom and how much he is able to give back to everyone around him.

The Capital Educators’ Awards recognize the achievements of outstanding educators and celebrate public education in the community – across the entire spectrum, from kindergarten to PhD. Anyone can submit a nomination and finalists are selected by participating institutions. A community panel of judges selects the 16 award recipients from a list of 62 finalists based on the nominations submitted.