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Principal's Award Recognizes Innovative Instructional Design
The library wishes to congratulate Petra Fachinger for her Principal’s Promoting Student Inquiry Teaching Award, which was presented at the Teaching Awards Reception last week. This award is sponsored and coordinated by the library, with Jackie Druery, Head, Humanities and Social Sciences Librarian, chairing the selection committee. The award recognizes Dr. Fachinger’s innovative instructional design, enabling active student engagement in learning.
Administered by the Centre for Teaching and Learning, the Principal’s Teaching and Learning Awards recognize excellence in the areas of educational leadership, student support, promoting student inquiry, international innovation, and curriculum development.
Below is more information on Dr. Fachinger’s work and teaching:
Dr. Fachinger has been a fierce champion of diversity in her teaching for the Department of English, offering courses in Asian-Canadian and Indigenous literature. However, with her creation of ENGL 466 – Racism, Islamophobia, and Violence against Indigenous People in Young Adult Novels Written in Canada, she has taken that work to a new level. Understanding that students engage more deeply and meaningfully with issues that they research themselves, Dr. Fachinger designed a course that supports and guides student inquiry while raising awareness of the complex issues of racism in contemporary Canadian society. In developing the course processes Dr. Fachinger unites an ethical commitment to principles of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion with an equally powerful pedagogical commitment to Inquiry-Based Learning. Her practice of collaborative classroom exploration of texts combined with individual assignments designed to encourage reflection and conversation exemplifies the pedagogical cycle. This in-class discussion work fosters a community of inquiry that is further developed through individual research.
Photo: Principal Patrick Deane, Dr. Petra Fachinger, and Michael Vandenburg, Interim Vice-Provost and University Librarian. By Bernard Clark Photography.
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