The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning (GMCTL) has, since 2014/15, had GMCTL Faculty Fellows. These roles are filled by members of University of Saskatchewan faculty who set aside up to 1/2 day of their time per week to contribute to teaching and learning related work with and through the GMCTL. The Centre and the university benefits hugely from the contribution of these fantastic Fellows whose contribution is planned to align with their particular expertise and experience as well as university priorities. Their work also assists in keeping the GMCTL services informed by and in alignment with the needs and interests of those we serve. Below is a description of the Fellows for this academic year and the projects they are leading and contributing to followed by all past Fellows and their projects

Loleen Berdahl

Fellowship Period: (2019/20)

Dr. Loleen Berdahl (PhD) is a professor and head of the Department of Political Studies at the University of Saskatchewan (USask). Her political science disciplinary expertise is in federalism, regionalism and electoral politics, and she has an active research agenda examining the embedding of career skills training into undergraduate and graduate programs.

Inspired by her background working outside academia, Berdahl is committed to helping students recognize and develop career-relevant skills that employers and society need. She is the principle investigator on a SSHRC Insight project examining doctoral professional development, and her most recent book is Work Your Career: Get What You Want From Your Social Sciences or Humanities PhD (2018, University of Toronto Press; co-author J. Malloy). Loleen is also the recipient of three USask teaching awards and the Canadian Political Science Association Prize for Teaching Excellence. 

The Graduate Transformative Skills Project aims to identify the training and skills our graduate students need to understand their abilities and develop the capacity to be what the world needs. Working with the cooperation and support of the College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, in this one-year project Loleen will draw upon knowledge of USask faculty and best practices within the U15 universities, assess campus-wide interest in graduate career skills training, and develop a pilot project for USask students.

David Parkinson

Fellowship Period: (2017/18 - 2018/19)

Project in International Collaborative Teaching (PICT)

A GMCTL Faculty Fellowship is giving David Parkinson (Professor, Department of English) the opportunity to support international collaborative teaching at and beyond the UofS (uofs-pict.com). During this Fellowship, he is working with faculty who want to connect with colleagues elsewhere in order to bring their complementary areas of expertise into each other's lectures, labs, seminars, studios, master classes, workshops, and field experiences. Working with allies and proponents across the institution, Parkinson is using the time and scope the Fellowship provides to make international collaborative teaching a doable, distinctive, durable aspect of pedagogy. He is available most Thursdays for coffee and conversation about how this might connect to you and your work and what supports are available to you!

Sandra Bassendowski

Fellowship Period: 2015/16 - 2016/17

Sandra is a professor with the College of Nursing, University of Saskatchewan at the Regina Campus. She joined the faculty in 2003 and has focused her research on the scholarship of teaching and learning and the integration of technology to support student learning. During her teaching career with SIAST initially and the College of Nursing she has conducted research projects in countries such as the Caribbean, Nepal, Philippines, Panama, India, and Inner Mongolia. In 2008 Sandra received the “100 in 100” Exceptional Nurses Centennial Award from the Canadian Nurses Association. She was recognized by the University of Saskatchewan in 2011 with the Master Teacher Award and she received the international Desire2Learn™ Innovation Award for Teaching and Learning in 2013. Sandra is a dedicated photographer and uses her abstract photographs to support her teaching and enhance her blog titled DigitalNURSESaskatchewan.

Sandra has been contributing to a collaborative institutional research project on faculty use of learning technology. This research has been conducted in partnership with 2 other faculty members and Nancy Turner, the GMCTL Director. This work has informed planning regarding institutional infrastructure and support for learning technology use with outcomes currently being implemented via an action plan governed through the Teaching Learning and Academic Resources Committee of Council. Sandra has also informed work in the GMCTL on teaching strategies in distributed learning.

Vince Bruini-Bossio

Fellowship Period: 2016/17

Vince is an Assistant Professor of Management at the Edwards School of Business. He is also the Director of the Edwards Experiential Learning Initiative (EELI). He has worked with dozens of organizations in the area of strategy, governance and organizational development. He specializes in creating customized strategic plans, governance frameworks, and collaboration initiatives in organizations. His research area specifically focuses on the intersection of governance and strategy in organizations. Vince teaches the capstone course in Business Strategy and an experiential Management Consulting course. He has won multiple teaching awards including a USSU and the Provost Outstanding New Teacher Award in 2016.

Vince is bringing his wealth of business knowledge and extensive consulting experience to work with the GMCTL on our strategic planning process. Vince has helped us clarify our values, mission and mandate and set strategic priorities for our work in alignment with what the Centre is called to do by the institution. Vince has also been working with us in our team development work.

John Kleefeld

Fellowship Period: 2017

John is a lawyer, mediator and law professor. He has taught in four Canadian provinces and has been a research fellow or visiting professor in two European cities. He is a keen proponent of engaged learning and experimentation. His interest in creativity and the law resulted in a pilot project with fellow professor Patricia Farnese in which students could obtain credit for completing a creative project in first-year law. The project resulted in a wide range of works, from rap songs to sculpture, and has been profiled by GMCTL. More recently, John has worked with law students to write or edit Wikipedia articles for credit with a view to enhancing the quality of legal information in the world’s largest encyclopedia. John received the 2012 Provost’s Award for Outstanding Innovation in Learning and the 2015 STLHE/Brightspace Innovation Award in Teaching and Learning.

John has just begun his Fellowship work with us. John will be focusing on the development of open pedagogies (teaching strategies that use or create open educational resources) at the University of Saskatchewan. John’s particular interest is in utilizing Wikipedia in teaching. He has recently published a scholarship of learning and teaching (SoTL) article on his experience of doing this with his Law students. During his year with the GMCTL John will be working to create a community of faculty interested in open pedagogy as well as developing a series of related institutional events. John will be writing a series of blog posts for us on this work so keep your eyes open for these in the next few weeks! If you are interested in learning more about this work or getting involved in this project please connect with John or Heather Ross.

Jay Wilson

Fellowship Period: 2014/15 - 2016/17

Jay Wilson is an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Curriculum Studies, at the University of Saskatchewan. For the last two years Jay has served a Teaching Fellow at the GMCTL. He was recognized by the University of Saskatchewan in 2015 with the Master Teacher Award. He received the 2012 international Desire2Learn™ Innovation Award for Teaching and Learning. Dr. Wilson works to support the understanding and growth of pre-service and in-service teachers. He has extensive practical experience in the area of technology and its application to teaching and instruction. He is also skilled in the areas of multimedia production, program evaluation, and innovative design in learning environments.

Jay has been contributing to a collaborative institutional research project on faculty use of learning technology. This research has been conducted in partnership with 2 other faculty members and Nancy Turner, the GMCTL Director. This work has informed planning regarding institutional infrastructure and support for learning technology use with outcomes currently being implemented via an action plan governed through the Teaching Learning and Academic Resources Committee of Council. Jay has also contributed to the development of a Teaching Certificate Program to be made available via the GMCTL and the Department of Curriculum Studies in the new year. You can see the initial phase of this work here.

Chelsea Willness

Fellowship Period: 2015/16

Chelsea Willness is an Assistant Professor and Grandey Scholar in Sustainable Leadership at the Edwards School of Business. She is a passionate champion of community-engaged scholarship. She has held two national research grants (SSHRC) for her research about how stakeholders respond to organizations' environmental practices and community involvement, and has published this work in top journals and book chapters. In 2012, Chelsea was awarded the Innovation in Teaching Award from the Academy of Management for her design and implementation of HR courses that integrate community involvement and experiential learning. In 2013 she received the Dean’s Emerging Scholar Award for research, and she was the 2014 recipient of the University of Saskatchewan’s Award for Distinction in Community-Engaged Teaching & Scholarship, and the Provost’s College Award for Outstanding Teaching. Chelsea recently launched an innovative new experiential course that pairs business students with non-profit boards and community mentors, which is the first undergraduate course of its kind in Canada.

Chelsea undertook a significant institutional project to develop a more comprehensive understanding of how ’teaching quality’ is conceptualized at our institution. This work has served as Phase I in the development of a teaching quality framework which is intentioned to provide clarity in how the institution defines and assess teaching quality and guide teaching enhancement work across the institution.

Winona Wheeler

Fellowship Period: 2014/15 - 2015/16

Winona is a member of the Ochekwi Sipi (Fisher River) Cree Nation in Treaty No. 5 (Manitoba) territory though her family hails from George Gordon’s First Nation in Treaty No. 4 territory Saskatchewan). She has been a professional historian and a professor of Indigenous Studies since 1988 with research interests in and publications on the history of Indigenous-Newcomer relations, Indigenous oral histories and traditional knowledge, colonialism and anti-colonial studies, Land Claims and Treaty Rights. She is currently an Associate Professor and the Department Head of Native Studies (soon to be Indigenous Studies) at the University of Saskatchewan, President Elect of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA), and serves on local and national committees including the Aboriginal Advisory Committee of the Canadian Museum of History and as Keeper for the upcoming Walking With Our Sisters Exhibit (October 31 – November 21, 2014 in Saskatoon). She is a mother, a grandmother, and lives at Sakakweyana ranch near Duck Lake, SK, with her husband Tyrone Tootoosis and her horses.

http://www.naisa.org/naisa-council.html
https://www.facebook.com/saskatoonwwos

Winona was intimately involved in the development of the Indigenous Voices program offered through the GMCTL. Winona worked with the team in developing a strategy and vision for this work and contributed significantly to the design and delivery of tailored Indigenous Voices programming, in particular the 18 month program offered to Library faculty and staff in 2015/16 and 2016/17.

Douglas Clark

Fellowship Period: 2014/15

Douglas A. Clark is the Centennial Chair in Human Dimensions of Environment and Sustainability and an Assistant Professor with the School of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Saskatchewan. He is also an Associate Member of the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy and the International Centre for Northern Governance and Development, as well as a Research Affiliate with the Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative in Jackson, WY. Doug worked for 11 years in natural resource conservation with Parks Canada and was twice awarded that Agency’s Award of Excellence, for training program design and mountain rescue. He earned a bachelor degree in biology from the University of Victoria, a master’s in zoology from the University of Alberta, and a PhD in geography and environmental studies from Wilfrid Laurier University. His research interests include governance and policy processes for wildlife and ecosystem management, solving resource management conflicts, and improving professional practice in natural resource management.

Doug worked with the GMCTL in developing the Graduate Professional Skills Certificate that is now offered to graduate students and postdoctoral fellows across the institution. The Certificate development benefitted greatly from Doug’s experience in preparing graduates for employment post graduation and his passion and enthusiasm for this work was contagious. The result of his work was a Certificate that has now in its third year of offering, supporting graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in developing and articulating their professional skills in preparation for productive contribution to society on completion of their academic studies.

Rick Schwier

Richard A. Schwier is Professor Emeritus of Educational Technology and Design (ETAD) at the University of Saskatchewan. During his 36 year career at the U of S, he served as the Department Head of Curriculum Studies and the Coordinator of Graduate Programs in ETAD. He was also the principal investigator in the Virtual Learning Communities Research Laboratory, which investigated the nature of interaction and learning in formal and informal online settings. His current research addresses pedagogical issues in design disciplines, particularly instructional design. His teaching was recognized with a U of S Master Teacher Award, and a 3M National Teaching Fellowship.