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Wilfrid Laurier University is recognizing five outstanding student educators with the Student Teaching Awards of Excellence. The annual awards program honours undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students who have contributed to exceptional learning experiences for Laurier students through thoughtful and intentional teaching approaches.
“We’re thrilled to be celebrating these five students, who have gone above and beyond to support, guide and inspire their peers through the challenges of the past few years,” says Mary Wilson, Laurier’s vice-provost of Teaching and Learning.
“They’ve established themselves as trusted educators, mentors and leaders, helping both undergraduate and graduate students build the foundations for successful learning, while pushing them to strive for more. They truly exemplify Laurier’s commitment to student success.”
Undergraduate category
Even while studying with a full course load toward a double major in Anthropology and Political Science, fourth-year student Noah Gauthier made time to work as an instructional assistant for eight sections of the first-year course Introduction to Anthropology, a teaching assistant for two Political Science courses, and a research assistant for a professor.Undergraduate category
“These five students have established themselves as trusted educators, mentors and leaders, helping both undergraduate and graduate students build the foundations for successful learning, while pushing them to strive for more. They truly exemplify Laurier’s commitment to student success.”
Master's category
Doctoral category
Doctoral category
Whether he’s teaching undergraduates about the history of Canada since Confederation or assisting in the first-year Great Battles in History course, History PhD student Eric Story strives to find ways to help students make meaningful connections with the material they’re learning.
As an instructor and teaching assistant, he works to create a caring and welcoming environment where students feel comfortable asking questions and sharing their thoughts and experiences. When Story plans his lectures, his students’ interests, backgrounds and abilities inform the content he focuses on, as well as the teaching methods he uses.
Asking students to study history through primary source materials is one way he’s helped students make a personal connection with history. By learning about the lives of Indigenous veterans of the First World War through disability pension files and Department of Indian Affairs’ veterans’ files, for example, students see history through the eyes of individuals whose perspectives are often missing from history textbooks.
Outside of the classroom, Story has also been a dedicated mentor and supervisor to nearly 30 undergraduate research assistants through his role as coordinator of the Copp Scholars Program at the Laurier Centre for the Study of Canada.
“I was completely taken aback by my nomination and even more surprised when I received confirmation that I had won a teaching award,” he says. “This award is as much mine as it is my students’. I could not have done it without them. Their curiosity and enthusiasm in the classroom, as well as their humour and company, was what kept me returning to the classroom every week excited to teach.”