CTE’s Brit Paris receives Killam Laureate Award
Most students go to school to learn, but Brit Paris is studying how we learn and she has been rewarded for her efforts.
Paris, the newest member of the educational development team at Capilano University’s Centre for Teaching Excellence, received the prestigious Killam Laureate Award earlier this year for her doctoral research in Educational Research.
“The award is given to very few doctoral students each year so receiving the award felt like this giant stamp of approval and recognition for my research and my ideas,” says Paris.
Her PhD research project explores the challenges and barriers, for both students and instructors, in effectively giving and receiving feedback. Working with five instructors of different disciplines and class sizes at the University of Calgary, instructors trialed different feedback strategies in their classes. Paris used focus groups and student surveys to evaluate the effectiveness of different feedback designs.
“I’m learning that there really are no simple solutions when it comes to teaching and learning, but we can use feedback design principles as we consider how we plan and carry out our assessments,” she says.
The award is valued at $36,000, including a $3,000 Killam Research Scholarship which directly funded her research through participant incentives and conference attendance. She also holds a SSHRC—Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship.
Paris joined CapU part-time in September as an Educational Developer, supporting faculty pedagogical development through workshops, consultations, and program development. She is excited to move into the role full-time in January and for the opportunity this role offers to translate her research into hands-on workshops and to spark ideas for research in teaching and learning at CapU.
“I jumped at this opportunity! Since starting my PhD, I’ve wanted to be an educational developer at a teaching-focused university in BC,” says Paris. “I wanted to be a part of a community where excellence in teaching matters and where I can make a difference as a member of that community. CapU also has the perfect location, nestled between the mountains and the water!”
She is now completing her data analysis and writing about her findings with the goal of defending her thesis in June 2021.
Submitted by: Linda Munro, Communications