USSU Teaching Excellence Recipients Announced

St. Thomas More College (STM) is proud to once again have our faculty recognized for teaching excellence by the students of USask. STM is very pleased to announce Dr. Allison Smith (PhD), selected as one of USask’s ten USSU Teaching Excellence Award recipients for 2021.This well-deserved recognition was the result of the nomination evaluation ratings by students from Allison’s SPAN 117 (Term 1) class.

The USSU web portal recently announced the awards process as follows, “the University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union (USSU) celebrates excellence at USask through awards for teaching, volunteerism, staff spirit, and contribution to campus culture. Selected by students, the USSU Teaching Excellence Award recognizes those who have demonstrated enthusiasm, organization, and fairness in evaluation, providing exceptional commitment and support to their classrooms.”

Originally from Toronto, Smith’s Bachelor of Arts Honours is in specialized Spanish from York University, which she followed up with a masters and PhD from University of Ottawa. Joining her husband Charles Smith (STM Department of Political Studies), in a move to Saskatchewan for faculty positions with STM, Allison has now taught at the college for 11 years.

One of select faculty on campus specializing in the Spanish language, Allison has seen continued growth in interest for the subject which she believes is motivated by the prevalence of Spanish in popular travel locales, the modern languages major, a language requirement in some degrees, and a second language often serving as a valuable career asset.

“Language classes are so that you can speak it – you can’t achieve this on paper alone,” says Smith. “My classes always include opportunities to have the students speak in Spanish as much as possible. I also include cultural impact aspects – snippets of Spanish movies, videos, tours of Mexico City, and even Spanish commercials – so that I make the connections obvious with what we are learning.”

As STM entered into this pandemic year requiring ‘remote learning’, Smith was forced to make several changes to her presentations recognizing that language courses have their own unique demands. “Everything had to change,” she said. The first step involved learning the Canvas online system to record lectures. “I wanted to make my courses easy to navigate and clearly understood, while ensuring the balance of the oral component and interaction, so necessary for success. Taking into account some students’ challenge with IT access, I had to reduce the amount of synchronous time, while still providing opportunities to discuss concepts, practice the language and expand skills.  Every student still had to be assessed with individual oral exams – held virtually via computer.”

While anxious to return to in-person course delivery, Allison notes there were some new positive practices adopted in this unique year that she may incorporate into the future, including keeping practice exercises available on Canvas to support students, along with an interactive syllabus.

Allison Smith’s own journey into academia – in particular Spanish – was the result of an inspiring teacher. Her own passion for the subject and enthusiastic engagement with her students at STM will most certainly result in more young people in similar scholarly pursuits.

Unfortunately due to COVID19 restrictions, the USSU is unable to host the awards ceremony this year.The winners will instead be showcased via video on the USSU website and social media channels.

Congratulations Allison!

Allison Smith’s course offerings through STM:

Introductory Spanish 1 114; Introductory Spanish 2 117; Spanish 250(Historical Trends of the Spanish language); Spanish 251(Spanish of Latin Americans – Panama – STM study abroad)

*STM faculty nominated for the 2021 USSU Teaching Excellence Award: David Lane, Sarah Powrie, Celene Sidloski, Allison Smith, Zachary Yuzwa.