Dr. Gillis Provides Opportunities For Students To Take Learning Outside The Classroom
Dr. Daniel Gillis has received the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) teaching award for his excellence in teaching and dedication to improving post-secondary education.
For those who know Gillis, it’s clear to see that he goes above and beyond as a professor. While teaching, Gillis tries to stray from “the sage on the stage method” of reciting information to students. Instead, he aims for a different dynamic, where students can interact and input more freely. He emphasizes student engagement and critical thinking over rote memorization. Gillis states that one of the most rewarding parts of his job is: “When I actually see a lightbulb go on. Seeing when a student now understands.”
Beyond the classroom, Gillis is involved with a number of extracurricular organizations including the Society of Computing and Information Science (SOCIS) and the Guelph coding community.
More than just the academic benefits these organizations provide, Gillis believes that his involvement helps, “building an earlier relationship [with the students]” and humanizes professors, showing them that “faculty are people too.” Gillis has provided opportunities for students to take their learning outside the classroom with the founding events like Guelph Hacks, an annual coding event that encourages students to use technology to solve issues within our community.
Guelph Hacks is the perfect example of Gillis’s teaching philosophy. Gillis places high importance on giving his students the freedom to explore their own solutions, being able to step beyond the boundaries of their major, and “use their education to make whatever community they care about a better place,” says Gillis.
Gillis takes this teaching philosophy to its fullest extent with his joint project with Dr. Shoshanah Jacobs, the ICON classroom. The ICON classroom is a transdisciplinary course involving students of all years collaborating on analyzing and solving real-world issues. Students are given the freedom to explore a problem and are exposed to perspectives from different majors in the process of trying to solve it. This simulates the kind of real-world conditions that students may face working on projects post-graduation. Gillis states that the effects of this course go beyond the semester seeing students “actually attempting to implement their solutions” as well as “at least one business being started as a result.”
Gillis also devotes many of his personal projects towards serving overlooked issues. Recently this has involved in a project called “bridging the Canadian divide” which focuses on increasing internet accessibility in northern Indigenous communities. Addressing the issue of food insecurity, especially among Guelph students, is also a major passion project for Gillis. As well as engaging in his own social activism, he has advocated for his students to engage as well.
Gillis makes inclusivity and accessibility a priority, and emphasizes how something needs to be done about the lack of education funding and the prohibitive cost of experiential learning opportunities. These systemic factors affect students and need to be addressed to create an equal quality of education for all students. He states that it is “soul-crushing” when students are missing experiential learning opportunities like co-op “because they can’t afford to buy [the] dress clothes” needed for a job. With his profound understanding of the issues Guelph students face, it’s clear to see why Gillis was won this award.
Gillis to some extent credits the way he teaches to being taught by so many excellent faculty throughout his career as a student. With regard to receiving this award, he says, “[it] makes me feel like I’m doing something right, [this is] very much an honour,” and that winning makes him feel as though he is taking a step in the right direction towards becoming like the professors who shaped his student experience. Gillis’s final comment is to encourage students to “step beyond their discipline.”