Tales of a Teacher: Christine Moresoli

by Victoria Faraci. This is the third of three Centre for Teaching Excellence Teaching Stories that will run in the Daily Bulletin this week.

You might be surprised to learn that Dr. Christine Moresoli – a veteran Waterloo instructor in the Faculty of Engineering, with 21 years of teaching experience – finds inspiration for her teaching in the aisles of grocery stores.

Moresoli is committed to engaging her students through unconventional means. For her Food Process Engineering course (ChE 564), she knew students were intrigued when she used real-life food examples. To help convey the importance of sensory attributes and processing conditions, she brought into class two frozen desserts, one made from milk and the other from plant-oil ingredients. Her students tasted the palpable difference that the ingredients made, a learning activity that memorably leveraged their sensory experience. A forthright instructor, Moresoli is not afraid to stray from the norm if it means keeping her students engaged.

Case studies are another means by which Moresoli engages her students. Believing that case studies are a good strategy for connecting course content with real-life situations, Moresoli used the 2008 listeriosis outbreak at the Toronto-based Maple Leafs Food plant in ChE 564 in the Winter 2013 term. The fact that this was a real case piqued her students’ interest: one of them stated that it provided a “topic that was recent and relevant to Canada.” Moresoli notes that investigating authentic cases reinforces topics that were presented earlier in lectures.

In this senior level course, students were given background information about the issue in the form of a case study. Moresoli then identified four topics that could be applied to the issue and students were responsible for presenting on these topics in groups. This assignment replaced the midterm. Moresoli says she found this group project to be a more effective form of assessment, saying midterms based solely on memorization just do not work well for engineering students.

By asking her students at the beginning of the term to identify topics of interest to them, Moresoli is able to accommodate the collective interests of her class. “By the time they are in fourth year, students already have completed four or five co-op work terms,” so she is able to draw on these experiences. With this approach, she can see the evolution of student interests over the years.

Based on her experience with case studies, Moresoli believes that students are willing to try new things, as long as they see a point in them. Veronica Wong, a student in this course, was definitely one of them. She says that in ChE 564, “the activities and projects were relevant to our everyday lives.” Another student, Michael Gu, also notes the relevance of the topics studied, especially being able to analyze the problem from different angles by using course concepts.

As a teacher, integrating case studies is definitely a challenge because – says Moresoli – the role of the instructor shifts to the role of a facilitator, a “perceived dilemma” for some faculty. “You have to do a lot of planning and organizing” to guide students to the final product. Ultimately, Moresoli says “you become a minor or secondary actor in your classroom,” and teachers have to be prepared for this shift. With an eye to future courses, and obtaining optimal student engagement, Moresoli is still in pursuit of resources and efficiencies that will help reduce the extra commitment demanded by this effective approach.

For Moresoli, though, the best part of teaching comes from seeing her students engaged. They are then in a position to acquire and apply knowledge so they can look at the world differently.

 

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Stargazing at Waterloo

This is the latest in a series of #UWCommunity weekly features that highlight Waterloo in the community.

Despite the unpredictable weather the stars aligned and the skies cleared just in time for the University of Waterloo’s annual Perseid Stargazing Party. Over 200 members of the local community joined Waterloo’s Faculty of Science and local Royal Astronomical Society of Canada members as they hosted a stargazing party at the University’s Columbia Lake Fields.

Photo Credits: Brian L, University of Waterloo Math alumnus

The night started off with a lecture by Dr. Michael Balogh, from Waterloo’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, on Meteors, Supermoons and Comets and what attendees could expect to see. Many of the young members of the audience left with their very own Galileoscope to try out at home! Following the lecture the group made their way to Columbia Lake Fields to wait for the meteor show to begin. The University and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada had a number of Astronomers on hand to answer questions and teach community members about the night sky.

By educating and engaging our community in events like the Perseid Stargazing Party the University of Waterloo is increasing awareness of the importance of science in our society in a way that is fun and interactive for families of all ages. This event always draws a wide range of attendees, from kids running around with glow sticks pausing to “ooh” at the moon, to university students patiently queued to catch a glimpse of Saturn through a scope, to retirees and friends being tripped over as they lie on blankets watching for meteors. Sharing these experiences and gaining knowledge from both amateur and academic astronomers make for wonderful memories of this annual event.

Photo Credits: Brian L, University of Waterloo Math alumnus

The Perseids meteor shower is an annual August event that can only be seen in the Northern Hemisphere in which you can see dozens of meteors per hour. Consisting of tiny space debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle, the Perseids are named after the constellation, Perseus. This is because, their radiant or the direction of which the shower seems to come from lies in the same direction as Perseus. The constellation lies in the north-eastern part of the sky. The Perseids meteors come in streams followed by lulls in the night sky. The meteors often leave persistent trains – ionized gas trails lasting for several minutes after the meteor has already gone.

Of course, with the current supermoon (when the moon is full AND at it’s closest distance to Earth) taking over the sky, it was a little difficult to spot dozens of meteors, but the moon itself was spectacular and we had wonderful views of Mars, Saturn and other sky wonders through the telescopes kindly shared by local astronomers.

 

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Friday's notes

The Office of Advancement is on the move. Effective, Tuesday, August 19, the Office of Advancements new home will be 175 Columbia St. W. (corner of Phillip & Columbia) a former BlackBerry building. The move will occur in stages between August 14 and August 22. Every effort is being made to minimize disruption to normal business activities, and staff’s access to email and telephone will be limited during this time. Also, in-person frame sales will not be available during this time.

 

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