Brett McCollum, PhD, Professor of Chemistry at Mount Royal University, has been named to a prestigious group of university educators in Canada, an honour that has been called the Stanley Cup of university teaching.
McCollum is one of only 10 post-secondary teachers from across the country to receive the Council of 3M National Teaching Fellows in 2019. Since 1986, a select group of university educators have received this honour for excellence in educational leadership and undergraduate teaching and become lifetime members of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE).
"Brett embodies what Mount Royal University is all about in terms of putting teaching and the student experience first," says Lesley Brown, Provost and Vice-President Academic at Mount Royal. "We are thrilled that his groundbreaking work in the scholarship of teaching and learning has been recognized in this way."
McCollum, who is already a Nexen Scholar of Teaching and Learning, an Apple Distinguished Educator, a software developer and an education columnist, focuses his research on the effective uses of technology for teaching and learning, chemistry language learning, open education resources and research partnerships with students. His teaching areas have included general chemistry, organic, inorganic, physical, nuclear and spectroscopy.
"Chemists are experimentalists," says McCollum. "I see the scholarship of teaching and learning as a systematic inquiry into what works, what is possible and what is happening when faculty use their expertise to support students in their learning."
McCollum uses Mount Royal's state-of-the-art Active LearningClassroom where he leads from the middle to engage students with course material and with each other.
He adds, "The Mount Royal community is passionate about teaching and student learning. I'm excited to be a representative from Mount Royal to a national conversation about this vital part of the student experience."
