Beverly Cameron
Department of Economics

Since 1973, Beverly Cameron has been a highly successful and valued teacher of undergraduate students in the Department of Economics where she has designed, developed, and taught a variety of courses. Her ability to turn students in large lectures into active participants in their own learning indicates her truly outstanding ability as a teacher. As a result, she receives outstanding teaching evaluations from students and is consistently placed among the very best in the Department. Her excellence as a teacher has been formally recognized by her Department through the Department of Economics Teaching Award, and by the University, through the University of Manitoba Merit Award for Teaching.

Her interest in recent years has been in how to improve teaching in the Department of Economics as a whole. As a member of the Teaching Committee for the past decade, she has researched, designed and conducted courses and workshops in lecturing and communications for university faculty members, teaching assistants and other instructors in adult and higher education. She has also been a counselor and resource person in teaching skills, methods and course design.

Beverly's publications have a pedagogical thrust as well. She has written study guides and co-authored a widely-used introductory economics text in which her contribution was the application of effective thinking skills to economic theory. She wrote (1996) Going to University: A Guide for Students in Grades 9 Through 12. This book helps parents and students select a university and program and helps students prepare to make the transition to university. In 1998 she wrote Green guide No.2 for the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. The Green Guide is titled Active Learning.

Recent Activities

• University 1 (U1) Program Director
  In July 1998 Beverly was appointed Director of the University 1 program at the University of Manitoba. U1 is a new unit that started in 1998. It has over 4,300 entering and returning students. U1 students include new high schools graduates, mature students, transfer students, and those returning to University 1.

  The Directorship of University 1 involves administering the University 1 Student Help Centre, working with advisors and other units to plan and implement student programs, producing publications for U1 students, public relations work in the community, and assisting Enrollment Services recruit students. The 099.111, Introduction to University, course is also administered through U1.

   

• Faculty Development Work
  In January 1992, Beverly assumed the directorship of the University Teaching Services (UTS) at the University of Manitoba. With the help of colleagues she has worked to revitalize and build UTS programs. Her efforts include:
  • editorship of the UTS Newsletter
  • establishing a Peer Consultation Program and working as a peer consultant
  • serving as editor and a writer for two editions of Teaching At the University of Manitoba: A Handbook
  • facilitating numerous workshops
  • organizing Advanced Educational Technologies programs where faculty share their experiences using technology to enhance learning
  • helping publicly recognize faculty teaching excellence with an annual Students' Teacher Recognition Reception
  • helping publicly and permanently recognize faculty teaching excellence at the University of Manitoba with a "Wall of Recognition" which lists teaching award winners
  • organizing annual workshop series

   

• Doctoral Work in Higher Education
  In May of 1992, Beverly graduated from the University of Michigan with a Ph.D. in Higher Education. Her thesis research involved teaching and measuring critical thinking skill development in large lecture-based principles of economics courses.

   

• Current Interests
  Beverly is currently working on a number of projects designed to enhance the quality of teaching and learning in higher education. In addition to directorship of UTS, her efforts include teaching large principles of economics courses, in the Society of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE), and invited workshops at other.

   

Norman Cameron
Department of Economics

Norman Cameron is an innovative teacher who consistently ranks among the top teachers in the department, based on student evaluations. His teaching is also held in very high esteem by his colleagues. He possesses the quintessential qualities of an outstanding teacher: an excellent understanding of his subject, enthusiasm for important recent developments and debates, outstanding communication skills, and a deep concern for the education of his students. His contributions to teaching have been recognized by a University Teaching Award (the Saunderson Award) and a University Outreach Award during the 1980s.

Norman Cameron’s teaching skills are drawn upon extensively by his department, by other units on campus, by other educational institutions in Canada and by local media and community groups. In the early 1970s, he was chair of the Economics department’s first teaching committee. Almost thirty years later, he continues to be active and effective in the programs of University Teaching Services both as a course and program leader and as one of the members of the Peer Consultant program. He has written and edited an assortment of articles in support of teaching and has been active in curriculum design work well beyond his own courses.

Recent Activities

• (normal) service as a Peer Consultant, and leading workshops on course construction for newer teaching staff
• Presentation on Team Learning as a radical alternative to normal classroom use, both to fellow economists in the Canadian Economics Association meetings in Toronto in 1999, and to two McGraw-Hill conferences on educational technology in 2000 (in Winnipeg and in Victoria)
• Testing macroeconomic simulation games for a colleague in Whitman College
• Developing hands-on macroeconomics for managers, for delivery to the Banff School of Advanced Management
• Developing more user-friendly macroeconomic computer simulations for students without any formal economics training (under the title "How to Wreck an Economy")
• Continuing to identify and develop the necessary coaching skills to make Team Learning deliver up to its potential as a form of course design
• Experimenting with combinations of web pages and electronic discussion groups to add those parts of the new educational technology that will help students develop their thinking skills.