含羞草传媒

Meet five innovative U of T professors who are rethinking their classrooms

From left to right: Funk茅 Aladejebi, Sherry Fukuzawa, Obidimma Ezezika, Angela Mashford-Pringle and Keith Adamson are recipients of the 含羞草传媒 Early Career Teaching Award.

From drawing on Indigenous ways of knowing to making space for diverse voices and perspectives, five 含羞草传媒 professors are being recognized for their efforts to inspire students and make learning more engaging and inclusive.

The recipients of this year鈥檚 含羞草传媒 Early Career Teaching Award 鈥 Funk茅 Aladejebi, Keith Adamson, Angela Mashford-Pringle, Obidimma Ezezika and Sherry Fukuzawa 鈥 have worked to enhance the student experience through community-engaged, land-based and experiential learning opportunities.

The award is given to faculty in the early stages of their careers who exemplify teaching innovation, pedagogical engagement and an exceptional commitment to student learning.

鈥淓mbracing a diversity of perspectives and the innovations that flow from them is key to realizing U of T鈥檚 goal of achieving inclusive excellence 鈥 and that often begins in the classroom,鈥 says Cheryl Regehr, U of T鈥檚 vice-president and provost.

鈥淏y demonstrating their unwavering commitment to enriching students鈥 academic experiences, each of this year鈥檚 Early Career Teaching Award winners is helping to ensure U of T is not only delivering an unmatched educational experience but is ultimately preparing graduates to make the sort of changes our world so desperately needs.鈥

Here鈥檚 how this year鈥檚 winners are innovating in the classroom and beyond:


Funk茅 Aladejebi

Funk茅 AladejebiFunk茅 Aladejebi (photo by Cameron Fitch)

For Aladejebi, history is not just about the past 鈥 it鈥檚 about building a better future, too.

The assistant professor in the department of history in the Faculty of Arts & Science supported efforts to create a new certificate in in the Canadian Studies program at University College shortly after she joined the university. 

The first-of-its-kind certificate at U of T was launched last fall and fosters an interdisciplinary approach to understanding Black life in Canada. It focuses on systemic barriers through the lens of politics, judicial systems and the arts, as well as the historical and contemporary implications of anti-Black racism in Canada.

鈥淭he goal has been, and continues to be, to make interventions in the ways that we talk about Blackness in Canada and ask critical questions about how we represent the Black Canadian experience,鈥 says Aladejebi, a historian of the 20th century whose research focuses on oral histories, Canada鈥檚 education system and Black Canadian history.

鈥淭here is an incredible diversity and plethora of research, scholarship and expertise of people who are doing this work in Canada. I hope this leaves students motivated to pursue it. 

In an effort to promote interdisciplinary research, students must also take courses in women and gender studies, the department of English, and Caribbean studies, to name a few.

Foundational to the program is 鈥溾 a second-year course that Aladejebi created and teaches. It encapsulates 300 years of Black life, including early settlement, Black liberation, immigration and racism in Canada.

Aladejebi hopes both the certificate and course encourages representation in higher education as well as interdisciplinary collaborations 鈥 values that form the core of her teaching philosophy. 

鈥淎t times, within the academy, we represent Black Canadian history as optional, but the program legitimizes how we can do this as a primary focus of research and that it鈥檚 worthy of critical scholarship and analysis,鈥 Aladejebi says. 鈥淭his is one kind of intervention where students, researchers and scholars are creating spaces where racialized students can see themselves as part of U of T.鈥

Keith Adamson

Keith AdamsonKeith Adamson (photo courtesy of
Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work)

Adamson was asked in 2018 to create a course that emphasized how social workers can better support people with disabilities.

So, the assistant professor, teaching stream, in the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, turned to his clients at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, where he was senior director of collaborative practice.

鈥淚 wanted to create a course that honoured the voices of clients and families within the system and prepare future social workers to be sensitive to client and family needs and disability issues, and advocate for clients,鈥 he explains.

The course, 鈥淪ocial Work and Disability Practice: A Client and Family Centered Approach鈥 was co-created alongside community partners, PhD students, clients and their families to ensure that their lived experiences are reflected in the course content.

Recognized as the first of its kind in Canada by the Ontario Hospital Association, the course brings in six clients or families to actively participate in the teaching process for the entire semester. Adamson says that moving away from traditional lectures highlights the contradiction or relevance of theories when applied in real life and creates an avenue for students and client and family co-teachers to co-create new knowledge and questions about care.

In the course鈥檚 final class, students present a topic in disability studies that they are passionate about in a creative medium 鈥 such as poetry, music or comics. The project allows them to demonstrate their disability advocacy, which is a course objective. 

鈥淲e established a community on the very first day,鈥 Adamson says.

鈥淭he classroom has really become an arena for disability advocacy for the clients and families who come in to teach future social workers who will help people like them in the future.

鈥淲e didn鈥檛 wait until students reached the clinical realm to have these conversations with clients.鈥

Such conversations underscore Adamson's overarching philosophy: deconstruct hierarchies within health care and academic institutions through collaborations that value social justice, equality and empowerment. 

鈥淩elationships are essential to my teaching philosophy,鈥 he says. 鈥淔or me, the educational alliance is caring about your students and helping them be the best clinician possible.鈥 

Angela Mashford-Pringle

Angela Mashford-PringleAngela Mashford-Pringle (photo by Victoria
Pringle and styling by Frankie Pringle)

As the first Indigenous health lead at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Mashford-Pringle wasted no time making changes.

Her largest project has been at the Hart House Farm in Caledon, Ont., where a facelift of the Ignatieff House included an accessibility ramp and door, a main floor wheelchair-accessible bathroom, kitchen renovation and new floors. This year, new student cabins and outdoor furniture are being added. 

The farm is the site for 鈥淚ndigenous Health,鈥 U of T鈥檚 first land-based learning course, a requirement for the (MPH-IH) program and the (CSIH) program.

The week-long intensive course is one of the first in Canada to focus on health and the land.

鈥淚 hope Indigenous and non-Indigenous faculty and students will want to visit to learn from the land 鈥 about Indigenous issues and health 鈥 by seeing what the territories were used for traditionally,鈥 says Mashford-Pringle, the course鈥檚 instructor.

In addition to lectures, students spend time with Elders and knowledge keepers on nature walks and participate in fire ceremonies. They also learn about the role of the land in Indigenous culture and well-being, and how displacement affects the health of Indigenous communities.

鈥淭he Indigenous definition of health is that you have balance in your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual self in your family, community and nation,鈥 says Mashford-Pringle, adding that the course鈥檚 powerful sense of community was preserved when it moved online two years ago due to the pandemic.

鈥淟and-based learning is about getting out of the capitalism, consumerism and individualism that we鈥檙e used to. It鈥檚 the idea of reconnecting to the environment that we live in.鈥

In May, the MPH-IH program will return to the farm for two courses 鈥 鈥淚ndigenous Health鈥 and 鈥淚ndigenous Food Systems Environment and Health鈥for two weeks. A new course developed by Mashford-Pringle called 鈥淚ndigenous Social Determinants of Health鈥 will also launch at U of T Mississauga, where she plans to host land-based courses.

Reflecting on the award, Mashford-Pringle says she hopes others will feel encouraged to introduce different ways of knowing and teaching at U of T.

鈥淚t鈥檚 important to teach from our heart, which is how I鈥檝e been taught by my elders,鈥 Mashford-Pringle says. 鈥淚 hope people who have ideas outside of the colonial teaching and learning process will think about trying their possibilities.鈥 

Obidimma Ezezika

Obidimma Ezezika (photo courtesy of U of T
Scarborough)

An expert on implementation science and global health, Ezezika strives to ensure that the knowledge created in his classroom can be applied to the real world in a meaningful way.

Using his work as a previous Grand Challenges Fellow and working experience in several African countries, Ezezika developed 鈥溾 in 2018. The experiential learning course focuses on developing technological and social innovations in low and middle-income countries. Notably, it links students to Toronto-based global health organizations, including .

鈥淭he goal of the course is to bring students into that kind of global health practice,鈥 says Ezezika, an assistant professor, teaching stream, in the department of health and society at U of T Scarborough.

鈥淚 asked, 鈥楬ow can I simulate my experiences? How can I leverage some of my stakeholders over the last 10 years and bring them to the classroom?鈥欌濃

Throughout the course, guest speakers talk about business models, stakeholder engagement and ethics, and offer advice on how to tap into a target audience to frame a global health problem 鈥 ranging from maternal health to sanitation and hygiene.

Key to the course is a that has students work in groups to develop and pitch a global health innovation to a panel of experts.

鈥淪tudents engaged with course content with such passion in just the first few weeks,鈥 Ezezika says. 鈥淚t was very fulfilling for me.鈥

Ezezika鈥檚 teaching philosophy boils down to creating experiential learning opportunities that allow his students to thrive. That includes creating work-integrated learning courses where students have gone on to receive prizes, prestigious conference presentation invitations and awards. For example, Selina Quibrantar, through her work in two of these courses, received Ontario and Canada-wide awards in work-integrated and experiential learning.

He has also created an award-winning board game that helps students digest health determinant concepts, and launched the, which has trained dozens of undergraduate and graduate students and led to multiple co-authored journal articles by students. 

鈥淭eaching is not just about the techniques and expertise you bring to the classroom,鈥 Ezezika says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about the compassion and value you have for students. You can鈥檛 have an impact unless you truly care about your students' goals.鈥

Sherry Fukuzawa

Sherry Fukuzawa (photo by Alison Dias)

Fukuzawa believes in a holistic approach to education.

鈥淭o me, that means that there is an inclusive pedagogy, where there is an acceptance of different knowledge systems within the university,鈥 says Fukuzawa, an assistant professor, teaching stream, in the department of anthropology at U of T Mississauga.

Fukuzawa is a founding member of the Indigenous Action Group (IAG), an alliance of faculty and staff from U of T Mississauga and Indigenous scholars, knowledge keepers and elders from the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. The IAG鈥檚 mission is to honour the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation鈥檚 educational goals of truth through public knowledge, recognition of their history and reconciliation by adapting Indigenous knowledge systems to the university space.

鈥淲e want to fulfill the goals of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and change the post-secondary curriculum to include a respectful and equal acknowledgment of different knowledge systems and pluralistic ontologies,鈥 Fukuzawa says.

IAG has co-created a community-engaged learning course 鈥,鈥 (ANT241H) a second-year, land-based experiential learning opportunity that invites Anishinaabe scholars and Elders to teach students about the history of the land through a series of workshops and field trips.

Throughout the term, students learn about cosmology and epistemology, medicine and local plants along the Credit River and participate in an art-installation initiative called project. Led by Elder Carolyn King, the project acknowledges the historic sites, ancestral presence and language of First Nations, Metis and other Indigenous communities by placing stenciled moccasins on significant cultural heritage sites across the country.

Following Indigenous pedagogy, the IAG-created course is based on a critical reflexive methodology. Fukuzawa says this leaves room for students to determine their learning journey.

鈥淚t鈥檚 important to remember that Western educational systems are colonial institutions based on a hierarchy,鈥 Fukuzawa says. 鈥淲e want to introduce different knowledge systems and legitimize Indigenous knowledge systems and epistemologies.鈥

Funded by a Connaught Community Partnerships Grant, established to create collaborative early-stage research partnerships between U of T and community partners, the last iteration of the course is set to run in September unless they can find additional funding to sustain it.

Staying true to her teaching philosophy, Fukuzawa says such courses are the beginning of a larger 鈥 and necessary 鈥 shift in education.

鈥淪tudents can have greater power to determine how they want to learn and where their learning journey is important in their own life experience, not just in academic learning, but in personal growth and social activism,鈥 she says.

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