Teaching in focus: Jonathan Verrett

Name:

Jonathan Verrett

My pronouns:

he/him

Title:

Associate Professor of Teaching, Marshall Bauder Professorship in Experiential Learning and Leadership

Faculty/Department/Unit:

Faculty of Applied Science, Chemical and Biological Engineering

Location:

Vancouver

Year I started working at UBC:

2016

What first motivated you to become an educator?

I have always had a love for learning and teaching and this has driven me to want to be an educator. During my undergraduate degree I was a peer tutor and in graduate school I was part of a team facilitating graduate student teaching workshops as well as being a teaching assistant. I was fortunate to be able to blend teaching with what I was doing throughout my studies.

Tell us more about your work.

My educational work focuses on leadership development, experiential learning, design education, and open educational resources (OER). There are many overlapping and complementary skills developed through leadership, experiential learning and design experiences. I support and study skill development in student-led projects including design projects, extra-curricular teams, research and entrepreneurship. My OER activities focus on ensuring educational best practices are disseminated and accessible.

What inspired your particular approach to teaching?

My approach to teaching is strongly motivated by service to society, which is linked with the applied science professions and the University. I want to ensure graduates from our programs are well-equipped to help solve the complex societal challenges we face which typically require working in interdisciplinary teams. By engaging with complex design problems, I aim to challenge students to develop their leadership, teamwork and communication abilities amongst other key technical skills.

What have you learned while teaching that has surprised you the most?

As I have taught, I have come to appreciate the connection between and across disciplines. Though there are many engineering disciplines, there are connections and overlap between all of them and common core technical fundamentals. Likewise, there are also core professional skills which are useful in any discipline. Being reminded of this helps to ground the work each of us does and helps us realize the need to work in teams to have a greater impact.

What impact do you hope to have on your students?

I hope that students leave my classes feeling they have the knowledge, skills and ability to have an impact on the world around them. University offers an environment to explore, experiment and develop and I encourage students to take advantage of this. I believe this will benefit students no matter whether they choose to continue pursuing engineering or work in other areas.

Are there any colleagues or mentors you’d like to acknowledge and why?

There are many colleagues and mentors who have had a deep impact on my work and continue to motivate me. A few, in particular, include departmental colleagues who I work closely with on improving curriculum including Alireza Bagherzadeh, Pranav Chintalapati, Louise Creagh and Gabriel Potvin. Across the Faculty of Applied Science, I also work closely with and am inspired by Agnes d'Entremont and Jannik Eikenaar. I could fit in many more names if space allowed.

Learn more:

https://chbe.ubc.ca/jonathan-verrett/