AQ Teaching Award Winners
The success of Western Education’s AQ courses depends upon its instructors, who teach about 4000 students each year.
This year, John Emery and Jane Witte are each winners of the Additional Qualifications (AQ) Teaching Award, established in 2007 to recognize outstanding teaching in Western Education’s AQ program. John and Jane have taught for many years at the Faculty in both the Preservice and the Additional Qualifications programs. This year, they are both recognized for the vision they have for their courses and for the impact they have on the students they teach.
John is a Faculty Business course instructor. Currently, he teaches the Senior General Business course in the Preservice Program and team teaches the Business and Computer Studies Full Distance program with David Bell. John is widely regarded by his students for being generous, helpful, prompt, and wise. One student remarks, “He is very professional and of the highest quality….I would be very happy to take any course led by John.” In his 21 years teaching in the Faculty, John enjoys working as an AQ instructor most because, as he says, “It is really a pleasure working with all the fantastic people at the Faculty of Education.”
Jane teaches family studies AQ courses. She has written five textbooks for secondary schools in Canada, and she continues to work on many different writing projects and workshops, including the Building Futures program. Jane is recognized by her students as a sensitive, accommodating, knowledgeable, and highly engaged instructor. One student describes Jane’s teaching strengths as including “her sound knowledge, contagious enthusiasm, sense of humour and outstanding leadership and facilitation abilities.” Intending on enrolling in future AQ courses, the student says, “I will cross my fingers that I get Jane Witte as an instructor again!” Jane’s greatest joy in teaching in the AQ program is what she describes as “the ability to mentor the educators who are the future of Family Studies.”
Congratulations to John Emery and Jane Witte, the Faculty of Education’s 2011/12 AQ Teaching Award winners!
