Teaching is his week's highlight

Martin Pugh is busy, athletic, generous and an excellent teacher of engineering materials

They say if you want to get something done, ask a busy person. That person is Martin Pugh.

Pugh plays squash, cycles to the Sir George Williams Campus from his West Island home (“except in winter”), and keeps track of three dogs, two cats, two kids, more than 1,000 undergraduates, and several hundred graduate students.

The professor and chair of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering is busy, sporty and a good sport. He recently kept his promise to shave his head if the Concordia chapter of Women in Engineering raised $1,000 to support research into cancers affecting women.

Martin Pugh is in his sixth year as chair of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. | Photo by Concordia University

Pugh was appointed a Fellow of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME) earlier this year. He’s also an award-winning teacher, being the 2011 recipient of the President’s Excellence in Teaching Award for Full-Time Faculty in Engineering and Computer Science (ENCS). Pugh additionally won the CSME (Concordia student chapter) 2007 Teaching Award, and the Faculty of ENCS Teaching Excellence Award in 2005.

The key to successful teaching “is to be enthusiastic about your subject,” he says. “I like my subject and I like to transmit that to my students.”

If enthusiasm is what it takes, Pugh has it in abundance. His subject is engineering materials “that make up everything around us – iPads, kitchen knives, cars.” He is an expert on the properties, processes and failure of engineering materials, including ceramics, plastics, composites, as well as joining processes such as soldering and welding.

Though an Engineering professor, Pugh isn’t married to high-tech classroom toys, preferring to “pick and choose what works well.” He still uses the blackboard, but also employs Power Point and a tablet PC to annotate and draw while diagrams and tables remain on screen.

He likes to bring to class “failed parts and bits, like the gas-turbine blades out of jet engines, to discuss how and why they’re broken.” It drives home the lesson to students that failure may be due to abuse, poor design, or improper manufacture. “They’ll be better engineers if they know how and why things break,” he says.

Pugh is as interested in a classroom discussion about how to pick a good squash racquet as he is talking about a robotic space arm.

He did his Bachelor of Science and doctoral work at the University of Leeds, and a post-doctorate degree at McGill University. He arrived at Concordia in December 1998, following a stint as a lecturer at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. In his sixth year as department chair, Pugh also served for four years as undergraduate program director.

“No time off for good behaviour,” he quips. “Teaching is the highlight of my week.”

Originally posted at Concordia NOW on November 30, 2011.

Related links:
• “Pugh Shaves to Save” – November 15, 2011
• Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
• Women in Engineering Concordia

Keeping Students Engaged is Key

i>clickerFollow @Beverly_Akerman

Engineering lecturer and first-year program coordinator Nancy Acemian

If students find Nancy Acemian sometimes feels like a big sister, it is probably because she’s been a volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters of West Island for almost three years now.

She finds mentoring preteen girls very gratifying. “I’m a role model they can come to about issues in their lives.” She uses her love of painting and crafts — knitting, crocheting, jewellery making — to help connect with the girls.

Nancy Acemian was honoured with the President’s Teaching Award in 2010 for Innovative Excellence in Teaching. | Photo by Concordia University

This desire to connect drives her achievements in the classroom, too.

Acemian received the President's Teaching Award 2010 for Innovative Excellence in Teaching for her classroom performance and leadership in developing innovative teaching in the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science (ENCS). The year before, she was recognized by the Faculty with the Teaching Excellence Award.

A native of Montreal, Acemian earned her bachelor’s from McGill with a major in Mathematics and a minor in Computer Science. She then obtained her master’s in Computer Science from Concordia and is working on a PhD in Educational Technology, also at Concordia. She taught at Marianopolis College for 11 years before arriving at Concordia in 2000. Plus she teaches in her third language, giving her unique insight and a deep appreciation of the diversity that’s the heart of Concordia.

“At Concordia, we give everyone a chance, with kids straight out of cegep alongside young adults back at school after several years at work,” she says.” The multicultural diversity of the student body is also way up on her list of Concordia pluses.

Acemian is the first-year program coordinator at ENCS, and shares her knowledge and expertise through the Centre for Teaching and Learning Services; however, her passion is teaching introductory level courses in computer science, which can be difficult. “Classes are large and the students are very diverse. Some have never programmed before.”

Keeping students engaged — ensuring they’re active participants in classroom discussions — is paramount. Acemian believes in a very interactive class: “Teaching is a two-way street.” She needs to know right away if students have problems with the material.

That’s why she uses the i>clicker classroom response system. Like the “ask the audience lifeline” from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, the i>clicker lets Acemian pose multiple-choice questions and get instant feedback. Because it’s anonymous, “everyone participates, even the shy ones.” And she can zero in on unclear concepts in real time.

She also uses i>clicker to get students interacting. “Sometimes, the answer will split 50/50 in the class. I’ll tell them ‘find someone who doesn’t have the same answer as you and talk about it, try to convince each other.’”

Acemian also relies on the tablet. “Students can have the teaching slides ahead of time and we can figure out the problems in class. And because I’m always facing them, I can see when the light goes on,” she laughs.

Sometimes attention spans are short, especially when it comes to teaching on a Monday morning at 8:45 a.m. “You can’t be passive. You have to challenge the students, to keep them involved. Programming isn’t a spectator sport.” Breezing in, doing a lot of talking, and then walking out again is what doesn’t work. “The challenge is to keep from boring them.”

Respect is also very important. Acemian cultivates an open-door policy, encouraging her students to consult her, and not just about course content. “Life can be tough. There are career decisions and sometimes problems in their private lives. There’s the juggle of kids new to Montreal, living on their own for the first time.”

And Acemian likes being there for her students. Just like a big sister.

Related links:
• Centre for Teaching and Learning Services
• Slide show of the 2011 Mascot Design Contest Acemian organized as first-year program coordinator at ENCS

(Originally published in Concordia NOW.)