By Nicole North

"The question that drives me as an educator is how to best engage and support my students, and to help them develop the sense of mattering which, in turn, has been linked to success in learning."

In recognition of her commitment to student learning, pedagogical engagement, and teaching innovation, Department of Linguistics lecturer Margaret Grant was presented the Cormack Teaching Award at the 2024 FASS Fall Reception. The award recognizes the passion that an instructor brings to their classroom, their quality of pedagogy, and their role in adding value to the educational experience of students.

Cross-appointed with the Cognitive Science Program, Grant’s areas of interest include psycholinguistics, semantic processing, and ambiguity resolution. Grant teaches several different courses and she has even developed a new course, LING 315: Psychology of Language. The course explores how language works in human cognition and investigates how people produce and understand language, whether written, spoken or signed. Using evidence from the production and comprehension of speech sounds, words, and sentences, students are introduced to the psychological and cognitive systems for human language.

Grant’s teaching philosophy centres on creating active learning opportunities, improving course accessibility and equitability, and promoting personal connection between students’ lived experiences and course concepts. Grant says, “The question that drives me as an educator is how to best engage and support my students, and to help them develop the sense of mattering which, in turn, has been linked to success in learning.”

She acknowledges that, for many students, there can be inherent challenges that hinder the development of this sense of mattering. “Students may be studying in a second or third language. They may be the first of their family to attend university,” explains Grant. “They may be juggling more than one job while studying. They may feel at risk for stereotype threat or have accessibility needs.” Grant is committed to helping students overcome these barriers and providing a safe space to learn and explore.

Former Cormack Award winner and Department Chair Panayiotis (Panos) Pappas praises Grant for her leadership and initiative. “Dr. Grant is an excellent teacher with a particular gift in developing courses that both challenge and engage her students,” says Pappas. “She has taken an active role in developing blended courses, and has taken the lead in our equity, diversity and inclusion efforts both within her courses as well as in the Linguistics and Cognitive Science communities.”

At the annual Cormack Teaching Symposium on September 24th, Grant explained that as an educator, her goal is to encourage students not only to learn important concepts regarding language and the mind, but to engage in critical thinking, hypothesis generation, and original research.

Encouraging this approach gives Grant’s undergraduate students a strong background to succeed in further levels of study, and ultimately to become innovators in whichever career path they may choose.

Looking forward, Grant sees teaching as a continuous learning process. “I am deeply committed to learning about and implementing inclusive teaching methods, but my journey in this regard is ongoing,” says Grant. “I continue to seek out expert resources from the educational literature, discuss pedagogy with my communities of practice and experts at the Centre for Educational Excellence, and reflect on my classroom successes and missteps to optimize my teaching.”