Teacher’s quirkiness translates into winning quality
Contact:
Andrew Gemino, 778.782.3653, 778.782.9080; gemino@sfu.ca
Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3035; cthorbes@sfu.ca
Quirkiness translates into excellence for Simon Fraser University business professor Andrew Gemino — a $2,000 cash SFU 2010 Excellence in Teaching award recipient.
The Coquitlam resident’s off-beat demonstrations of abstract concepts are so engaging that it’s not unusual for his students to remember his lessons, 20 years later.
Gemino recalls, for example, a rainy summer semester when he told students of the uncanny correlation he had noticed between the number of people on the beach and a sunny day. The conclusion: “To bring out the sun, we need to get more people on the beach.”
That’s when he put yellow cellophane on the overhead projector, played the song “Wipe Out”, donned his sunglasses and laid down on the lectern. And after that bit of fun, the rest of the lecture explained how correlation differs from causality.
“I like to have fun with things,” says Gemino. “People learn by being engaged, not by sitting for three hours watching PowerPoint slides.”
Gemino continues to do something special in each lecture, whether he’s teaching 20 students or 200. “I disagree that you can’t do things in a large class that you can do in a small class,” he says. “You can’t expect the same level of personal interaction, but students can engage in both environments.”
Gemino is proudest of a project-management class he co-developed that requires students to work in teams on an initiative that improves a chosen community.
“When students work on projects they design, their level of engagement is huge,” says Gemino, noting that this kind of work often helps the needy. “I call it learning by doing with others, for others.”
Gemino is currently the associate dean of undergraduate business programs, but is staying in the teaching game by coaching basketball and soccer.
“Teaching is in my blood,” he says, “I have to have my teaching fix.”