Dr. Heather McLeod is the recipient of the Presidents Award for Outstanding Teaching (Faculty) for 2018
This award recognizes teaching excellence by a faculty member with 5 to 10 years teaching experience. Dr. McLeod teaches arts education courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. She supervises 8 PhD students (4 on her own and on the committees of 4 others). Recently she was successful as the Associate Dean (Undergraduate Programs).
Dr. McLeod has previously been recognized for her accomplished curriculum development and teaching skills, receiving the Excellence and Innovation award in the K-12 Classroom from The Canadian Network for Innovation in Education, for authoring the online course Education 6107 - Arts Education: Creativity in the Classroom, and receiving the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Faculty of Education.
A proponent of experiential teaching, Dr. McLeod is keen on helping her students connect practice to theory. She feels there is a strong need for arts education with pre-service teachers.
Many students are initially fearful of their abilities in art but with facilitation and guidance they come to enjoy it and see how beneficial it is to learn through art experiences.
Dr. McLeod’s experience of being Associate Dean (Undergraduate Programs) helped provide insights into education and leadership, and allowed her to confidently develop independent ideas about how working in a creative and collaborative way can contribute to both.
Dr. McLeod brings her passion for teaching to the promotion of social change through her arts-based research. Knowledgeable, ambitious and resourceful she is currently involved in several funded collaborative research projects. Of particular interest is her Parents and Poetry project in which she uses the arts-based approach of poetic inquiry.
I enjoy my work. It’s made me look at pedagogy and helped me focus on what it is to insightfully work with others and collaborate. I continue to learn and develop as an artist, teacher, and scholar so I can provide effective, meaningful, and intellectual learning opportunities for my students.