W. Stephen McNeil

Faculty: Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science

Faculty website: chemistry.ok.ubc.ca/about/contact/w-stephen-mcneil/

Teaching Fellow: 2024

Courses: CHEM 121 and CHEM 123 (introductory chemistry), CHEM 220 (atomic structure and molecular bonding), CHEM 335 (bioinorganic chemistry)

Teaching Awards:

  • University of British Columbia Open Educational Resources Excellence and Impact Award, 2024 
  • BC Teaching & Learning Council West Coast Teaching Excellence Award, 2023 
  • Chemical Institute of Canada Award for Chemistry Education, 2019 
  • UBC Okanagan Killam Teaching Prize, 2018 
  • UBC Okanagan Award for Teaching Excellence and Innovation, 2009 

Teaching and Learning Activities related to Teaching Fellows

  • Regular participant and presenter at Centre for Teaching and Learning workshops, seminars, Communities of Practice, and the Thompson Okanagan Teaching and Learning Conference 
  • Science education research projects that explore the affective impacts active learning pedagogies and context-embedded curricula, and the factors supporting senses of identity and belonging among science students 
  • UBC Okanagan Institutional Lead for the Canadian Consortium of Science Equity Scholars, a national cohort of science education researchers seeking to develop pedagogies to mitigate systemic inequities in STEM education 

Teaching Fellow opportunity provides

” … an opportunity to create and participate in spaces where educators, teaching and learning scholars, and educational researchers can share their teaching practice and scholarship, to elevate the teaching and learning culture on our campus, and to support and celebrate teaching excellence and educational leadership in all its forms. “

Teaching Passions and Philosophy

Understanding chemistry at a conceptual level requires visualization of the invisible, and fluency in a symbolic language to represent sometime intangible objects and ideas, and I leverage digital visualization tools and a wide range of active-learning methods to support this learning. However, a broader understanding of the societal impacts of chemistry, and the equitable attraction and retention of students into the chemical sciences, requires engagement in the affective domain, with consideration of factors that support students’ senses of identity and belonging in science classrooms and programs. My teaching philosophy is grounded in principles of social constructivism and community of inquiry, and is implemented via an active-learning pedagogy that creates regular opportunities for peer interaction, and a context-embedded curriculum to promote student interest and engagement, in order to create collaborative and inclusive learning spaces. 

Ongoing and Future Goals

  • Engage in research projects to explore the curriculum and pedagogical approaches that support senses of identity and belonging, especially among students from underrepresented and historically-marginalized groups 
  • Develop further open-educational resources, including modular active-learning activities and an OER textbook, for introductory chemistry 
  • Explore the implementation of specifications grading and mastery grading approaches in upper-level chemistry courses