The 2023 Distinguished Teaching Award recipients are Dr. Sarah Copland (associate professor, English), Lee Makovichuk (assistant professor, Human Services and Early Learning) and Dr. John Valentine (associate professor, Allied Health and Human Performance). Distinguished Teaching Awards will be presented in June at the university’s Spring Convocation ceremonies.
Distinguished Teaching Awards
The Distinguished Teaching Award is presented to faculty who demonstrate outstanding teaching at MacEwan University.
Dr. Sarah Copland, Associate Professor, English
Dr. Sarah Copland joined MacEwan’s Department of English in 2012. Her primary teaching and research areas are modernist and contemporary literature, narrative theory and the short story. She is also working on two Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) projects: one on teaching gender-inclusive language in the first-year writing classroom, and one, with faculty collaborators, on structured flexibility in assessment.
As an educator, she encourages students to engage interpretively, ethically and affectively with narratives (novels, short stories, films, graphic narratives and more) so they can gain greater appreciation of complexity and develop clear, persuasive and nuanced responses to that complexity.
Lee Makovichuk, Assistant Professor, Human Services and Early Learning
Lee Makovichuk is passionate about fostering students’ sense of who they want to be in the lives of children as early childhood educators. Her areas of teaching and research focus on the relational aspect of early childhood curriculum and pedagogy that embraces diversity as an inherent attribute of all learners. As a faculty mentor at the university’s lab school, Early Learning at MacEwan, she is dedicated to supporting the educators’ understanding of themselves as co-researchers and innovators in the field of early learning.
Dr. John Valentine, Associate Professor, Allied Health and Human Performance
Dr. John Valentine began teaching at MacEwan in 1998, primarily in computer science before moving into physical education, where he chaired the Bachelor of Physical Education Transfer program for more than a decade. Currently an associate professor, he teaches courses in critical thinking, health, sport history and sociology. He also offers activity courses in soccer, swimming, triathlon and fitness. Dr. Valentine has been involved in inclusive education throughout his 30 years as a teacher. His research, which focuses on many aspects of sport, has been featured in popular media across the country.