By: Cassie Hendry
For a professor who says he doesn’t know much about teaching and likes to stick to the “old school” style, Craig Bennell sure has a lot of grateful students.
That’s why, before he walked onstage to receive a teaching award in May, he was treated to snippets of the numerous nomination letters his students had submitted.
“I’m not a very touchy-feely guy, but it certainly is a sentimental time when you hear the letters being read out, those ones initiated by your students,” says Bennell.
Bennell, an associate professor of psychology at Carleton, was one of the 2013 Capital Educators’ Award winners. The awards are given to outstanding educators in Ottawa who are nominated by students or fellow faculty.
He says that his situation was unique. Instead of only undergraduate students submitting nominations, most of the letters came from his work supervising psychology graduate students.
“With grad students, you’re with them for so long. I have PhD students I’ve been with for six or seven years, so you do develop a personal relationship with them. It’s beyond a supervisor-student relationship, you really do want the best for them,” says Bennell.
When he’s not supervising his grad students, Bennell can be found working at Carleton’s Police Research Lab, where he’s the director, and as a professor teaching forensic psychology to undergrads.
The trick to getting—and keeping—students engaged is simple, he says.
“Knowledge and understanding of the area is key, but you need to deliver it in a fun, exciting, interesting way. That’s pretty much it, it doesn’t get much more technical than that,” he says.
Bennell says that the difficulty he faces is helping students relate to the course material. While he says forensic psychology attracts students more than other classes, most of his students haven’t experienced police interrogations or spent time in a federal penitentiary.
The solution? Bennell uses a mixture of personal stories and videos to get the point across. It seems to be working—he says he’s lucky to have students that are so enthusiastic about the subject, making it “not a lot of work.”
“The students I interact with are engaged, excited, knowledgeable, they want to learn. They’re smart and they’re hard workers, they take on a lot. I have a hard time keeping up with them.”
The nomination period for the 2014 Capital Educators’ Awards will open this month. Find out more.