Chris Whittaker along with his colleagues Liz Charles, Nathaniel Lasry & Michael Dugdale (John Abbott College), and Kevin Lenton (Vanier College) recently completed their PAREA-funded project that looks at using collective conceptual networks for learning. They have participated in a number of Ped Days across Québec, and gave a series of invited lectures and conference presentations. In June 2013 Chris was awarded the “Shifting Minds National Award” from the C21 Canada organization, the AQPC teaching award and in May of the same year he was also awarded Canadian Association of Physicists teaching award. In 2014, Liz Charles and Chris Whittaker, along with their colleagues from John Abbott and Vanier colleges, were awarded another PAREA grant. This project focusses on pedagogical ecosystems and novel approaches to active learning.

Check out Chris’ profile on the SALTISE website.

Contributions to Dawson’s Community

Chris is one of the organisers of the SALTISE conferences that have been hosted at Dawson College.

Publications

• Charles, E.S, Whittaker, C., Lasry, N., Dugdale, M., Lenton, K., Bhatnagar, S., Guillemette, J. ” Taking DALITE To the Next Level: What have we learned from a web-based peer instruction application.” Proceedings of the 11th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS 2014). International Society of the Learning Sciences: Boulder, CO.
• Charles, E.S., Whittaker, C., & Lasry, N. (2014). “Taking DALITE To the Next Level: What have we learned from a web-based Peer Instruction application”. Paper presented at 33rd annual AQPC symposium: Laval, QC.
• Charles, E., Whittaker, C., & Lasry, N. (2014). “Active Learning Classroom Use in College Level Physics: The impact of technology design and adaptive orchestration.” Symposium entitled: Space and Technologies for Learning in Schools, Museums and Workplaces: Recent Approaches in Design-Based Research. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA): Philadelphia, PA.
• Charles, E., Lasry, N., & Whittaker, C. (2014). “SALTISE: Bringing Pedagogical Innovations into the Physics Classroom”. Physics in Canada, La Physique au Canada, 70(2).
• Charles, E., Lasry, N., et Whittaker, C. (2013). “L’adoption d’environnements sociotechnologiques comme moteur de changement pédagogique.” Pédagogie Collégiale,
• Lasry, N., Charles, E., & Whittaker, C. (2014). “When teacher-centered instructors are assigned to student-centered classrooms.” Physical Review Special Topics-Physics Education Research, 10(1), 010116.
• Lasry, N., E. Charles, C Whittaker, H Dedic, S Rosenfield (2013). “Changing classroom designs: Easy; Changing instructors’ pedagogies: Not so easy.” AIP Conf. Proc. (1513), AIP Press, Melville NY.

Education

• MSc, Engineering Physics, Queen’s University
• MSW, University of Toronto
• BSc, Queen’s University