A teacher so good, his students don’t mind statistics

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This article was published 27/11/2023 (845 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hanging on the wall of associate professor Nicholas Watier’s office at Brandon University, is a framed award and reminder that what he does in class is appreciated by his students and respected by his colleagues.

Watier, in the department of psychology, is BU’s 2023 recipient of the Senate Award for Excellence in Teaching, which recognizes an instructor’s ability to engage and motivate students while showing educational leadership and mentorship and upholding educational standards.

When asked, Watier will say the recognition is appreciated, but his goal is to show students how to be the best they can be.

“I want to have fun, right? Because to me, my undergrad was an eye-opening experience. It gave me confidence in myself, and I want to give students that same opportunity to get them to recognize that there’s something within them they didn’t know they had that’s capable of being transformative, that’s capable of changing how they view themselves in their environment.

“So, I wanted to give them that opportunity to do that and to have fun. If you’re having fun in the classroom, it doesn’t actually feel like work,” Watier said.

Growing up in Ontario, Watier took his undergraduate degree at Laurentian University in Sudbury and his doctorate at the University of Ottawa.

“In my first year at Laurentian, like most first year courses, the class sizes were one to 200 students, and it was mostly just memorizing a textbook, it wasn’t really great.

“But in the second year, I took a class in perception, and I also took a stats class, and I thought I was going to do horrible in it because math wasn’t my strong suit, but I applied myself for the first time in my educational career, and I had really good professors who designed the courses so that if you put in the work, you will succeed. And I guess that’s what I needed and is how I got interested in psychology,” Watier said.

Going to one of Watier’s classes is like getting to see the next episode of your favorite TV show, said Julie Van Den Bussche, who has taken three psychology statistics and research courses with Watier, as well as his perception course.

“He would regularly ask us challenging questions about our thoughts and opinions on different concepts of perception and include students in his demonstrations,” Van Den Bussche said. “He wasn’t just lecturing one topic after another; he was having a conversation about each topic with us as a class.

“Making statistics exciting is quite an achievement, and Dr. Watier is very patient. Students enter with a range of mathematical abilities and backgrounds, and he recognizes this, and meets each student at their level and builds their understanding,” said Ven Den Bussche.

Ben Garrett Pilling graduated from BU last June, and said he had the privilege of taking courses from Watier for four years, and because he liked his style and personality, Pilling actively looked and signed up for classes Watier was teaching.

“I loved psychology going into university but through the COVID-19 pandemic, and course work and years of studying I started to lose that feeling a bit, but doing my undergraduate thesis with him really sparked that interest again,” said Pilling.

“I had planned to drop out of the thesis portion of my degree but reconsidered it when I had the opportunity to do it with Dr. Watier and I am so thankful I did as I am now applying to master’s in psychology with hopes of getting in and continuing to do research in the field.

He guided me through the process but not helping too much, where it felt like it wasn’t my project any more,” Pilling said.

This is Watier’s second award for excellence in teaching at BU. He won the student-nominated Alumni Association Award in 2017. But this recognition comes from his colleagues, specifically Nancy Newall, associate professor in the department of psychology, who was behind the nomination.

“Nick teaches courses that students typically do not like — statistics. Yet, I know of a lot of students who take every course that Nick teaches, no matter what it is,” Newall said.

“He talks about creating challenges or resistance that students can overcome to discover their own insights. So, rather than being spoon-fed concepts, students come to an understanding of concepts for themselves. This means that they are not just memorizing concepts but learning how to learn,” said Newall.

Now in his ninth year of teaching at BU, Watier said he is, “Super grateful”, for his position, and added, there’s a sense of community at the university, “It’s a great feeling to be part of a group where everybody wants everyone else to succeed.”

“Academics wasn’t really something that I thought I would excel in,” said Watier. “The thought that I would be teaching a stats class, would have been completely foreign to me as an undergraduate student.

“If you were to tell me as an undergraduate student, that I would eventually be a professor and teaching statistics, you may as well have told me that I will be on Mars, it would have been so outside the realm of possibility.

“So, to be recognized for it, means a lot, it is pretty remarkable.”

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

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