David is an exceptional educator. His ability to explain complex material in a clear and engaging manner has made a significant impact on my learning. Whenever I needed help, he was always available—whether through office hours, emails, or extra study sessions. His dedication is evident in the way he encourages questions, provides constructive feedback, and fosters an environment where everyone feels comfortable participating. He genuinely cares about our success and motivates us to do our best, by offering additional resources, recommending study strategies, and adapting his teaching to meet individual needs. I am incredibly grateful for his guidance.
David has been teaching in the Chemistry and Geoscience department at Camosun for 11 years and was a recipient of a Teacher Recognition Award in 2025. “I was originally a student in the Applied Chemistry and Biotechnology program and had just completed my graduate work at the University of Victoria when a teaching opportunity came up at Camosun. I have really enjoyed my experience teaching here, along with the sense of collegiality and community.” David teaches a variety of courses at the college. “I tend to teach more of the biochemistry-related courses in the chemistry department and was originally brought in to teach the molecular biotechnology course. For the past few years I have mainly taught biochemistry, a sports nutrition course for the kinesiology and athletic therapy programs, and some of the introductory chemistry courses.”
I wondered how David came to teaching, and if it was as meandering a route as other faculty members have had. His path to teach was no different. “I had some ambitions to be a research scientist while in graduate school, but even as an undergrad, I always seemed to end up in tutoring roles. I initially came to university as a mature student, starting out in the humanities and philosophy, and by the time I finally got into chemistry and biochemistry, I was nearly 30 years old. And while that path probably had more to do with my own curiosity than with wanting a career in teaching, in retrospect it’s obvious that for most of my life I’ve enjoyed sharing information with other people. I feel very lucky that I found a way to be employed doing it.”
Knowing now that teaching has been a life-long interest for David, I asked what he enjoyed most about it. “I can’t boil it down to a single thing, but a big part of it is like unraveling a puzzle, trying to find ways to convey concepts that are comprehensible and memorable for everyone in the class. Students can be very expressive in the moment and you can tell whether or not something is clicking for them. I often use the analogy of how evolving your teaching methods is a little bit like how standup comedians workshop their delivery in small clubs, trying out different phrasings and timings, until they finally get to the perfect form of a joke. To this day I can still be surprised, having tried conveying an idea ten different ways, and suddenly it’s the 11th version that just clicks. Although I have prepared lecture notes, they’re usually just outlines, and I always leave some room for myself to discover new ways of delivery.” David enjoys it when he can deliver content that might not always be immediately interesting to students in a way that makes it meaningful and creative. “There’s something magical that happens when you’re really connecting with students. You can feel it. There’s something extraordinary and human about it that is motivating and enjoyable for me.”
I was curious what a typical class might look like for David. “I try to create a relatively informal atmosphere. I like students to feel relaxed and to look forward to class time. Let’s be honest – it’s chemistry, which is not what everybody would consider the most enjoyable material – particularly for a three hour night lecture.” But there are some strategies David uses to make things more engaging. “Humour is a big part of my classroom, even silly dad jokes to keep things light. Peppering humour through the class makes a big difference when you’re teaching dry material. Another thing that I do intentionally is to try to incorporate narrative, anthropomorphism, and analogy where I can. Organizing the information into a story with familiar elements from daily living can make the information both coherent and sticky. Sometimes this is limited to using stories to illustrate bite-sized concepts, but I aspire to make each lecture or lecture topic, and eventually the whole course, an overarching story. When I’m thinking about how to present the learning outcome topics, instead of just conveying information in unrelated abstract chunks, I’ll consider how to sequence them into a logical flow from one topic into another so that when the student is studying for the final exam, they could tell someone else a coherent story of what they learned in that course and why it mattered. Because if they can tell that story, it’s not just a bunch of random ideas they will forget as soon as they’ve written the final exam. Within a narrative architecture, that information can stay with them for the rest of their life, because it has a context of wider meaning.” While some content can be difficult to tie together in this way, David described a positive feedback loop in which the more he can invest time to create these narratives, the more enjoyable it seems to be for students, and the more enjoyable it becomes for him to teach. And the more connected the stories are to each other, the more the course content will stick for students.
I wondered if David could share an example of how he uses analogy and storytelling in his courses. “In the fitness nutrition course I teach, because nutrition is relevant to all human beings, illustrative and relatable stories are easy to come by, like the benefits and side effects for an athlete taking a given supplement. It gets trickier in the pure chemistry courses, which are much more abstract. Let’s say we’re looking at the structure of the periodic table. I can introduce small bits of history to show how its organization evolved the way it did, why some things were discovered early or much later, where elements get their names and symbols, etc. Those little colourful details anchor the abstractions into something concrete and relatable. Another technique I have found particularly effective is to scaffold into more abstract concepts, say the roles of different forces in the structure of the atom, by getting students to imagine what it would feel like to be the atom or electron. That creates a multisensory, embodied way for them to connect with the abstract theoretical concept. The more senses you can incorporate, the more memorable and understandable the concept will be. Once we have that point of reference, we can kick the scaffolding away and can start to discuss the concept using the correct technical terms. You have to be careful, though – there is such a thing as too memorable an analogy, which can oversimplify the actual idea in an unhelpful way, but that doesn’t happen that often.”
I asked David if he could also share any memories from his many years of teaching. “One of the more impactful experiences I had was with a neurodivergent student who was struggling in the course, with one particular topic not connecting for them at all. After one of the lectures, the student shared with me the approach they would take to solving this assigned problem, which was nothing like the strategy I had shared. I had been teaching for seven or eight years at this point, but what they explained to me was so novel and brilliant – I had never encountered it anywhere. It was an epiphany for me about neurodiversity and what a unique or distinct perspective can bring. I learned so much from that interaction about what students can offer you as an instructor if you’re willing to be open and listen, that can make you reconsider how you think and communicate.” Also meaningful for David are when students let him know about the impact the course had on them. “Every once in a while a student will tell me they started off really disliking the discipline, and now they’re switching to make it their major. That’s pretty special. I had a few instructors like that, too, who altered my trajectory in a meaningful way. Of course not everyone will connect with a course to that degree, but I still want to put enough into my teaching for students to feel like their success matters to me. I remember how supported I felt whenever an instructor did that for me.”
Finally, I asked Dave if he had any advice to offer new instructors coming to teach at the college. “I would say to appreciate the extraordinary degree of support that is available to them from the entire Camosun network and to plug into that within their department, within CETL, within the CCFA, and even in other departments. That support network helps us, as instructors, to in turn support our students and allows us to become our best much more quickly. What I love about Camosun is the organic human connection which I see here probably more than in any other organization I’ve been a part of. Camosun understands the significance of heart and the connection with the students, which makes all the difference.”