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2016-2017 Department of History Graduate Instructor Teaching Award received for this class on June 5, 2017.

Winter 2017 Syllabus

Anonymous student review #294728:

Erin Spinney is one of my favourite instructors I’ve had in my three years at the U of S. She is incredibly engaging, her interest in the subject shows, she creates an open and safe atmosphere so that students feel comfortable participating in class discussion, and uses humour appropriately to engage students and have fun in lectures! Erin is incredibly organized and helpful. She is always prepared for lectures, with additional material to supplement the powerpoints to help us understand the topics discussed in whole. She provides all content and material we will need to help us succeed in the class, and is always more than happy to help. She responds quickly to emails, which I find to be a rarity with instructors. Not only does she respond quickly, but is also very helpful in her response.It is clear that she loves the subject she is teaching, and hopes to pass that along to her students. It is also clear that she wants her students to succeed, as she is ready to help to make that happen. This class was challenging, engaging, fun and interesting and I attribute that to Erin. This was the first history class I’ve taken in university, and I am so glad I did! Erin was a great instructor, who I hope other students have the chance to have!

Anonymous student review #297393:

Erin is, as always, a fantastic instructor. Her classes are clearly structured, interesting, and well-contextualized; she takes care to explain things without being asked. Her love of the subject is obvious and she inspires students to want to learn more about the topic. I feel comfortable approaching Erin outside of class with questions, and she always makes sure to reply to emails in a timely manner. When questioned (about course topics or assignments), Erin’s answers are consistently detailed and relevant. Her assignments are explained extremely well and are given well in advance of the deadlines, and her feedback is clear and useful for future assignments.To date, Erin is the best instructor I’ve had; while I feel challenged in her classes, the pace and academic expectations during the course are at a comfortable level. Erin is incredibly supportive and kind, and as a stressed student I appreciate her genuine interest in the wellbeing of her class. She is routinely friendly but professional in her approach. I can’t praise her enough; learning from Erin has been a fantastic opportunity which I am very grateful to have had.

Fall 2015  Syllabus

Anonymous student review #240903:

Erin Spinney was by far one of the best instructors I have ever had. She will make a wonderful professor one day. She encouraged everyone to participate and held three formal class discussions where everyone was graded for their input and for the submission of a short written assignment, which helped facilitate my learning. Erin always had a smile on her face and you could tell that she was very excited to speak on each of the topics covered. She worked hard to make the topics easy to understand and even composed a timeline of all of the major events that we covered in the course, which was the first time that any professor has done that for me. It helped so much with understanding when and why certain things occurred in history. Erin’s lectures were so very well organized and they included music selections, movies, and short films on the topics, which was certainly helpful for me because I benefit from visual learning. I am always shocked at how hard lecturers that do not yet have their PhDs work. Erin Spinney is certainly one of these people. She made this material fun and she converted me to being an early modern history lover. She was phenomenal!1

Summer 2015 Syllabus

Anonymous student review #221001:

Erin, I found your teaching style to be very effective. You outlined clear learning outcomes for each class and made your expectations for course work clear. You were accessible outside of class, and demonstrated a genuine interest in helping us succeed through reviewing writing and exam strategies as well as providing comprehensive outlines for the midterm and final. Assessment of assignments was fair and meaningful and the rubric used was easy to understand.If I were to offer one area to improve upon it is in the 3 class discussions. Although I did quite well in terms of marks, I think that incorporating a written response element or facilitating more a seminar like discussion would be helpful to get away from us each just providing one or two token responses to get the grade.Overall I was very impressed with the class and with you as an instructor. Thanks for the learning experience and good luck in your future endeavours!

Note:

Evaluation responses were collected using the SEEQ Course Evaluation tool of the University of Saskatchewan.