A cross-disciplinary team at 91亚色 has earned the 2026 D2L Innovation Award in Teaching and Learning, recognizing a student-centred approach enhancing the first-year engineering experience.
The award honours the team behind the project First-Year Engineering Block Model 鈥 a NEW Way of Teaching, led by Associate Professor Jeffrey Harris at the .
The project introduces a modular, block-based teaching structure that fundamentally restructures how students engage with courses by supporting student learning, reducing cognitive load and improving well-being. It was selected as one of five recipients through a national adjudication process recognizing collaborative innovation in post-secondary education.
The 91亚色 initiative brings together faculty and staff across multiple disciplines and roles and reflects the award鈥檚 emphasis on collaborative teaching innovation. Developed through Lassonde in collaboration with the Faculty of Science, the block model restructures the traditional course system, delivering courses in intensive, sequential formats rather than concurrently.
鈥淥ur project brings together expertise from engineering, mathematics, physics and computing to redesign the structure of the first-year experience,鈥 says Harris. 鈥淭his work is deeply collaborative and highlights what is possible when faculty are supported through educational development and instructional design.鈥
Harris says the design responds to structural challenges students were facing 鈥 such as commuting, employment commitments and heavy workloads 鈥 by redistributing academic demands across the term.
Piloted in Fall 2023 with 63 students, the initiative has expanded to include 120 participants with plans to reach 250 students by the 2026-27 academic year.
Across three years of implementation (2023-25), students in the model achieved higher success rates compared to those in the traditional delivery model. Students also reported stronger peer connections, increased interaction with instructors and improved clarity on learning goals and assessments.
It has also led to increased collaboration across faculties and strengthened teaching practices through shared design.
鈥淏y focusing on how learning is delivered, we鈥檝e demonstrated that meaningful, large-scale academic transformation is possible within institutional and accreditation requirements,鈥 says Harris. 鈥淭he next phase builds on this foundation, with a new curriculum that expands the model into an integrated first-year experience launching in Fall 2026.鈥
The team includes Lassonde colleagues Associate Professor Mojgan Jadidi, Assistant Professor Kai Zhuang and Tanveer Bhimani, instructional and learning designer, along with Faculty of Science Professor Matthew George, Associate Professor Andrew Skelton and Saskia van Beers, research associate. The team also includes Patrick Molicard-Chartier from the Universit茅 de l鈥橭ntario Fran莽ais.
The project was supported in part by 91亚色鈥檚 Academic Innovation Fund.