'The best learning happens when you're genuinely engaged, curious and having a little fun': Meet Professor Agata Guskaroska

Guskaroska (ISTEP) brings expertise at the intersection of technology and communication grounded in a second language learning approach

Professor Agata Guskaroska recently joined the University of Toronto's Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education and Practice (ISTEP). In her role as assistant professor, teaching stream, she will support ISTEP's teaching in engineering communication as a faculty member of the Engineering Communication Program (ECP).

Prior to joining U of T, she taught English as a second language to musicians in her home country North Macedonia. She later moved to the USA as a Fulbright scholar where she completed her MA and PhD in applied linguistics. She is the author of two Open Educational Resources (OERs) -- Teaching Pronunciation with Confidence (2024) and Oral Communication for Non-Native Speakers of English (2025) -- that have reached over 120,000 users worldwide.

Can you tell us a bit about your academic background and what brought you to U of T Engineering?

My journey to U of T Engineering started with a question I've been exploring throughout my career: how can we help students communicate and learn more effectively? I started my career teaching English to young musicians, and that experience sparked my interest in how people use language for specific purposes and professional contexts, and how technology can support that learning.

Since then, I've worked with learners and professionals at many different stages and settings, including teaching Global Online Courses and Massive Open Online Courses for teachers around the world. I also worked closely with engineering graduate students during my postdoc at Iowa State, where I designed the English Communication Practice program, which helped primarily multilingual engineering students strengthen their oral communication through personalized pathways.

What brought me to U of T is the opportunity to bring these different strands of my work together: language development, engineering communication, accessible online learning and innovative program design. Seeing that U of T Engineering has a dedicated home for transdisciplinary learning in ISTEP made it feel like exactly where I belong.

Can you share your approach to teaching?

My approach is grounded in second language learning and professional communication theories, but I also draw from my own experience as a language learner.

I believe in student-centered, reflective practice, so I guide students to set their own goals and reflect on their work first before I share my own feedback. With the appropriate guidance, students can identify their own areas for growth, which is a skill in itself that lays the foundation for lifelong learning.

I'm also passionate about personalizing learning pathways for professional language development by combining human-centered mentoring with AI and OERs. Engineering students' time is limited, and so my goal is to give them targeted support and the tools for self-directed growth to build confidence in oral and written communication.

What excites you most about joining ISTEP?

I'm fascinated by ISTEP's holistic, transdisciplinary approach to engineering education.

As an undergraduate and graduate student, I was always seeking out opportunities to develop these kinds of skills, and I know firsthand that they aren't always easy to access. Engineering students are already remarkable problem-solvers, capable of tackling deeply technical challenges, but those solutions need to be communicated clearly and understood by teams and leaders.

ISTEP integrates this kind of support directly into the curriculum while also offering co-curricular programs and on-demand resources to help students grow. I haven't seen another program quite like it, and I'm honored to bring my own ideas into this work.

What do you hope students will take away from your classes?

I want students to leave with visible growth in their confidence and communication skills and -- even more importantly -- the ability to keep growing on their own.

There will always be new scenarios and problems they haven't encountered before, and my goal is to make sure they have the tools and strategies to navigate whatever comes next.

What is your goal as an educator in the next few years?

Building on my experience writing OERs, my main goal is to develop a new model that gives students the opportunity to really personalize their learning to focus specifically on what they need most.

This new OER will combine human mentorship and AI to model the kind of workplace engineers find themselves in today. I am also excited to continue exploring how tools like AI can give students, especially multilingual students, more opportunities to practice oral communication.

What is something people would be surprised to learn about you?

I have a pretty wide range of interests! I love hiking, painting, running, crafting and being outdoors, but I can also happily spend an evening playing Mario Kart or board games.

I think what connects these interests is that I really enjoy socializing with people, trying new things, and getting absorbed in an activity. That's also a quality I bring into my teaching.

I want students to enjoy learning and to feel comfortable experimenting and trying new things. I'm always happy to try a different approach if it helps make an idea memorable. For example, I often use a kazoo to talk about vocal delivery. I think some of the best learning happens when you're genuinely engaged, curious and having a little fun along the way.