The college's Teaching Academy is ready to kick off!
The new initiative engages our faculty in local, national, and international conversations about essential issues in higher education, develops teaching expertise across the disciplines and at all levels of learning, and recognizes and rewards exceptional teachers.
We are pleased to announce the four inaugural Teaching Academy fellows for Fall semester 2017: Wayne Babchuk, Deborah Minter, Leen-Kiat Soh, and Manda Williamson.
Babchuk, anthropology: He is currently working on several ongoing collaborative and interdisciplinary research projects across the departments of anthropology and sociology in our college and educational psychology in the College of Education and Human Sciences, which relate to teaching and mentoring. Read more.
Minter, English: The interests that drive her work as a college English teacher also drive her research. In the classroom as well as her research, she wants to join others in examining the relationships between reading, writing and agency. Read more.
Soh, computer science: The long-term vision for his research is to establish the fundamental framework for multiagent systems to intelligently support human users in collaborative learning and teamwork settings, and develop principled intelligent applications or systems to impact learning and teaching in education. Read more.
Williamson, psychology: She wants to demonstrate practices with colleagues that carry extensive empirical support in motivation research and training that she has received as a scientist. She wants to assist others in facilitating the expression of their own unique style of delivery and interaction with their students that reflects their personality. Read more.
“I’m excited to spend some time focusing on college students' development as writers in this 21st century context, given the proliferation of digital sites for writing and complicated pressures on course-taking,” Minter said. “I’m also interested in our campus commitment to diversity and inclusion that we hope engages students productively with a wide array of voices and ideas. I’m looking forward to studying students’ experiences on this campus and talking with colleagues locally and nationally about ways to infuse our curriculum with opportunities for writing that strengthen students’ abilities as writers.”
The academy recognizes exceptional teachers with three-year terms as fellows during which they will participate in and lead symposia on emerging campus and national issues related to undergraduate education, mentor developing teachers, and facilitate interactive teaching workshops. The college will use this initiative to promote innovative and informed teaching among the faculty by sponsoring travel to teaching conferences and creating opportunities for faculty to engage in conversations about teaching excellence.
