CTEL Awards Teaching Excellence Grants

05/06/2016 3:00 PM

Bradley’s Center for Teaching Excellence and Learning awarded 14 Teaching Excellence grants to enhance faculty innovation in the classroom.

Four TE: Innovative Teaching grants were awarded. TE: Innovative Teaching grants are intended to promote best practices in higher education, enhance student learning experiences, and integrate new pedagogies and/or technologies into teaching practices. 

• Sarah Glover, associate professor of art history, received $3,300 for a course improvement project titled “Implementing ‘Reacting to the Past’ Pedagogy.” Glover’s grant will allow her to integrate a highly successful immersive game-based pedagogy called Reacting to the Past into two courses that she teaches —Survey of Art History II and American Art. Glover will use the Reacting to the Past pedagogy to engage her students in taking on the roles of individuals living in historical conditions as they deal with historic events and resolve problems related to the course content.

• Yasser Khodair, associate professor of engineering, received $3,500 for his project titled “Redesigning CE 250: Mechanics II.” Khodair’s grant will support his development of new instructional materials to substantially revise CE 250, one of the core courses required for civil engineering and mechanical engineering majors. Course improvements will include adoption of a new course textbook, creation of new PowerPoint presentations and production of three-dimensional animations and videos.

• Andrea Scholl, assistant professor of nursing, received $4,992 for a course improvement project titled “Substantial Revision of NUR 203: Fundamentals of Nursing Practicum.” Scholl’s grant will allow her to redesign the NUR 203 course delivery to incorporate more student-faculty collaboration, experiential learning activities, simulations and video-recorded skill performances.

• Wendy Schweigert, associate professor of psychology, received $3,500 for a course improvement project titled “Flipping PSY 250: Environmental Psychology.” Dr. Schweigert’s grant will allow her to design several learning modules that students will complete at their own pace outside of class as well as to develop demonstrations, hands-on activities, discussions, presentations and mini-experiments that students will complete during class time.

Ten TE: Conference/Workshop grants were awarded. TE: Conference/Workshop grants are intended to partially cover expenses related to attending a state, regional, national, or international professional conference or workshop to receive professional development and to present or perform scholarly or creative activities.

• Sarah Glover received $975 to attend Barnard College’s 16^th Annual Faculty Institute in New York City to learn how to implement Reacting to the Past Pedagogy. Glover will use this immersive game-based pedagogy to improve Survey of Art History II and American Art.

• Tanya Marcum, associate professor of business, received $1,000 to present a paper titled “Boiling Mad Consumers Over Boilerplate Language: Disparagement Clauses in On-Line Sales Agreements” at the Academy of Legal Studies in Business Annual Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico in August 2016. Marcum’s presentation will discuss the pending Consumer Review Freedom Act, including the statute itself, related legal cases, and potential outcomes. Her attendance at the conference will enhance her teaching of Legal Environment of Business, Law of Business and Law and the Entrepreneur.

• Sandra Perry, professor of business, received $1,000 to present a paper titled “Unmasking the Anonymous Online Speaker: Balancing Free Speech and Defamation” at the Academy of Legal Studies in Business Annual Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico in August 2016. Perry’s presentation will discuss free speech and defamatory speech in light of two leading cases and various federal and state court opinions that have followed. Her attendance at the conference will enhance her teaching of Legal Environment of Business and Employment Law.

• John Williams, professor of history, received $750 to attend a 10-day workshop titled “The Protestant Reformation: Resistance and Renewal from 1517 to the Present” in Berlin, Germany during June and July 2016. During the workshop, Williams will serve as a commentator on several topics and tour a variety of historical sites. His participation in the workshop will enhance his teaching of CIV courses as well as Renaissance and Reformation.

Six Bradley faculty received $480-$1,000 each to present a session titled “Writing Intensive Courses: How One University Developed Multi-disciplinary, Cross-campus approaches to Teaching Writing” at the 14^th Annual International Writing Across the Curriculum Conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan in June 2016:

• Fran Armmer, associate professor of nursing
• Cecile Arquette, associate professor of teacher education
  
• Tricia Dahlquist, lecturer of English
  
• Michelle Edgecomb Friday, tenured lecturer of biology
  
• Seth Katz, associate professor of English Aurea Toxqui-Garay, associate professor of history

Their presentation will describe Bradley’s 2015 Writing Intensive Course Workshop from the perspective of the faculty who led the workshop as well as those who participated as learners. Attendance at the conference will enable them to learn more about writing, writing instruction and best instructional practices for use in courses.