Teaching Scholars: Blaney, Himmelheber, Huh, Lowery, Medland, Saxton-Ruiz

The Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (CATL) congratulates the 2012-2013 Teaching Scholars!  Co-directors of the program, Profs. Angie Bauer and David Voelker, have announced their selections for this year. Each scholar will investigate a teaching issue and present their findings to the campus.

The participants and a brief summary of their projects:

• Dallas Blaney, assistant professor of Public and Environmental Affairs, plans to develop assessment methods that are ongoing, reflexive, and adapt to students’ needs as they study developing-country issues;


• Sarah Himmelheber, a new assistant professor of Social Work, will investigate the impact of service learning project structure on student learning. She will also seek to determine how project structure affects the formation and strengthening of community relationships;


• Yunsun Huh, assistant professor of Democracy and Justice Studies and Economics, will develop and assess methods to increase students’ engagement and decrease their anxiety in math-oriented classes such as Microeconomics;


• Vince Lowery, assistant professor of Humanistic Studies and History, plans to develop and assess strategies for teaching students to think historically in Introduction to African American Studies (History 207);


• Vicki Medland, associate director of the Cofrin Arboretum and an adjunct faculty member in Natural and Applied Sciences, intends to develop novel structures for stimulating meaningful online asynchronous discussions among students;


• Gabriel Saxton-Ruiz, assistant professor of Humanistic Studies and Spanish, plans to develop and assess methods for creating a student-centered classroom in survey courses (specifically, Spanish 258 — Cultures of America).