FACET is pleased to announce the winners for the 2nd Annual Academy Awards on Excellence in Teaching!
Finalists for the category of “Learning how to Learn” (winner identified below):
Miranda Yaggi -- Winner. Miranda is a lecturer of business communication at IU Bloomington. She was nominated for her class activity, “Sticky Revision Workshop,” which challenges student teams to apply a rigorous, systematic approach to their ongoing writing process, encompassing continual brainstorming, drafting, and revision. In the workshop students engage each other in debate and discussion capturing ideas on sticky notes and coming to consensus on a well-structured logical argument.
Suzanne Menzel. Suzanne is a lecturer in computer science at IU Bloomington. She was nominated for her class activity, “Say My Name,” which is about overcoming stereotype threat. Students learn about stereotype threat and receive several examples. They leverage their lived experiences to write coping strategies so as to inoculate themselves against performance-dampening effects of stereotype threat.
Finalists for the category of “Intensive Writing” (winner identified below):
Rhonda Wrzenski -- Winner. Rhonda is an associate professor of political science at IU Southeast. She was nominated for her assignment, “Predicting a Toss-Up Congressional Election in the Classroom,” which asks student teams to use to select a competitive Congressional race to follow over the course of the semester. Students submit mini reports on different facets of their race at five different points in the semester, including an election-day prediction. The students then integrate their mini reports into a final report.
Kathy L. Ritchie. Kathy is an associate professor of psychology at IU South Bend. She was nominated for her assignment, “The Self-Reflective Writing Assignment,” which helps students become independent learners as they develop not just writing skills, but how to effectively use guidance in the form of instructor comments. The assignment essentially leads to a written “dialogue” between the instructor and the students concerning their writing.
Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick. Julie is an associate professor of women’s studies at IUPUC. She was nominated for her five assignment sequence, “Reflection, Analysis, Assessment, and Synthesis: Student Investment and Writing across the Course,” which culminates in a synthesis of four scaffolding papers. The sequence provides students with lower stakes opportunities to learn the thinking and writing skills needed for a successful seminar paper.
Finalists for the category of “Collaborative Activities” (winner identified below):
Lisa Russell -- Winner. Lisa is an Assistant Professor of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship at IUS. She was nominated for her activity “The Final Countdown: A Design for Helping Students Implement Business Strategies,” which leverages students’ thinking skills—comprehension, synthesis, and evaluation—to improve students’ overall understanding of functional responsibilities and functional implications when a company pursues a new strategy. The exercise uses groups of 3-5 students to act as Top Management Teams of a company and use 30 minutes to discuss scenarios, implications, and implementation tasks for functional areas. This exercise allows students to incorporate pre-existing knowledge of business while experiencing the way top managers integrate multiple functional area responsibilities into a cohesive overall strategic decision-making process.
Jeanne Johnston. Jeanne is a Clinical Associate Professor at the School of Public Health at IUB. She was nominated for her activity “Interactive Cancer Case Studies,” which encourages students to use case based learning to practice effective communication, assessment, and program development in a diseased population. The students work in pairs and play both the role of trainer and client and this provides them with the opportunity to practice their interview skills, test their knowledge, receive feedback, and personally reflect on their performance.
Christopher Young and Joseph Ferrandino. Both at IUN, Christopher is an Associate Professor of History and Joseph Ferrandino is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice. They were nominated for their activity, “Using GIS to Engage with and Learn History,” which helps students learn American History within the context of geography through a series of projects. These projects are designed to make learning collaborative, participatory, flexible, innovative, and visual to allow history to come alive for students through mapping. Using GIS in history courses was an approach adopted so students could “see” the history they were reading and where it occurred in the context of geography and topography.
Finalists for the category of “Creative Uses of Online Tools” (winner identified below):
Sridhar Ramachandran -- Winner. Sridhar is an associate professor of informatics at IU Southeast. He was nominated for the activity, “Google Maps for student empowerment,” which asks first year students to develop a google map/database of alumni that they share with junior and senior students. First year students gain perspective on the field and the potential it offers for careers in a personally relevant activity that connects them with the program’s juniors and seniors creating a feeling of community and belonging.
Christian Rogers. Christian is an assistant professor of computer graphics technology at IUPUI. He was nominated for his activity, “EASEL: An App to Support Reflection and Content in Real Time,” which uses a mobile app to help students engage in metacognitive activity in real time. The app allows an instructor to assign reflection questions, review content, assign photo and video tasks, or have students check in to a location. Tasks can be released at a certain location or a certain time or to particular students.
Tara Kingsley. Tara is an assistant professor of education at IU Kokomo. She was nominated for the activity, “Classroom Gamification,” which prompts students to become lesson planning ninjas. In this game, students complete quests, or activities, which are challenges performed to engage in course content. Badges, achievements, and rewards signify rank and provide feedback to students to document their progress. Students level up as they master content, ultimately achieving a lesson plan they can be proud of.
Finalists for the category of “Community Engagement” (winner identified below):
Angela Coppola -- Winner. Angela is an Assistant Professor of Health Sciences and Co-Director of the Applied and Community Research Center at IUK. She was nominated for her activity ”Informing Outreach Methods for the Howard County Health Department’s Overdose Rescue Kit Program,” which involved students in sharing a report for recommendations to improve outreach methods. This project was used as a service-learning approach to provide students with experience in the role that Certified Health Education Specialists would play in improving health programs. The goal was to foster civic engagement through a professional and personally meaningful learning experience. Lastly, this service-learning activity was an opportunity for students to serve the HCHD and play a role in addressing the opioid epidemic in Howard County and Indiana.
Erin Doss. Erin is an Assistant Professor of Communication Arts at IUK. She was nominated for her activity “Social Media Campaigns Service Learning Project,” which engaged students with hands-on experience with social media campaigns. Her motivation for using this activity was to give students the understanding of how to deal with challenges as they arise and wanted students to create and implement a campaign they could become invested in and could discuss in future job interviews. She also used this project to involve the community, especially with small businesses who struggle to create or maintain a strong online presence.
Jared Allsop. Jared is a Lecturer of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Studies at IUB. He was nominated for his activity “IU and Me,” which is a community engagement program that allows for direct interactions between IU students and individuals with disabilities. “IU and Me” Allows IU’s Recreational Therapy students to directly interact with individuals with disabilities in the community and allows them to conduct assessments, develop treatment goals/objectives for real clients, provide meaningful therapeutic programming, and participate in clinical documentation. “IU and Me” has partnered with StoneBelt, a local agency that works with adults with cognitive, developmental, and physical disabilities, to give their clients free RT programming and interaction with 45 energetic IU students.
The finalists from each category shared compelling multi-media presentations about their projects – these presentations remain available.
Watch the finalists’ presentations here
Thank you to everyone who submitted a nomination, to our finalists for creating multi-media presentations, to Natalia Rybas, and to everyone who made the 2nd Annual Academy Awards such a success! Congratulations to our winners!
Be on the look-out for the Call for Nominations for the 3rd Annual FACET Academy Awards!