By Jeremy Craig, Communications Manager for the Office of the Provost

The Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning & Online Education (CETLOE) has awarded faculty for outstanding teaching in signature experience courses, and awarded grants and mini-grants to continue the development of innovative and impactful teaching practices.

Experiential Learning

For well over a decade, experiential learning has been key to the university’s strategic vision of undergraduate education and student success. Now, Georgia State seeks to expand opportunities under its new Blueprint to 2033 strategic plan.

Signature experiences allow students to apply class content to a real-world sustained experience that they do not typically encounter in the standard classroom. Students create a final project or presentation reflecting on their experiences and the learning they have achieved.

Signature Experience Teaching Award

Misty Bentz, Professor of Physics & Astronomy in the College of Arts & Sciences, earned the Signature Experience Teaching Award for delivering outstanding experiential learning courses for undergraduate students.

Dr. Bentz’s work involves hands-on exercises/projects that aim to increase content knowledge, promote critical thinking, and apply concepts to problems.

She has developed and taught the “Gateway to Physics” course, a signature experience course that is taught as a freshman undergraduate major course that is also cross-listed at the graduate level.

She additionally has developed and taught “Astronomical Techniques and Instrumentation,” a signature experience senior undergraduate major course that is also cross-listed at the graduate level.

Signature Experience Course Development Grant

Caroline Sullivan, Clinical Professor of Middle & Secondary Education in the College of Education & Human Development, has earned a Signature Experience Course Grant to develop a new field-based course for students in teaching programs, “USA in Focus: Civil Rights Then and Now – Southeastern Region.”

Signature Experience Course Development Grants support faculty in developing a new experiential learning course or enhancing an existing course to add experiential learning.

The grant supports faculty efforts to develop or adapt professional, hands-on, innovative course experiences that address aims such as increasing knowledge and retention, promoting critical thinking and concept application and developing career-ready skills.

CETLOE Mini-Grant Recipients

CETLOE has also awarded mini-grants to faculty to support new teaching projects or expand on current projects. Applicants must show a strong commitment to teaching, with projects falling into five key areas critical to undergraduate education at Georgia State.

General Pedagogy and Teaching Practices Awardees

• Idan Ginsburg and Mehmet Fatih Tasar, Physics & Astronomy, College of Arts & Sciences
• Jewels Morgan, Life & Earth Sciences, Perimeter College
• Deepa Muralidhar and Abu Thomas, Mathematics, Perimeter College
• Karen Nielsen, Population Health Science, School of Public Health
• Erica Tracey and Sarah Clark, Neuroscience Institute, College of Arts & Sciences

High-Impact Practices (HIPs) and Experiential Learning Awardees

• Booker Edwards, Creative Media Industries Institute, College of Arts & Sciences
• Karen Johnston and Stacie Kershner, Center for the Comparative Study of Metropolitan Growth and Center for Law, Health & Society, College of Law
• Joan Mutanyatta-Comar and Elina Stroeva, Chemistry, College of Arts & Sciences
• Jennifer Siegler, Art History, College of the Arts

Identity, Place-Making and Belonging Awardees

• Benjamin DuPriest, School of Music, College of the Arts
• Neill Prewitt, Welch School of Art & Design, College of the Arts

College to Career Awardees

• Amy Cook and Kimberly Grimes, Physical Sciences, Perimeter College
• Lynee Gaillet, English, College of Arts & Sciences
• Zachary Saylor, Institute for Biomedical Sciences
• Renee Schatteman, Melissa McLeod, and Michelle Zoss, English, College of Arts & Sciences, and Middle and Secondary Education, College of Education & Human Development
• Kristie Seelman, Social Work, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
• Veda Storey, Computer Information Systems, J. Mack Robinson College of Business
• Jonathan Sylvester, Biology, College of Arts & Sciences
• Feng Yang, Kinesiology & Health, College of Education & Human Development

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Awardees

• Omer Ari, Middle & Secondary Education, College of Education & Human Development
• Xiaolu Liu, Kinesiology & Health, College of Education & Human Development
• Christine Patrum, Life & Earth Sciences, Perimeter College

CETLOE is a division of the Office of Academic Affairs, a unit reporting to the Office of the Provost.

To learn more about CETLOE’s award and grant programs, click here.