UNM’s Center for Teaching Excellence recently named nine UNM faculty members as Teaching Fellows for the 2014-15 academic year. Recipients include Patricia Covarrubias (Communication and Journalism), Cristyn Elder (English), David Gutzler (Earth and Planetary Sciences), Meeko Oishi (Electrical Engineering), Aliza Organick (Law School), James Patrick Selig (Educational Psychology), Van Roper (Nursing), Naomi Shin (Spanish and Portuguese Linguistics) and Sarita Cargas (Honors).
The newly appointed fellows will have a number of responsibilities on campus and in the classroom. Fellows will investigate carefully-defined teaching challenges by examining the latest research on teaching and learning in their respective disciplines, and will also be responsible for creating innovation in teaching and evaluating evidence of student learning with their methods. Some of these projects include teaching transferable critical thinking skills and using writing to improve students’ success in learning course content.
Co-directors Aeron Haynie and William Pockman were very impressed with the large number of applications the program received in only their first year. According to Monica Pena, CTE’s program coordinator, “This program will allow the University of New Mexico to become a national leader in the movement toward a more scholarly, evidence-based approach to college teaching."