Tuesday, May 13, 2003
Novel idea earns teaching award for USI professor
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Virtual guest speakers are used by Michelle Goff Alvarez to help build an online intellectual community in a distance education class she teaches at the University of Southern Indiana. She asks specialists and persons with national perspective to participate in a course discussion board and video clips. Her guest speakers come from Indianapolis, Florida, Colorado, and Iowa. This creative technique earned her an award for innovative excellence from the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. Awards were presented at the International Conference on College Teaching and Learning in Florida in April. The conference emphasizes the use of innovative strategies combined with the use of technology. A total of 58 colleges and universities nominated faculty to receive awards, representing institutions throughout the world. Dr. Charles Harrington, assistant vice president for Academic Affairs at USI, called Alvarez’s use of online speakers a novel idea. He nominated her for the award. Alvarez is an associate professor of social work at USI. She joined the faculty in 2000, and she has been teaching online and Web-enhanced courses since that time. She earned an M.S.W. from University of Maryland at Baltimore. She chairs an ad-hoc committee on national certification for the School Social Work Association of America and is on the advisory committee for state school social work standards for the Indiana Professional Standards Board. She also is co-editor of a school social work text that is being proposed to a publisher this summer, and is editor of the newsletter for the National Association of Social Work (NASW) school social work section. She is a consulting editor for the NASW journal Children & Schools. She also works with local school systems and community agencies to write grants for projects that include school social workers. |
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