Exemplary Online Faculty Award

Neil Hair
Assistant Professor and Chartered Marketer
E. Philip Saunders College of Business

Dr. Hair received the Exemplary Online Faculty Award for demonstrating extraordinary achievements in an online learning environment. Some factors contributing to his nomination included effective use of the discussion forums in myCourses, consistent and detailed feedback given on student assignments, use of MP3 lecture recordings, and regularly scheduled Adobe Connect live meetings and office hour sessions.

"Professor Hair is the most involved professor I have ever had (online or in class). He is engaged daily in our online discussion boards and is constantly motivating the class to keep up. It was the best uses of myCourses that I have seen so far in an online course." -- Nominating Student Comment

"A lot of work was expected, more than in other classes I have had, but he worked just as hard as us in ensuring we understood the material and understood his expectations." -- Nominating Student Comment

"I am passionate about my teaching career and I love facilitating in the modern classroom." -- Neil Hair

Innovation in Teaching and Learning with Technology Award

S. Manian Ramkumar
Professor and Director, Center for Electronics Manufacturing and Assembly
College of Applied Science and Technology

Dr. Ramkumar received the Innovation in Teaching and Learning with Technology Award for his innovative use of multiple types of technology in his online Controls for Manufacturing and Automation course. One of the technologies used was a live video-stream of the Robotics lab that was fed into myCourses.

"Over the years I have developed a methodology which enables online students to conduct laboratory experiments without having to come to campus."

"This hands-on laboratory experience included two main components. The first component was the use of the RSLogix and RSlinx software to create and download the laboratory programs, to control the experimental setup in the lab from the remote site. The second component was viewing the program execution on the experimental setup using a real-time video-streaming link provided within myCourses. A camera streamed live video of the setup as it executed the program." -- S.Manian Ramkumar

Exemplary myCourses Teaching Award

Stephanie Ludi
Assistant Professor, Department of Software Engineering
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences

Stephanie Ludi received the Exemplary MyCourses Teaching Award for integrating myCourses into her Secure Software Engineering course.

"Professor Ludi truly understands the value of myCourses to the student. She harnesses its power to not only keep the course well-organized, but also to make it more interesting. By organizing the class list into groups by project team, she helps facilitate communication between team members for a more cohesive team. For example, Professor Ludi diligently keeps the myCourses Events up-to-date for milestones such as due dates and exams. It's easy to see at a glance when items are due and helps me manage my time better. The grade book is also kept up-to-date, allowing me to quickly understand my grade in the course at that moment. Likewise, Professor Ludi stimulates conversation within the class through the careful moderation of the discussion forums. While there are the usual forums for project teams, there are also discussion forums around interesting course-related security news, links, etc." -- Rich Savacool, Nominating Student

Exemplary Online Learning Teaching Award

Morton Isaacs
Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychology
College of Liberal Arts

"The diverse nature of Professor Isaacs' course methodology maximizes a student's ability to learn and retain information by reinforcing a consistent message. It also accommodates the three styles of learning-visual, auditory and kinesthetic. I completed two online courses with Professor Isaacs and found both to be informational and challenging, with diverse yet complementary tools and resources. One of the most compelling aspects of his teaching is his encouragement to challenge him or the information and to be challenged by him. I felt very validated and complimented if one of my responses prompted a comment or challenge by him. He encourages students to back up their opinions, not simply state how they feel. When grading written assignments, he consistently provided comments and feedback. I always knew why I received the grade that I did on an assignment and what I could have done better." -- Jennifer Michaud, Nominating Student

"I make the effort to continually check for messages from students that need a response, and try to establish the intimacy more easily found in a face-to-face interaction by addressing specific students in his comments. I have also structured the course so that students who have different opinions can present them easily in the discussion topicsÑthen I stay out when students engage in student-to-student opinion exchanges, so they can develop a group feeling of being engaged with each other. None of these things I do are dramatic in themselves, but they set a warm, friendly learning environment that I feel makes the student wish to learn more about the material rather than just taking the course to get a grade." -- Morton Isaacs

Exemplary myCourses Teaching Award

Peter Hauser
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
College of Liberal Arts

Peter Hauser was awarded the Exemplary myCourses Teaching Award for integrating myCourses into his History and Systems in Psychology course.

"Professor Hauser used myCourses so teams can communicate with one another in a systematic fashion. He monitored all the group discussions and contributed to the discussions to make it more educational. In addition, the discussion format allowed deaf and hard of hearing students to work together towards creating in-class presentations." -- Nominating Student Comment

"Regarding my thoughts about my blended course, all I know is that I'm tired of the old lecture format and I want to try something new. I'm just going to see how it goes and make adjustments along the way whenever necessary to keep this course educational and entertaining without letting my students get lazy!" -- Peter Hauser

Hauser also received the 2005 Provost's Award for Excellence in Teaching. He joined the Department of Research at NTID in 2006. Hauser is also the director of RIT's Deaf Studies Laboratory, an interdisciplinary student-centered behavioral research laboratory, and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education with Oxford University Press.

Exemplary Online Learning Teaching Award

Linda Tolan
Associate Dean
College of Applied Science and Technology

"Expectations for grading, student participation and coursework were clearly stated. Feedback was provided quickly and continuously throughout the courses to everyone." -- Nominating Student Comment

"The online format has strengthened my instructional development process by requiring me to take a more formal and holistic approach to course development and organization. Online learning empowers more introverted or linguistic learners to speak up." -- Linda Tolan

Exemplary myCourses Teaching Award

Roberta Klein
Lecturer, Department of Accounting
E. Philip Saunders College of Business

Roberta Klein was awarded the Exemplary myCourses Teaching Award for integrating myCourses into her Corporate Finance and Tax courses.

"Professor Klein made the class interesting and informative with her choice of discussions to post for us to respond to and her directed questions to further discussion. Her ability to draw the students into meaningful discussion is unparalleled. While her choice of educational materials--text book and assignments--was well thought out and enhanced the learning process, her ability to foster pointed discussions was the best teaching tool in her arsenal, as I feel I learned at least as much from the discussions, if not more. Professor Klein is a gem and a credit to the College of Business and RIT." -- Nominating Student Comment

"Rather than lecturing to my students, I discovered they could comprehend the textbook and posted lecture notes. Rather than going over PowerPoint slides in class, I provided slides for my students to review at their own pace. Rather than putting students on the spot posing questions in class, I could post questions on a discussion board to provide a basis for sharing ideas throughout the week (and sometimes, throughout the entire quarter). Rather than hearing from only a few vocal students in class, I would hear from everyone including the shy students who would be too self-conscious to say anything in a classroom setting. Rather than doing most of the talking in class, students were now doing most of the talking. Rather than assuming that the students were "empty vessels" to be filled with the knowledge that I could deliver, I discovered that students knew more about certain topics than I ever would have imagined." -- Roberta Klein

Exemplary Online Learning Teaching Award

John Roche
Assistant Professor, Department of Literature
College of Liberal Arts

"My experience in Professor Roche's classes marked a turning point in my time at RIT as an online student. His energy and enthusiasm made the online learning process a dynamic and enjoyable journey. He spent incredible amounts of time responding to each posting and was instrumental in setting up a tutoring conference. He is a wonderful teacher, and an excellent symbol of the superior academic environment available through the RIT Online Learning Program." -- Anne McDermott, Nominating Student

"Teaching in a completely asynchronous, online environment made me realize the importance of student-centered learning as a reality, not a buzz word. Since I teach writing courses, online learning appeals to me as practical pedagogy, for the simple reason that everything takes place in writing, so it becomes a total immersion in that medium."

"Teaching online has made me more aware of the different needs of particular students, as well as the need for follow-up to lectures. I found some students were more willing to speak up online than in the classroom. I think that their familiarity with chat rooms has made them bold in terms of using computer mediums to express themselves. So it seems to me that they were quite responsive, and I was relieved." -- John Roche

Excellence in Online Teaching and Learning Department Award

Bruce Austin (Chair), Susan Barnes, Grant Cos, Keith Jenkins
Dave Neumann, Rudy Pugliese, and Patrick Scanlon
Department of Communication
College of Liberal Arts

Online Learning commend Bruce Austin, chair of the Communication Department, for supporting his faculty in the creative and effective use of online learning technologies. The Department of Communication, housed within RIT's College of Liberal Arts, is home to two degree programs: since 1986, a B.S. degree in Professional & Technical Communication and, since 2001, an M.S. degree program in Communication & Media Technologies.

Faculty in the Department of Communication participated in the online learning program and the blended learning pilot program.

Distance Learning Program Participants:
Grant Cos
Dave Neumann
Rudy Pugliese
Patrick Scanlon

Blended Learning Pilot Participants:
Susan Barnes
Grant Cos
Keith Jenkins
Dave Neumann
Rudy Pugliese

Highlights of Department Innovation:

Susan Barnes insisted that every RIT student should develop strong online communication skills. Toward that end, her blended courses merge intellectual inquiry into online communication with online communication.

Keith Jenkins recognizes that cultural identity-like many personal or controversial topics-is oftentimes more readily shared and discussed in a blended learning environment, than in a purely face-to-face or a purely online environment.

We commend David Neumann and Patrick Scanlon for their foresight in offering the very first online courses in the department. They are true pioneers in online education at RIT.

Rudy Pugliese and Grant Cos designed and teach a full compliment of excellent classroom, blended and online courses, thereby extending the department's tradition of educational innovation.

Lifetime Achievement Award in Distance Education

Thomas Barker
Professor, Graduate Statistics Program,
John D. Hromi Center for Quality and Applied Statistics
Kate Gleason College of Engineering

Professor Thomas Barker used his background in film and video to transform online courses in statistical experimental design. He is noted for using video and self-created simulations to take a complex concept and present it with bold clarity and excitement. “The idea is to make statistics lively, vital and not just a bunch of static formulas seen on a blackboard,” he says.

After teaching his first distance learning course in the summer of 1996, Thomas Barker championed the development of an online learning option for the Masters in Applied Statistics program. Online learning courses now provide the majority of enrollments in the program.

"Professor Barker continues to be helpful. He gives his students a ‘life-time pass’ to ask him questions and get his advice. I have taken him up on his offer, and he has been willing each time to provide thoughtful insight to my questions." -- Dan Blodgett, Nominating Student

"This is what I love to do. This is my job, to work with people in learning, because learning is an ongoing process. It’s not something that ends after an 11-week quarter. It goes on forever. I get calls from students that are not in my class anymore, and they look at me as kind of a mentor. It’s like I have an open office all the time, except I don’t have to go there." -- Thomas Barker

Exemplary myCourses Teaching Award

Sam McQuade
Assistant Professor, Department of Criminal Justice
College of Liberal Arts

Sam McQuade received the Exemplary myCourses Teaching Award for his courses, Technology in the Administration of Criminal Justice and Security Management and Computer Crime.

"Professor McQuade has been the first professor of mine to use myCourses to its fullest capability. All the course content was available in the projects folder, grading was quick and available through the grade book, e-mail was broadcasted students in the class, there was a very thorough class outline and we submitted assignments through the 'Post File' function in Files." -- Erik Haddad, Nominating Student Comment

Professor McQuade encouraged learning in more ways than one. The group work encouraged practical knowledge, not just theoretical, and I am sure most people will agree that this is very important when looking for a job. -- Nominating Student

"I have found the use of online tools to be an invaluable way of augmenting my classes. It is so enriching for students in terms of what they get and how they get it. myCourses has really enriched the class in terms of content and process. I can get so much material out there efficiently and make it available to students. The course evaluations from the students' perspectives have consistently gone up over the past three years. These students take ownership of their problem solving; they get into it; they do an excellent job in their role-playing and so forth."

"Consequently I am also learning. I am supposed to be the expert in technology. Every quarter, by virtue of technology being innovated, new stuff comes up that I havenÕt heard of. So I am learning; the students are also learning. There is this sort of rich engagement in communication. The way I think about it is I'm using cutting-edge teaching technology to educate students about cutting-edge criminal justice and security technologies." -- Sam McQuade

Exemplary Online Learning Teaching Award

Tom Moran
Associate Professor, Center for Multidisciplinary Studies
College of Applied Science and Technology

"I have been fortunate enough to participate in several of Professor Moran's classes. He has always been able to create a real sense of community in each one. Professor Moran is able to lead students through unknown territory without shackling them to an unbending set of directions. He is able to encourage students without being condescending. He is able to engage students without being demanding. He is able to teach students to think through processes for themselves leading them to a better overall understanding of the subject matter." -- Paige C. Heidt, Nominating Student

"I reside in a small village in the southwest of Ireland, yet Professor Moran was never more than a mouse click away throughout my Basic and Advanced Certificates in Technical Communication. He responded to even the most trivial of queries within hours and with insight and concern. In each class, I had an exceptional learning experience which was taken well beyond the textbooks. Professor Moran enabled me to have far more enriching classes than I had during two on-campus degrees at UC Berkeley." -- Nominating Student Comment

"The knowledge and skills I achieved through the Basic and Advanced Technical Communication Certificates have been instrumental in my career. I work for an international company, managing a team of 45 journalists across Europe. As an essentially "virtual" company, our work and communication is through the internet. At application stage, my employers were particularly impressed that I achieved two certificates from a very well regarded educational institution via distance learning." -- Marie Gethins, Nominating Student

"By allowing students to access information at any time and at their convenience, online education maximizes their positive engagement with the subject matter. They are not sitting in class at 10 a.m. because they have to; they are in their virtual classroom because they have made a conscious decision to enter the site and learn. That, I think, is a very important distinction." -- Tom Moran

Moran and his Technical Writing courses were also featured in an article written for Online Learning by George Lorenzo in 2003. Download a PDF of the Article

Exemplary myCourses Teaching Award

Maureen Barry
Visiting Assistant Professor, NTID Liberal Arts Support Team
National Technical Institute for the Deaf

Maureen Barry was awarded the Exemplary myCourses Teaching Award for integrating myCourses with her Written Communications course.

"Professor Barry used myCourses to stimulate online discussions by posting topics (she called them 'weekly journals'). She also posted examples of how to do essays and papers that she gave us as assignments or projects in the discussions." -- Nominating Student Comment

Exemplary myCourses Teaching Award

Sara Schley
Visiting Assistant Professor, NTID Department of Research
National Technical Institute for the Deaf

Sara Schley received the Exemplary myCourses Teaching Award for integrating myCourses with her Psychology and Sociology of Adolescence course.

"Professor Schley made our course fun and easy to follow with the help of myCourses. Without myCourses I don't know how I would have learned as much as I did. It allowed frequent contact with the other students in the class as well as with the professor, which was an advantage since the class only met once a week." -- Nominating Student Comment

Exemplary Online Learning Teaching Award

Deb Coleman
Assistant Professor, Department of Information Technology
B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences

"Professor Coleman's expectations were very clear and she was always well prepared. There was never a doubt that she had a clear direction for the course and that had taken the time to think about how she would lead her students to understand some rather abstract concepts." -- Vincent Falbo, Nominating Student

"Professor Coleman provided a comfortable learning atmosphere while focusing conversations on the lesson at hand. Her praise was always quick as the class found solutions to the presented problems while she seeded the discussion to move the class one step higher in understanding the processes we were learning. Homework and questions were promptly and thoroughly answered with suggestions for improvement, comments for clarity and thoughts about where our current methods could run afoul of future processes yet to be introduced. These methods all provided for an enjoyable and valuable learning experience." -- Daniel W. Yoas, Nominating Student

"Until I was in Professor Coleman's class, I had not had a good experience in an online class group project. What she did that the others did not was to give clear group project guidelines, as well as multiple deliverables of these projects (rather than one big deliverable at the end of the quarter.)" -- Tony Jefferson, Nominating Student

"Experience as an online instructor has shown me that online students are overwhelmingly serious about learning. Online students are physically separate in locality, but educationally and motivationally in concert. As an educator, I acknowledge some unique emotional elements that impact the online learning process, along with the strong educational commitment exhibited by students."

"I like to lead my online learning courses by not just putting material out there and having students respond to it. I like to look at the complexion of the students in the class. They each bring new experiences, and they have different levels of knowledge. I like to leverage that knowledge and create an open environment where people can share, where they are not just obligated as part of their grade to just post something."

"I look for the uniqueness in each student, just like I would in the classroom where we raise our hands and have conversations and students question what I say or what someone else has said. Or have a dialectic process going on. . . I'm trying to create that dialectic process online." -- Deb Coleman