UTSA deans partner to enhance teaching methods for today's students

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(Dec. 2, 2015) -- JoAnn Browning, dean of The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) College of Engineering, and Betty Merchant, dean of the College of Education and Human Development, have received a five-year $223,072 National Science Foundation grant to collaboratively reinvent higher education teaching methods in UTSA classes where the material has proved difficult for many engineering students.

Browning and Merchant are creating a program that will pair select engineering faculty with COEHD curriculum experts to enhance their classes’ curriculum to meet the needs of modern students. The goal of the program is to help the engineering faculty teach upper-level concepts in the most relatable ways possible to the next generation of engineering professionals, digital natives who were raised on technology.

“We’re changing the approach to how the most difficult engineering concepts are taught,” Browning said. “In the end, we hope the restructured classes will allow students to learn more efficiently and give them an edge in their future careers.”

The College of Engineering is hoping its partnership with the College of Education and Human Development will provide its faculty with access to the newest tools and teaching methods through which to teach their classes. Browning and Merchant have put out a call for proposals to choose which engineering courses will be supplied with an education expert from the College of Education and Human Development, who will then help the instructors enhance their curricula.

“We are very excited to be working with Dean Browning and her college in this endeavor,” Merchant said. “The collaborative process is an important part of what we teach in the College of Education and Human Development. We are really looking forward to pairing the educational knowledge of our faculty with the engineering expertise from the College of Engineering.”

Browning and Merchant are hopeful that the partnership will give engineering faculty the encouragement and flexibility to adapt their classes to help students who have otherwise struggled with understanding the more difficult material. According to Browning, curriculum in science, technology, engineering and mathematics classes can sometimes become static—a pitfall UTSA hopes to avoid.

“We’re looking at a true partnership,” Browning said. “The education expert will help decide what the right flow should be for these students and this material.”

The deans are also working to create a collaborative community of faculty and administrators from across disciplines at UTSA where innovative teaching methods can be shared. Once established, the community should serve as a model for other disciplines and universities.

“Dean Browning and I are hopeful that through this project we can maintain the high quality of research and instruction for which UTSA is known while also transforming the way we collaborate university-wide,” Merchant said. “If we can successfully promote a culture of collaboration in teaching, we can further define what it means to be a top-tier university.”

Merchant and Browning hope that the collaborative process inherent in this project will help students gain a greater appreciation for the importance of collaboration as they venture into their own careers.

“We want our students to internalize a deep respect for cross-discipline collaboration,” Merchant said. “UTSA and its students must never lose the collaborative and humble spirits that make us great.”

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