The CTL Welcomes New Faculty in Fall 2021

December 10, 2021

This fall, the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) was thrilled to welcome three new colleagues: two new faculty, Irene Lubbe and Yurgos Politis; and visiting faculty, Tamara Kamatović.  

Joining CTL Director Michael Kozakowski, our new colleagues kicked off the academic year by facilitating two sections of Foundations of Teaching in Higher Education, which is the introductory course of the CTL’s Program for Excellence in Teaching in Higher Education for CEU doctoral students. Headshot of Dr. Tamara Kamatović

Additionally, Tamara Kamatović taught the Persuasive Communication elective course, in which doctoral students practiced public speaking with a view towards engaging students in the classroom. Five doctoral students concluded the CTL certificate program in the Teaching Portfolio course in November. Students pursuing the certificate program will have additional opportunities to choose among a wide selection of short courses in the winter term that count towards their two electives, and then take the Teaching Portfolio course when offered again in the spring. 

In addition to their teaching activities, our new faculty have already made outstanding contributions within the CTL’s professional networks and have demonstrated the center's continued focus on salient teaching and learning topics, including student-centered teaching and course design, technologically-enabled learning (TEL), and inclusive pedagogy. 

Illustrated digital escape classroom. Irene Lubbe stands at the front of a classroom scattered with clues. A text bubble reads “Activate the clock.”

Irene Lubbe, who joined CEU in September, presented her exciting pedagogical work at two international conferences this fall term. At Flexible Futures 2021, she and Dr. Astrid Turner presented on reinventing a medical elective rotation in a pandemic , while she and Professor Sumaiya Adam shared their journey on redesigning and mapping curriculum. Irene also facilitated a 4-hour workshop on creating online escape rooms at the Fully Online Distance Education Symposium in October. Some of her more recent publications can be viewed in the latest volume of African Journal of Health Professions Education or on her institutional profile

Screenshot from OLIve Mentoring session on Zoom. Five faculty and Yurgos Politis with webcams on. Yurgos Politis, who also joined the CTL in September, has particularly liked being involved with the mentoring programs for the Global Teaching Fellows and the OLIve program. As is highlighted in his most recent research, Yurgos has also been deeply involved with the shift to remote mentoring during the pandemic. You can read his recent publication with Dr. Roisin Donnelly – Embracing online engagement with undergraduate supervisors –  in Innovations in Education and Teaching International. 

Additionally, Yurgos presented “Gender Bias in Science Textbooks (GBiST): An examination of the genderness levels of an Irish Science textbook” at the European Conference in Educational Research in September. We look forward to Yurgos’s forthcoming edited publication as a Frontiers in Education Research Topic: Championing Inclusion and diversity: Inclusive design practices and approaches for education.  

In November, Irene, Tamara, and Yurgos, along with CTL Academic Technologist Kaitlin Lucas, enjoyed facilitating faculty development sessions at Ashesi University, an OSUN partner. Their workshops focused on a wide range of topics, including game-based learning (Irene), gender and intersectionality (Tamara), Universal Design for Learning (Kaitlin), and how to design a research study and strategies for research supervisors (Yurgos). 

Our department’s new faculty look forward to getting to know members of the CEU teaching community! Moreover, we hope you will share with us the pedagogical projects you have been working on. You can contact us at ctl@ceu.edu

 

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