North Central State College has honored Brad Wood as the Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year for 2013-14 and Georgiann Mathews as the Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Member of the Year.
Wood joined the college as an instructor in the Physical Therapist Assistant program in 2011. He is currently involved with the following college groups: Quality Matters review team, Cultural Diversity and Social Justice, and Canvas User Group.
While at the college, Wood has furthered his education and plans to graduate this year with a Master’s in Education with an emphasis on Integration of Technology into the Classroom. Wood has integrated technology into his direct instruction using TeacherTube, iTunes U, Google Presentations, and Google Forms.
He has implemented a variety of Web 2.0 tools into his instruction to help expose students to the 21st century skills of communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking including: Glogster EDU, Google Drive (forms, presentation), Poll Everywhere, and bubbl.us. He has also used these tools for formative and summative assessment.
The committee received numerous nomination forms for Wood, each of them stating student success was his first priority.
Wood writes, “It is the joy of every educator today to embrace the challenges of our time; preparing our students for a future that is rapidly changing due to innovation, technology and a complex and interdependent global economy. As an educator, I recognize that the students whose lives I touch each day through my classroom, both face-to-face and digitally, and in the field, are dependent upon my ability to be forward thinking in my approaches to reach them as learners. Though no one can predict with certainty what the job market will look like in the future, we can be certain that if we teach students to master a particular set of skills, they will be prepared for a career in the 21st century. These multi-dimensional skills – creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration – can be taught, integrated into the curriculum in any subject area. Though I was not a product of an educational system that addressed these skills, I believe that I must not rely on the antiquated techniques of the past to create a learning environment that genuinely impacts my students, though that may be the more convenient path. My students are digital natives, and I feel a responsibility to ensure that students learn in the way that is best suited to their needs.”
Mathews is an instructor in the First Year Experience Department. She has been teaching for the college since Fall Quarter 2009, creating an active learning environment for students. She guides students toward tools and resources such as TRiO, scholarships, grants, etc., and volunteers her time to help tutor and mentor current and former students. She participated in planning and teaching the workshop titled “The Learning Theory Jungle” along with three colleagues.
Nominators say of Mathews, “She works tirelessly with students to make sure they understand the material that is being presented. She’s a great asset to this college and the FYE program.” Another nominator writes, “She is well prepared for every class – arriving early and staying after to help students. Students love her, and stay in contact with her long after FYE is over”.
Mathews herself writes, “I am blessed to have my students return the caring that I have for them. I truly believe each of my students comes to my class with a dream and that it is part of my job and my passion to help them achieve it. As an instructor in an incoming freshman class (FYEX), I am one of the first faces of the college they see and I do believe the skills they learn and the encouragement I give helps build strong learners with a plan to achieve those dreams.”
