The Creative Teaching Awards are presented annually on behalf of the Office of Instruction to faculty who have demonstrated exceptional creativity in using either an innovative technology or pedagogy that extends learning beyond the traditional classroom or for their creative course design or implementation of subject matter that improves student learning outcomes in their courses.
Alison Banka, School of Chemical, Materials, and Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering
Alison Banka (Photo by Dorothy Kozlowski/UGA)
Alison Banka has received the Creative Teaching Award for her work in BCHE3520: Mass Transfer and Rate Phenomena. After facilitating a focus group of previous BCHE3520 students, Banka redesigned the course’s format and grading system, flipping the historically difficult core class so students could spend more time doing as opposed to listening. New material was introduced prior to class via pre-class readings and lecture videos, and time in class was spent engaging in full-class activities to correct common misconceptions and work through practice problems in groups. Banka also implemented a standards-based grading system, which allowed her to give students weekly feedback to identify areas of struggle so they could make useful adjustments. These changes have led to decreased stress levels during finals season and a better understanding of the materials.
Karen Wells, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, College of Veterinary Medicine
Karen Wells (Submitted photo)
Karen Wells has received the Creative Teaching Award for her successful implementation of weekly Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) in VPHY3100: Elements of Physiology and VPHY3107: Integrative Concepts in Physiology. With assistance from co-instructors Dax Ovid and Paul Eubig, Wells taught more than 600 students using these CATs: On Muddy Mondays, students worked on clarifying the muddiest points from the previous week; on Working Wednesdays, they completed in-class worksheets; and on Freaky Fridays, they reviewed the most-missed quiz questions. This structure allowed students to practice repetition and recall through low-stakes assessments and clarify to instructors which physiological concepts required additional in-class review or practice. Since the introduction of weekly CATs, grade averages on exams increased an entire grade level.
Julie Grainy and Elizabeth Ottesen, Department of Microbiology, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
Julie Grainy and Elizabeth Ottesen (Submitted photos)
Julie Grainy and Elizabeth Ottesen have received the Creative Teaching Award for their work redesigning the learning objectives and approaches to teaching MIBO3510L: Introduction to Microbiology Laboratory Part II. During the redesign, which began in 2021, they developed multiple new laboratory activities, including a major project on antimicrobial resistant bacteria in the environment that incorporates active research being conducted by Ottesen and collaborators. As part of this work, they wrote a course-specific laboratory manual and provided it to students as a free PDF. In addition, they now use a flipped classroom model that allows active learning strategies to be used during class time, a model that the majority of students said was beneficial to their learning.
Anthony Hawkins, Department of Clinical and Administrative Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy
Anthony Hawkins (Submitted photo)
Anthony Hawkins has received the Creative Teaching Award for his work in PHRM5370: Critical Care Pharmacy and PHRM5880: Pharmacotherapy. Through a UGA Learning Technologies Grant, Hawkins and his team designed, developed and implemented the Random Patient Generator (RPG) to enhance students’ clinical reasoning and decision-making skills. The RPG serves as a case-library tool that generates patient scenarios in real-time, allowing faculty to model decision-making and engage students in active learning exercises. This innovation addresses the limitations of traditional static case studies by providing a scalable and interactive approach to teaching complex clinical problem-solving. This approach helps demystify the decision-making process, showing how pharmacists prioritize key clinical information and adapt to patient scenarios.
