Our Mission:
The mission of Georgia Gwinnett College’s Center for Teaching Excellence is to support and advocate for our faculty and to provide opportunities for professional development on evidence-based teaching techniques that promote the design and implementation of effective and engaging learning environments.
The CTE supports the implementation of effective instructional practices, facilitates an environment of instructional experimentation, and enhances the skills needed to engage students in the learning process. We provide a community forum for the exchange of ideas and innovative instructional practices that lead to high levels of student learning.
What We Do:
We coordinate and facilitate GGC’s New Faculty Orientation (NFO) at the start of every academic year.
We coordinate and facilitate GGC’s New Faculty Academy (NFA) throughout the academic year.
We offer a mix of face-to-face, online, and hybrid workshops each semester on a range of topics:
– Active Learning and Student Engagement
– Digital Learning
– Inclusive Teaching
– Experiential Learning and Integrative / Interactive Teaching and Learning
– Online Teaching and Learning
We coordinate and facilitate the following annual events:
– CTE Winter Institute (themed workshops) – December
– CTE Teaching & Learning Day (poster sessions) – April
– CTE Summer Institute (themed workshops) – May
We offer quiet and focused time for individual / collaborative writing in our Writing Spaces time slots in the CTE Conference Room every Friday during the semester.
We offer the use of our new Dell and Apple workstations in our Faculty Instructional Design Lab (FIDL) for faculty projects.
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Where We Are:
We are located in the beautiful (and LEEDS Gold certified) Daniel J. Kaufman Library & Learning Center (Building L) on the campus of Georgia Gwinnett College. The CTE suite is on the second floor directly across from the elevators.
Please be mindful of your health and the current local level of respiratory viruses; if you have any symptoms of illness, please contact us by phone or email (see below) or wear a mask when entering the CTE to avoid infecting others.
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Phone: 678.407.5100
Email: cte@ggc.edu
Sign up for the CTE listserv to receive weekly information on our upcoming events. Updates are sent out on Fridays during the Fall and Spring semesters.
Social Media:
– Facebook
– Flickr
– Twitter
– YouTube
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Who We Are:
Full-Time Staff:
Dr. Miranda (Mei) Zhang is the Associate Provost for Faculty at GGC, the Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence, and a Professor of Finance and Internationalization at Georgia Gwinnett College.
Prior to her current appointment, Dr. Zhang held the rank of Professor of Finance and Economics in GGC’s School of Business (SBA). She has taught a variety of courses including Strategic Management (capstone), Operations Management, Financial Management I, Financial Management II, Financial Derivatives, International Finance and Economics, Investment Analysis, Principles of Macroeconomics and Principles of Microeconomics. She received GGC’s Outstanding Teaching Award in 2015 and subsequently received the University System of Georgia’s Teacher of the Year Award in 2016.
Besides teaching, Zhang has held a variety of leadership roles. She was elected by the SBA faculty to serve as a member of the school’s Promotion and Credentialing Review Committee and by the members of that committee to serve as chair (2012–2017). In 2017, she was elected as chair of GGC’s Promotion and Credentialing Standards Committee. Other leadership roles include: coordinator of the Division of Business Science in the SBA, SBA scheduling coordinator, and point of contact for the SBA’s Quantitative Analysis Discipline.
678.360.4270 (mobile)
mzhang@ggc.edu
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Associate Director for the Center for Teaching Excellence (vacant position)
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Michael D. Smith is the Digital Learning Specialist for the Center for Teaching Excellence, the coordinator for GGC’s New Faculty Academy (NFA), and the admin for the CTE’s Teaching & Learning Community, Academic Commons, website, listserv, and Facebook page. He has worked in the CTE since the spring of 2016.
Michael is a faculty developer and instructional designer, and is currently enrolled in UGA’s Ed.D. program in Learning, Leadership, and Organization Development, studying adult learning, leadership, coaching, organization development, change management, and action research. He also holds an M.Ed. in Learning, Design, and Technology (with an emphasis on Instructional Design and Development) from UGA.
Michael is an avid proponent of lifelong learning and is particularly interested in: faculty development and support; coaching (executive / leadership / life / organization / personal development / transformational / transitional); leadership (adaptive / authentic / servant / transformational); organizational development and change management; the intersection of leadership, motivation, engagement, and happiness; identity in personal and professional life; wellness and work-life balance; mindfulness, self-compassion, and mindful leadership; engagement in online and blended / hybrid learning; online learning communities; storytelling, imagination and play in learning; gamification, game-based and gameful learning; and virtual worlds and immersive 3D learning environments.
678.407.5560 (office)
470.531.0070 (softphone)
mdsmith@ggc.edu
https://www.linkedin.com/in/arcanatechnica/
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Melanie Fonseca is the Administrative Assistant III for Dr. Zhang and for the Center for Teaching Excellence. Prior to working for the CTE, Melanie attended GGC from 2013 to 2019 where she received her Bachelor’s of English with a Concentration in Writing and Rhetoric.
Outside of GGC, Melanie enjoys reading, genealogy, creative writing, and listening to true crime podcasts.
678.407.5100 (front desk)
mfonseca@ggc.edu
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Faculty Fellows:
Dr. Susan Bussey is an Associate Professor of English at GGC and the Faculty Fellow for Integrative Learning for the Center for Teaching Excellence.
Dr. Susan Bussey teaches composition and various courses in American literature. She takes special interest in students pursuing a future as secondary English teachers, serving as the primary advisor to education preparation students in language arts. Her current research involves teaching first-year composition in ways that help students envision writing in their career path.
sbussey@ggc.edu
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Dr. Josh Morris serves as the Faculty Fellow for Online Teaching and Learning at the Center for Teaching Excellence and is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry. At the CTE, he champions innovative online education methods, including the flipped classroom, student-created videos, and diverse active learning strategies.
Dr. Morris has produced over 300 educational videos for his YouTube channel “Real Chemistry,” the University System of Georgia’s eCore program, and the online private school “MiaPrep”. He shares his video creation expertise through workshops and one-on-one consultations. Additionally, Dr. Morris is developing a comprehensive training program for Georgia Gwinnett College faculty who teach online. He also leads the Faculty Learning Community on Excellence in Online Education, where he guides faculty through research projects focused on the science of teaching and learning.
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QEP (EXACT Plan) Partners:
Dr. Karen Perell-Gerson is a Professor of Exercise Science at GGC and the Director of the QEP (EXACT Plan). She works closely with the CTE both literally and figuratively, as her office is located in the CTE suite within the Kaufman Library.
Prior to coming to GGC, Dr. Perell-Gerson taught at California State University, Fullerton Kinesiology and Health Science Departments, UCLA Physiological Science Department and Mount St. Mary’s College Physical Therapy Department. She ran the Los Angeles VA (Veterans’ Affairs) Gait Laboratory.
Dr. Perell-Gerson’s teaching philosophy is to provide an applied learning environment in which students put into practice learned content. Her goal as an educator is to provide students with a comfortable environment so that they will actively participate in their learning and expand on the material she provides them for their career development through activities, group projects, and presentations. She strongly encourages students to actively participate in the research process. She has supervised several students who have published their work in professional publications. Perell-Gerson is a registered kinesiotherapist. She implemented fall prevention screening clinics in five VA Centers. She uses biomechanics to evaluate and treat abnormal movement patterns in people with chronic disease/pathology (e.g. diabetes, osteoarthritis, frail elderly).
Dr. Perell-Gerson was the recipient of two Career Development Awards from the VA Rehabilitation Research & Development Office to study the use of the bicycle as a modality for gait deficits in individuals with diabetes. More recently, she has focused her research on motivators and barriers to exercise to reduce the risk of diabetes in minority populations. Her work has been published in the Journal of Rehabilitation Research & Development, Gait & Posture, Journal of Applied Biomechanics, Clinical Biomechanics, Journal of Gerontology, Clinical Kinesiology, and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Perell-Gerson is very excited to join Georgia Gwinnett College. She has a great interest in exercise science and strongly believes that it will provide an excellent foundation for the students who are interested in medical fields, physical therapy, athletic training and coaching.
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Dr. Kristie Walsdorf is an Assistant Professor of Physical Education at GGC and the Faculty Fellow for ePortfolios for the QEP (EXACT Plan) and the Center for Teaching Excellence.
Dr. Walsdorf graduated from Florida State University with a doctorate in physical education teacher education. While working on her Ph.D. she served as a full-time instructor in the Department of Kinesiology at Valdosta State University for four years. After leaving VSU, she was hired as an assistant professor of physical education teacher education at her alma mater, Florida State University. Walsdorf taught a variety of PETE undergraduate and graduate courses in addition to managing the student teaching internship program for seven years.
In 2011, Dr. Walsdorf became an assistant professor in the School of Science and Technology at Georgia Gwinnett College. At GGC, she teaches many different wellness and physical education courses. Walsdorf’s research interests include sport, gender and the media as well as assessment in physical education.