University Times

The Provost’s Advisory Council on Instructional Excellence (ACIE) has funded eight teaching proposals under the 2010 Innovation in Education Awards program.

The awards encourage instructional innovation and teaching excellence. ACIE seeks to identify high-quality proposals that show promise for introducing innovative, creative approaches to teaching that can be adapted for use in other courses. Funding for this year’s awards totaled $139,494.

Winners are:

• Marilyn A. Davies of the School of Nursing’s Department of Health and Community Systems,for “Developing a Video Resource to Enhance the Learning of Essential Nursing Competencies for Genetics and Genomics.”

Also participating are Michele A. Reiss, adjunct faculty member in nursing, and video production personnel from the Center for Instructional Development and Distance Education.

• Project director Ketki D. Raina and co-director Joanne M. Baird, both of the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences’ Department of Occupational Therapy, for “Simulations for Teaching Students How to Transfer Medically Fragile Patients.”

• Eunice E. Yang, faculty member in Pitt-Johnstown’s engineering technology program, for “Enhanced Lectures via Worksheets and 3-D Computer Models.”

• Hoda Kaldas, faculty member in the School of Medicine’s Renal-Electrolyte Division, for “Virtual Patients to Teach Electrolyte Disorders: An Innovative Approach to Integrate Physiology and Pathophysiology During the Clinical Rotations.”

Kaldas is the principal investigator for this project. Additional team members  include faculty members Kristine Schonder of the School of Pharmacy; Mark Unruh of the Renal-Electrolyte Division; James R. Johnston of medicine and the clinical director of the Renal-Electrolyte Division; James B. McGee, director of the Laboratory for Educational Technology (LET) and assistant dean for medical education technology. Other team members are Teppituk Krinchai, a system engineer/software developer for LET, and Peter Kant, production director for LET.

• Adam K. Leibovich, physics faculty member and director of graduate studies in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, for “Teaching Computer Modeling in Introductory Physics.”

Leibovich will team with Russell J. Clark of the department.

• Steven P. Levitan, the John A. Jurenko Professor of Computer Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, for “Simulating the World.”

• Brian S. Butler,  information systems faculty member in the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and a faculty member in Pitt’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute, for “The Virtual Firm: An Interactive Environment for Teaching Information Technology (IT) Opportunity Recognition.”

Additional team members are Russell Robbins and Jacqueline Pike of the Katz school.

• Gary Tabas, faculty member in the School of Medicine’s Division of General Medicine, for “A Novel Approach to Teaching Clinical Decision-Making Using Virtual Patient Technology.”

Other team members are Neal J. Benedict, pharmacy and therapeutics faculty member in the School of Pharmacy; Laboratory for Educational Technology affiliates James B. McGee, Teppituk Krinchai and Peter Kant, and Harsha Rao, faculty member in medicine and chief of endocrinology at the VA Medical Center-Pittsburgh.