College of Mass Communications and Media Arts
Carbondale, Illinois
Specialization in Interactive Media
Teaching Assistant - Visual Literacy Course
Research Assistant - Instructional Support Services
College of Arts & Media
Denver, Colorado
Colorado Scholars grant recipient
Undergraduate Research Opportunity (UROP) grant recipient
I've had a variety of roles and responsibilities in these academic positions including, curriculum redesign, managing online courses and programs, developing professional certification programs, designing and supporting flexible learning spaces, and most recently researching and implementing mixed reality technologies to enhance experiential learning.
My current position at the Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning (CITL) provides me opportunities to explore and promote educational innovations including new flexible classroom design, Makerlabs, and peer-instruction. These trends have all influenced the design of the new Illinois Innovation Studio and Virtual Reality Lab.
My recent projects and responsibilities at CITL include:
I started at CU Boulder as an academic coordinator mainly focusing on the online courses offered through the Independent Learning Program. My role quickly grew to include the development of a new professional certificate in Sustainable Practices.
During my 5 years at CU, I juggled the following responsibilities:
I've been involved in teaching and training in one form or another all of my adult life, from teaching a Basics of Photography workshop while in the Coast Guard, to exploring high school teaching in my undergraduate program, and eventually assuming the faculty roles listed below. Currenty, I enjoy sharing my experience through consultations, workshops and faculty development opportunites, along with the occassional new media course.
It was great to get the opportunity to offer a course introducing immersive media to a variety of University of Iliinois students. Collectively we explored:
It was exciting to return to my alma mater in Denver to teach within an emerging Multimedia Studies program in the College of Arts & Media. In this position I developed more than a dozen new courses and taught over 50 sections in my five year stint as adjunct faculty. Among the courses I developed and taught at CU Denver were:
Multimedia and Graphics Design program
In my early career as an instructor, I was fortunate to have the chance to extend my teaching experience to include Red Rocks Community College. The eagerness of adult learners, as well as the diversity of backgrounds and talents made it a challenging experience to deliver courses that met the needs and expectations of all students. This position also allowed me to expand my teaching to include topics that I might not have otherwise explored. The courses I developed and taught at Red Rocks include:
Thanks to recent neuroscience research, we now know that the brain continues to change and grow throughout our lifetime as we encounter new experiences and investigate new ideas. Here is a sample of some of the more formalized, brain-changing activites I've enjoyed in the past few years.
Adobe Education Exchange - Coming Fall 2019
This FREE online course from Adobr is aimed at educators looking to get started using UX Design projects in their classroom. Explore the principles of UX Design with Adobe XD, then apply new digital skills and create practical UX design projects to use in your curriculum. Adobe Education Exchange
This course gives you easy access to the invaluable learning techniques used by experts in art, music, literature, math, science, sports, and many other disciplines. We’ll learn about the how the brain uses two very different learning modes and how it encapsulates (“chunks”) information. We’ll also cover illusions of learning, memory techniques, dealing with procrastination, and best practices shown by research to be most effective in helping you master tough subjects.
University of California, San Diego on Coursera
This online course is designed to provide future STEM faculty, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows with an introduction to effective teaching strategies and the research that supports them. The goal of the eight-week course is to equip the next generation of STEM faculty to be effective teachers, thus improving the learning experience for the thousands of students they will teach.
STEM Teaching Course at Vanderbilt University
Using the Blackboard Exemplary Course Program (ECP) Rubric as a guide, this open course will provide both theoretical concepts and practical tools for instructors to recognize, organize, and build online courses for both blended learners and online learners.
Mozilla Backpack
FSI @ the Intersection of Teaching, Learning and Technology
Virtual Reality Assignments for Non-Programmers
Jim Wentworth, Andrew Wilson, Jamie Nelson
This session introduced easy entry points to explore virtual reality assignments within any course. We looked at free online 3D modeling tools tools like Tinkercad and Sketchfab, virtual tour creation tools, and 360 video projects.
FSI @ the Intersection of Teaching, Learning and Technology
Not an Engineer? No Problem! Engaging students with 3D design
Jim Wentworth, Ashley Mitek & Jamie Nelson
This session detailed how you can turn students from knowledge consumers to knowledge creators using 3D design projects. We highlighted one faculty's experience introducing a 3D design project to non-engineering students, with no previous background using the technology. The successes, lessons learned, and future plans, will be discussed.
Reimagining the Classroom: A Student-Centric Approach. This is the second time we've offered this symposium at the University of Illinois. Rex Miller gave a great keynote this year focused on the differences between the Gutenburg and Google cultures. Also very useful architect panel outlining a variety of learning space projects on our campus and beyond.
Crafting our Future: Toward New Digital Learning Environments. Great conference and wonderful three days in San Antonio. Memorable moments include Robbie Kendall-Melton's Internet of Things presentation and Randy Bass keynote as well as the release of the 2016 NMC Horizon Report.
FSI @ the Center of Teaching and Technology. The Faculty Summer Institute is a regional conference offered annually at the University of Illinois campus for nearly twenty years. The conference features keynote presentations, networking, and hands-on training on the use of modern communication and information technologies in higher education.
Innovate is The Ohio State University’s annual conference exploring teaching and learning with technology.
InfoComm is the largest and most comprehensive show for professional audiovisual communications in the United States.