Barnes Wins FYCA Faculty Lead Award
The First Year Course Academy (FYCA) provides resources, tools, and information to help UT-Knoxville instructors make a difference for students enrolled in their first-year courses. FYCA is a new initiative to equip instructors of these courses with best practices for teaching and engaging with first-year students in online, hybrid, and hyflex courses. The Office of the Provost, Teaching & Learning Innovation, the Division of Student Success, and the Office of Information Technology have partnered to make these resources and information available to instructors of the 15 highest-enrolled courses with first-year students.
These courses are:
- Biology 101 & 150
- Chemistry 120
- Engineering Fundamentals 151
- English 101 & 102
- Geography 131
- Geology 101
- Psychology 110
- Math 119, 123, 125, 141, & 130
- Sociology 120
All of these courses are also significant for our campus because of the high drop, fail, and withdrawal rate for our students. The FYCA program is also intended to help improve these concerns and equip our instructors with the tools they need to be advocates of student success.
Department of Chemistry’s, Christiane Barnes, has received a Faculty Lead Award for the work she did with Noodle partners for the development of FYCA.
“I enjoyed working with the Noodle people this past summer. Building the Chem 120 course shell made me look at the course material and the way we set up the course on Canvas from a different perspective,” Barnes said. “It was truly an educational experience and it gave me a better grasp on the delivery of course content when you are teaching online. We are currently working on a new Chem 130 course shell and I believe it will even be better than the one we did this past summer.”