Daniela Popescu, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor at Kent State University Geauga Campus, in the Biological Sciences Department, has earned three awards from the university’s Center of Teaching and Learning (CTL). During the fall 2021 semester, she medalled at the Bronze, Silver and Gold levels. Each teaching award reflects her ability to adapt to new technologies and implement them into the classroom for enhanced learning outcomes among her students.
Dr. Popescu won a Bronze Teaching Recognition Award for completing the “Canvas in a Flash” course and implementing what she learned into her teaching practice. She earned a Silver Teaching Recognition Award for her project, “Designing and Implementing an Anatomy and Physiology Course in Canvas” (BSCI 21010 Anatomy and Physiology I).
She also took home the Gold Teaching Recognition Award for her project, "Enhancing Active Learning of Anatomy and Physiology with the Use of I>Clickers.” This recognizes her scholarly examination of teaching and learning anatomy and physiology with the use of i>clickers, and the public presentation of her project at the 25th University Teaching Council Celebration of College Teaching Conference.
“I was very happy and honored when I received these awards,” says Dr. Popescu. “These awards also recognize the excellent faculty support from the Kent State University, Geauga campus for finding innovative methods of teaching and learning that benefit all our students.”
The CTL provides opportunities, leadership and support for faculty members to grow professionally as they prioritize student success. The teaching recognition program rewards instructors for their efforts to enhance teaching and learning with evidence-based instructional practices.
The tiered program features the BRONZE AWARD, which recognizes learning best practices for instruction and developing a plan to use them; the SILVER AWARD is for design and implementation of a teaching project; a GOLD AWARD is for scholarly examination of teaching projects and sharing results with colleagues; and a PLATINUM AWARD is for scholarly dissemination and leadership involving teaching and learning.
In terms of her Bronze and Silver Awards involving the online Canvas learning management system, Dr. Popescu says, “The entire experience of learning, designing and implementing what I learned was invaluable. Canvas is new to us all: our university started the process of transitioning our Learning Management System (LMS) from Blackboard to Canvas in the summer of 2021. Our students must have been confused at the beginning of the fall semester because some of their courses were using Blackboard as an LMS, whereas some were using Canvas. This is why it was very important to me to design my Anatomy and Physiology I course in Canvas, with my students in my mind, trying to make my course inviting, well-organized and easy to navigate.”
When Dr. Popescu designed Anatomy and Physiology I in Canvas, she was able to customize it to the needs of her students and to the two-part structure of her course, which consists of both a lecture portion and a laboratory portion.
Her Gold Teaching Recognition Award recognized a project that she started a couple of years ago, focused on enhancing active learning by incorporating an interactive classroom response system (i.e. i>clickers) into two undergraduate biology courses: BSCI 21010 Anatomy and Physiology I and BSCI 21010 Anatomy and Physiology II.
The goals of this project were: 1) to incorporate an interactive classroom response system that is reliable, easy to use, cost-efficient and re-usable for multiple classes each semester for many years; 2) to examine if the use of the student response system during in-class meetings improved the academic performance of students; and 3) to examine student perception on the use of the interactive classroom response system.
The one-time purchase of the i>clicker system was made possible with the help of the Kent State University Teaching Council. The system includes the presenter kit with a receiver base and the presenter remote, and 28 student i>clickers. The software was free to download and the in-class registration of the student i>clickers is also free.
Dr. Popescu says, “The wonderful advantages of using the clickers are their reliability, cost-efficiency and re-usability in multiple classes each semester to keep the educational costs of my students as low as possible. The results of this study demonstrated that the use of i>clickers during lecture courses had a positive impact on the active learning, student engagement, active participation and academic performance of students on the lecture exams covering the respiratory, digestive, urinary, reproductive and lymphatic systems, and immunity. In addition, the overall performance of students in the A&P I and A&P II lecture courses had also a tendency to increase, which was very exciting to me.”
She continues, “The results of my i>clicker study showing an improved academic performance of my students together with the highly positive student perception and the overwhelmingly positive comments of students on the i>clicker use, motivate me to continue using the i>clicker system in my traditional face-to-face anatomy and physiology courses, because I want all of my students to be successful. It is always very rewarding to see that my students are performing great on an assignment, a quiz or an exam.”
Going forward, Dr. Popescu recently submitted a scholarly article describing the i>clicker study to a peer-reviewed journal, with the hope it will be accepted for publication. But for this professor, student success is the greatest reward.