Bentley Selected New Member of UT Society for Teaching Excellence
A committee consisting of senior members of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers has selected Dr. Keisha Bentley to join the inaugural cohort of the Society for Teaching Excellence.
As part of the selection process, each nominee was asked what the following question:
In your experience as student or teacher, and in your discipline, what methods or assignments are most successful in engaging students in learning?
"As a young student, I had difficulty engaging in courses where I could not find the content’s utility to my life experiences and future goals," said Bentley. "When my teachers were able to provide these connections, I would be an invested, well-prepared student. On the other hand, when teachers disregarded my need for applicable learning, I would quickly become a snarky mouthpiece that disrupted class time with unrelated questions. As I matured, I learned to either feign interest or frustratingly link course content into meaningful knowledge on my own."
"While developing my syllabi and class lectures, I keep my most fulfilling and dissatisfying educational experiences in mind. I create assignments that encourage agency and provide students opportunities to use real world interactions and observations to understand psychological research and theoretical frameworks"
"One such assignment is a mini-research project for my Psychological Development of Black Women course. This project requires students to work in groups and together, select a topic, and interview Black women and girls in different developmental stages. Groups select topics based on theoretical frameworks covered in class to initiate research questions based on their own observations or career interests. Students are often intimidated by the project. However, as they become absorbed in the discovery process, they use the research topic to generate a better understanding of their mothers, grandmothers and neighbors. Besides gaining the experience of developing and completing a study, they are able to directly translate the abstract research concepts revealed in the course into hands-on applications that cross racial and generational lines. I strongly believe that emphasizing the utility of course content ensures that my students have a robust command of the topic that will ensure their success in my class, and ultimately inspire intellectual curiosity that endures beyond their college years."