Engaged Teacher-Scholar (ETS) Program

Apply to become an Engaged Teacher-Scholar (ETS)
with the Center for Faculty Innovation

The Engaged Teacher-Scholar (ETS) program offers faculty support in creating and sharing evidence-based teaching and learning scholarship. The goal of the ETS Program is to recognize JMU faculty who engage in meaningful evidence-based teaching and learning scholarship. The program aims to support faculty growth in a process of becoming ETS leaders across JMU’s campus. Engaged Teacher-Scholars view teaching and learning from a scholarly point of view.

Whether their work is called Discipline-based Education Research, Teaching Inquiry, or Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, these scholars are educators who engage in evidence-based teaching and learning scholarly activities. Faculty chosen to participate as ETS leaders will receive professional development funds for the year to support their professional goals.

APPLICATION PROCESS: The program runs from August (fall semester) through May (spring semester) annually. Beginning March 1, refer to the CFI events feed to view the current ETS event page and learn about the application process.

Benefits to being an Engaged Teacher Scholar include:

Being recognized for evidence-based teaching and learning scholarship
Serving as a liaison between CFI and department/college on ETS initiatives
Supporting JMU colleagues (within her/his department or college) with ETS efforts
Being a part of JMU’s Community of Engaged Teacher Scholars
Receiving a $1000 in professional development funds to support personal ETS efforts (i.e. disseminate ETS work, attend ETS Professional Development opportunities, travel to ETS conferences, workshops, etc.)

During the academic year, Engaged Teacher Scholars will...

Work with CFI to develop a plan for and offer ETS events each semester to their Unit-College and University-wide(examples include journal clubs, workshops, roundtables, methodology review, etc.)
Make progress on their evidence-based teaching and learning scholarship project(s)
Participate in a community of Engaged Teacher-Scholars
Attend CFI-organized or other professional development opportunities

Engaged Teacher Scholar Program Outcomes

Advancing individual SoTL projects
Catalyzing unit-level teacher-scholar conversations
Generating university-wide dialogue on high-impact practices
Enhancing scholarly productivity
Integrating knowledge of student development models in teaching philosophies and practicePracticing the integration of scholarship with teaching and other career aspirations
Practicing the integration of scholarship and teaching

Publications & Accomplishments of ETS Scholars related to their program research

Castaneda, D. I., and Merritt, J. “Research Initiation: Infusing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) at the Start of the Engineering Mechanics Curriculum.” Submission to PFE:RIEF NSF: Awarded: $200,000.
Castaneda, D. “Exploring critical consciousness in engineering curriculum through ill-structured problems.” In IEEE 2019 Frontiers in Education (FIE). Cincinnati, OH.
Connolly, A. J. & Mutchler, L. A. (2021) "A Course Plan for Principles of IS Programming to withstand COVID-19" Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 48.
Connolly, A., J, Rush, D., & Mutchler "Using Role Play to Teach Complexity in IT Project Management" (2020). AMCIS 2020 Proceedings. 3.
Lang-Rigal, J. and Galaretta-Aima, D. "Improving students' confidence in speaking a second language". 2018-2019 Accelerating Creating Teaching (ACT) grant winner.
Lang-Rigal, J. & Galaretta-Aima, D. "Improving students' confidence in speaking a second language: using TalkBoard [video conference with native speakers] in Spanish course" ICERI2019 Proceedings, pp. 1744-1753.
Larsson, C. & Williams, R (JMU Undergraduate, Class of ‘18) “Jackpot! A cost-benefit analysis of prize-linked savings accounts”, case study forthcoming at Journal of Financial Education, (Winter 2020 issue)
Larsson, C. Financial Management Association (FMA) Annual Conference; Innovation in Teaching Award Finalist; October 2020.
Larsson, C. SEDSI conference; Charleston, SC, February 13, 2020.
Larsson, C. One of three finalists for FMA Innovation in Teaching Award; winner will be announced October 20^th, 2020
Lyons, C.W., Baker, S.C., Reis-Bergan, M.J. (2020, Oct 4^th – 10th) "How to use observational behavioral measures in the scholarship of teaching and learning", Society for Teaching of Psychology Annual Conference on Teaching, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Rush, D. E. & Connolly, A. J. (2020). "An Agile Framework for Teaching with Scrum in the IT Project Management Classroom. Journal of Information Systems Education", 31(3), 196-207.
Scialdone, M. J. & Connolly, A. J. (2020). "Teaching Tip: How to Teach Information Systems Students to Design Better User Interfaces through Paper Prototyping." Journal of Information Systems Education, 31(3), 179-186.
Sawyer, A., Dredger, K. & Myers, J. (2019). "Developing Teachers as Critical Curators: Investigating Elementary Preservice Teachers’ Inspirations for Lesson Planning." AACTE Journal of Teacher Education, October 19. 2019.

ETS Leaders 2023-2024

Sombo Muzata, Political Science, College of Arts and Letters
Ben Riden, Educational Foundations and Exceptionalities, College of Education
Eva Strawbridge, Mathematics and Statistics, College of Science and Mathematics
Bisi Velayudhan, Biology, College of Science and Mathematics
Hui Zhao, Nursing, College of Health and Behavioral Studies

Engaged Teacher-Scholar Program Liaisons

Current Liason

Tim Ball, Communication Studies, College of Arts and Letters

Former Liaisons

Dayna Henry, Health Sciences, College of Health and Behavioral Studies (2018-2021)
Ray Rodriguez, Education Programs, College of Education
Anthony Tongen, Math & Statistics,
Ashley Taylor Jaffee, Middle, Secondary & Mathematics Education