Professor of Education Teresa Coffman with a student
Professor of Education Teresa Coffman was named 2014 Innovative Educator of the Year by the Virginia Society for Technology and Education.
The award recognizes teachers who implement innovative educational practices and champion the integration of technology in the classroom. Coffman is researching how wearable technologies such as Google Glass can help teachers teach and students learn.
Coffman encourages students “to think differently about who they are becoming as educators, and how their uses of technologies will shape transformational learning experiences for their own students,” said Mary Gendernalik-Cooper, dean of the College of Education.
Coffman is the author of Using Inquiry in the Classroom: Developing Creative Thinkers and Information Literate Students and Engaging Students Through Inquiry-Oriented Learning and Technology.
“Teaching needs to be more transformational,” Coffman said. “We need to extend beyond the creativity into innovative thought that can help us solve real-world problems.”