Online Teaching Excellence

Dr. Beatriz Reyes-Foster was recently honored with the Dzuiban Award for Excellence in online teaching.

Chuck Dziuban is the Director of the Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness at UCF. Since 1970, he has been a faculty member teaching research design and statistics.

The award, named in his honor, recognizes one outstanding UCF faculty member who has taught at least one blended or fully online course within the previous academic year.

“I was thrilled, but also completely surprised,” Reyes-Foster said. “This is a very competitive award and we have many excellent online instructors at UCF. It was extremely gratifying to be recognized in this way.”

She was awarded at the IDL 6543 showcase. IDL 6543 is an award-winning, non-credit course for faculty provided by UCF’s Center for Distributed Learning. It models how to teach online using a combination of seminars, labs, consultations and web-based instruction and is delivered in a mixed mode.

Reyes-Foster said that because of the course, she learned that online teaching was not what she originally thought it was. Online learning is different from face-to-face learning and there is a way to teach it properly.

“Thanks to IDL 6543, I learned that online education can be just as good as face to face education, but that it needs to be understood as an inherently different learning experience,” she said. “Thus, materials and concepts need to be presented in a variety of different formats with accessibility in mind.”

Dr. Aimee Denoyelles, her instructional designer, was a huge resource for Reyes-Foster.

“She’s an expert in online learning, so I often rely on her guidance in designing interactive assignments to maximize critical thinking and engagement in my online classroom.”

We would like to congratulate Reyes-Foster on her hard work and achievements.