Columbus State University associate professor of psychology Stephanie da Silva was recently selected as a 2016 Governor’s Teaching Fellow after a highly competitive application and selection process.

One of 15 faculty members from institutions of higher education across the state, da Silva was selected to participate last month in the Governor’s Teaching Fellows Program, which was established in 1995 by Zell Miller, governor of Georgia from 1991 to 1999, to provide Georgia’s higher education faculty with expanded opportunities for developing important teaching skills. Gov. Miller envisioned this program would address faculty members’ pressing need to use emerging technologies and instructional tools that are becoming increasingly important for learning in today’s society.

“The experience was nothing short of transformational,” said da Silva. “I will never teach my courses the same way I did before I attended. It truly changed my approach to teaching and learning.”

The Governor’s Teaching Fellows Program is an outreach program of the Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia. To improve the quality of instruction in Georgia’s colleges and universities, the Governor’s Teaching Fellows Program assumes the complex challenge of moving college faculty members to the leading edge of instructional practice.

In her own classroom, da Silva plans to transition from tests to performance tasks to better measure student learning, a strategy she learned from the Fellows Program.

“The biggest changes [to my teaching] will be the incorporation of effective strategies to truly engage students and assessments that authentically target skills in application and use of course content,” da Silva said.