notables

GGC faculty teams recently won more than $41,000 in Affordable Learning Grants (ALG) for the development of digital materials and related research that will result in significant savings for students.

Dr. Yi Ding, professor of information technology (IT), won a $4,000 ALG Transformation Grant to revise no-cost course materials, videos, hands-on instructions with screenshots, PowerPoint slides and textual materials for the ITEC 2201 course. The project aims to enhance student success metrics, including retention rates, academic performance, passing rates and enrollment figures for programs that integrate IT and business subjects.

Dr. Rebecca Flynn, professor of English, won a $17,109 ALG Transformation Grant as part of a collaborative initiative between Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC), Kennesaw State University (KSU), and the University of Georgia (UGA). The project aims to achieve up to $69,106 in student savings by delivering no-cost course materials, including adaptive learning resources, for the corequisite ENGL 1101 and ENGL 999 corequisite support classes. The project also seeks to use research-based digital strategies to enhance student success for our diverse student population and contribute to establishing instructional and assessment standards for corequisite ENGL 1101/999 courses at GGC.

Dr. Todd Lindley, associate professor of geography, won a $10,000 ALG Continuous Improvement Grant for updating, correcting and enhancing existing content for all 13 chapters of the textbook, “Introduction to Human Geography,” first published by UNG Press in 2018 as part of a previous ALG grant. He will author a new chapter on globalization in a post-pandemic world. Additional new chapters include one on geospatial technologies and concepts by Dr. David Dorrell, associate professor of geography, and one on urban geography by Dr. Georgeta Connor, associate professor of geography. This open-source textbook will save students $55-$105, compared to for-profit textbooks.

Dr. Katherine Pinzon, professor of mathematics, won a $10,000 ALG Transformation Grant to develop team-based, active-learning materials, including an activity book with slides and an exercise bank, adaptation of an existing open educational resource textbook as a supplemental resource, and transformation of two standard lecture-style courses.