Awards

Lieber Memorial Associate Instructor Award - 2000

About Kristina K. Horn Sheeler

A quick review of the teaching record of Kristina Sheeler in the IUB Department of Communication and Culture reveals that she is a most unusual AI. She has taught four different classes during four years of doctoral work - including an advanced undergraduate class taught without direct supervision - and she has served as a course director and assistant course director for "Interpersonal Communication," a large multi-section introductory course.

To engage her students and illustrate specific points, Sheeler uses a variety of strategies and materials - small-group discussions, video clips, role playing, scholarly journals, literature, popular music and news broadcasts. Based on the feedback from her students, those approaches work.

"It is not uncommon for young educators to aspire to a student-centered classroom," said John Louis Lucaites, associate professor and director of graduate studies in Sheeler's department. "Performing the hard work and constant self-evaluation necessary to the successful achievement of such a classroom environment is another matter altogether. Kristy provides a model for how to enact such a pedagogy."

Her teaching excellence has been recognized not only by the scope and responsibilities of her assignments, but also by a variety of teaching awards, including the departmental Robert G. Gunderson Award; a 1999 Teaching Excellence Recognition Award from the Trustees of IU; the 1998 Teaching Excellence Award from her department; and the 1998 IU Speech Tradition Associate Instructor Award.