CRTLE FACULTY FACILITATORS

About

Kevin Carr is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Marketing Department in the College of Business where he teaches courses in Business Communication. As a proud first-generation college student and son of immigrants, Dr. Carr is passionate about empowering all UTA students, but especially our first-generation population, to pursue their professional and educational dreams while also reducing the fears, anxiety, and “imposter syndrome” that many students face. His courses are designed as engaging, dynamic learning environments that provide repeated, scaffolded, low-stakes opportunities for practice, feedback, and reflection. Frequent, fun, interactive, in-class activities where student simulate team meetings, deliver difficult feedback, or practice networking conversations, are intentionally low stakes in grading but high impact in confidence-building by helping students develop emotional intelligence, active listening, and effective verbal and nonverbal communication skills. His teaching increasingly explores the use of generative AI to support formative feedback, revision, and skill development, with an emphasis on transparency, ethical use, and preparing students for AI-augmented professional environments. “Real-world” projects anchor his pedagogy. Students work in small teams to research and develop solutions to business problems and to communicate their recommendations clearly, concisely, and credibly. Dr. Carr also prioritizes student voice and instructor accountability by integrating structured feedback throughout each semester, a practice informed by his ACUE Effective College Instruction certification. On the first day of class, students complete a “What I Want to Learn” worksheet to surface individual goals and expectations, and before midterms they complete a “Start, Stop, Continue” reflection to assess what is and is not working in the course. These feedback loops allow him to adapt instruction in real time and consistently improve student engagement and outcomes.  

Areas of Teaching Expertise

• Business Rhetoric
• Employment Communication
• Verbal Presentations
• Teaching with Generative AI

Teaching Awards & Recognition

• Nominated for Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching (2025)

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About

Dr. Jiyoon Yoon is Associate Professor at The University of Texas at Arlington with over 23 years of experience in higher education, including more than two decades preparing pre-service and in-service teachers in science education. At UTA, she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses across science education, where she emphasizes research-informed teaching, critical evaluation of educational interventions, and equity-centered instructional design. Her teaching philosophy is grounded in active, experiential learning that positions students as critical thinkers and reflective practitioners rather than passive recipients of content.

Dr. Yoon integrates inquiry-based investigations, culturally responsive teaching practices, and AI-assisted formative feedback to support student learning, while explicitly teaching students how to question unsupported claims and evaluate evidence in educational research. She is known for redesigning courses to include signature assignments such as misconception interviews, culturally responsive lesson design projects, and data-driven critiques of popular educational programs, which consistently lead to high student engagement and deeper conceptual understanding. Across modalities—including face-to-face, hybrid, and fully online asynchronous courses—she prioritizes structured discussion, collaborative knowledge building, and transparent assessment strategies supported by detailed rubrics and iterative feedback.

Her areas of teaching expertise include STEM education, culturally responsive pedagogy, teacher preparation, and research methodology in education. A concrete example of her impact is her redesign of graduate-level Science Education courses, where students analyze real educational interventions using peer-reviewed research, apply findings to authentic classroom contexts, and receive scaffolded feedback supported by AI tools and instructor coaching, resulting in increased confidence, stronger analytical writing, and improved application of research to practice. Through her teaching, mentoring, and curriculum innovation, Dr. Yoon consistently fosters inclusive learning environments that empower students to become reflective educators, critical consumers of research, and effective STEM advocates in diverse educational settings.

Area of Teaching Expertise

• Science Education
• STEM Pedagogy
• Culturally Responsive Teaching
• Inquiry-Based and Experiential Learning

Teaching Awards & Recognition

• Tenured/Tenure-Track faculty, College of Education, UTA. (2024)

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About

Dr. Tyler D. Garner is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Texas at Arlington, where he has been a dedicated member of the faculty since 2012. With over a decade of experience in higher education, his instructional expertise spans high-enrollment courses in human movement, physiology, sport nutrition, and health promotion. Dr. Garner’s pedagogical philosophy is built upon three core pillars: fostering a growth mindset, cultivating social belonging, and maintaining an inclusive, equitable learning environment. He utilizes evidence-based active learning strategies to move students beyond rote memorization toward critical thinking and real-world application, often integrating Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to ensure all students, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds, have a pathway to success. As a leader in pedagogical innovation, he has served as a Faculty Fellow for the Student Experience Project (SEP) and the Maverick Advantage Faculty Engagement (MAFE) program, where he redesigned curricula to embed experiential learning and data-informed strategies that enhance student belonging.

His commitment to “humanizing” the student experience is best showcased through his “COPD Empathy Simulation” in the Health & Human Disease course. In this signature assignment, students navigate their typical daily schedules while breathing through a straw and carrying a rolling suitcase to simulate the physical and logistical burdens of chronic illness. This high-impact practice bridges the gap between abstract pathology and the socio-environmental disparities faced by patients, consistently resulting in “lightbulb moments” that prepare future healthcare professionals for empathetic practice. Dr. Garner’s excellence has been recognized with the 2025 College of Nursing and Health Innovation Teaching Award. Beyond his courses, he has mentored over 500 students through academic advising and continues to lead as a Faculty Facilitator for the Center for Research on Teaching and Learning Excellence (CRTLE), sharing actionable course design strategies with colleagues across campus. 

Area of Teaching Expertise

• Student engagement
• Active learning
• Experiential projects
  

Teaching Awards & Recognition

• CONHI Faculty Teaching award (2025)
• Academy of Distinguished Teachers (nominated, 2025)

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About

In the 1990s Dr. Laurel Smith Stvan taught at universities in Chicago, at the University of Science and Technology of China, and at the University of Utah. For the past 25 years she has been a faculty member at UTA in the Department of Linguistics and TESOL. During that time she has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in semantics, pragmatics, and corpus linguistics, graduate seminars in linguistic research, and has supervised 23 doctoral students in the completion of their dissertations. In curriculum development, she was the co-developer of the department’s MA in TESOL in 2002, incorporating student engagement through a required teaching practicum. She coordinated the revamping of the department’s two current core curriculum courses for Linguistics in 2014. In 2024, she worked with CDE to redesign a version of one of these core courses, Intro to the Study of Human Language, to provide the department’s first fully and intentionally online course in Linguistics, a synchronous section that she has taught multiple times. Emphasizing accessibility and using a course design that meets QM standards, this core class provides schedule flexibility to undergraduates while engaging them in discussions about key properties of human language ability, viewed from a social and behavioral sciences perspective. Since 2017 Dr. Stvan has designed multiple Linguistics classes through work with Wiki Education. In these courses, UTA students edit Wikipedia pages as classroom writing assignments, allowing them to expand the descriptions and citations of online information about linguistic topics, human languages, and computational linguists, as they expand their research skills through peer-checked, public-facing writing. Besides having served as the Chair of Linguistics and TESOL and as the Interim Chair of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Dr. Stvan is one of the Learning Analytics Fellows at CRTLE, working with the University Analytics team to research ways to help faculty incorporate data-driven strategies that can improve student success and to produce data-rich work in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

Area of Teaching Expertise

• Accessible online learning
• Doctoral mentoring
• Learning analytics
• Wikipedia editing in the classroom

 Teaching Awards & Recognition

• Excellence in Doctoral Student Mentoring Award (UTA Graduate School) 2023-2024
• Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award (UTA College of Liberal Arts) 2013-14
• Recognized Professor, by an initiate of the the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, UT Arlington Chapter, 2013
• The Alicia Wilkerson Smotherman Faculty Award, for research expertise and teaching abilities that have inspired students to create work of exceptional merit which goes beyond the ordinary expectations for class assignments (UTA College of Liberal Arts) 2009-2010

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About

Christy Spivey is a Clinical Professor of Economics and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, where she has taught since 2009 and has become a campus leader in online pedagogy and faculty-led study abroad. With over twenty years of higher‑education teaching experience, she is recognized for her evidence‑based, technology‑enhanced approach to instruction and her commitment to fostering deep, active learning across modalities. Her teaching philosophy centers on the belief that students learn best through doing, a principle reflected in her extensive use of hands‑on data analysis, interactive technologies, and real‑world applications. She has designed multiple online courses in the College of Business, particularly in data visualization and health and labor economics, integrating tools such as Stata, Tableau, H5P, Moblab, and AI to create dynamic, student‑centered learning environments. Her innovations have earned her numerous honors, including the UT System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award, the UTA President’s Award for Transformative Online Education, the TxDLA Award for Excellence in Distance Education, and induction into UTA’s Academy of Distinguished Teachers. Her signature assignments include a data storytelling project in which students build reproducible analyses and narrative visualizations and earn a microcredential. She also leads economics experiments, both in person and online through Moblab, that allow students to generate and analyze their own market data, deepening conceptual understanding. Beyond the classroom, Christy is deeply involved in global education as the College of Business Director of Study Abroad, having led programs in Europe and Panama and developed UTA’s first virtual study abroad course, which produced significant growth in students’ intercultural competencies. As Program Director for the MS in Economic Data Analytics, a Quality Matters–certified peer reviewer, and a long‑time faculty leader in online course quality, she contributes broadly to curriculum development, faculty mentoring, and institutional initiatives that advance teaching excellence.

Area of Teaching Expertise

• Online course design & quality
• Active learning & interactive technologies
• Faculty-led study abroad

Teaching Awards & Recognition

• Distinguished Teaching Professor, UTA. (March 7, 2025).
• COB Outstanding Publication Award for Clinical Faculty, COB. (April 12, 2024).
• Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award, UT System. (September 19, 2023).
• Award for Outstanding Commitment to Excellence and Innovation in Distance Education by an Individual, 4-year Higher Education, Texas Digital Learning Association (TxDLA). (February 28, 2023).

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About

Dr. Bonnie Laster is an Associate Professor of Instruction in the Department of Psychology at The University of Texas at Arlington, where she teaches undergraduate courses in clinical counseling, abnormal psychology, developmental psychology, and cognitive psychology. She brings over twenty years of experience in higher education across diverse institutional contexts and draws on her background in educational psychology to inform her approach to student learning. Dr. Laster is deeply committed to experiential and applied learning, intentionally designing signature assignments that bridge theory and practice. These activities include clinical case formulations, diagnostic analyses of fictitious characters, structured role-plays, reflective journals, and an innovative abnormal psychology storybook project. Her teaching innovations also include course redesigns that prioritize student engagement and the transfer of learning, as well as holistic grading practices that emphasize depth, reflection, and quality of thinking. A hallmark of her applied teaching approach is the integration of professional microcredentials into coursework. In her advanced clinical counseling course, students can earn certifications in mental health first aid and suicide prevention, allowing them to graduate with both academic preparation and workforce-relevant credentials. Across courses, Dr. Laster’s pedagogical expertise lies at the intersection of clinical psychology, counseling modalities, trauma-informed teaching, experiential learning, and evidence-based learning science. Collectively, her teaching aims to foster inclusive and engaging learning environments that promote critical thinking, applied clinical skills, and lifelong learning. Additional examples of her teaching practices and innovations are available on her Mentis profile.

Area of Teaching Expertise

• Experiential learning
• Active learning
• Collaborative learning

Teaching Awards & Recognition

• Outstanding Teaching Award – Academic Professional Teaching; College of Science; University of Texas at Arlington; 2025

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About

Dr. Shelley Wigley has been teaching in higher education for more than two decades and has been teaching public relations in the Department of Communication at UTA since 2008. Dr. Wigley strives for an active and engaged classroom where all students feel welcome and supported. She emphasizes active learning and believes students learn best when they are actively engaged and involved in hands-on learning. Dr. Wigley teaches the capstone course for her discipline, PR Campaigns, where approximately 20 students work in an agency-like setting the entire semester on behalf of a real-world client. This hands-on approach allows students to apply concepts they have already mastered and put them into action in a real-world setting. Dr. Wigley developed the first strategic social media course in the Department of Communication and the Communication Ambassadors program, which has been implemented in departments across campus. More recently, Dr. Wigley has worked to incorporate experiential learning opportunities in her courses through AI. She also has utilized Special Collections at UTA Libraries for students in her crisis communication classes to learn how to analyze historical events through a crisis communication lens. Dr. Wigley incorporates microcredentials into course content where appropriate and participated in UTA’s inaugural Summer 2024 Microcredential Institute. She is a Student Experience Project fellow and committee member of the university’s Quality Enhancement Plan and chairs her department’s Working AI Group for faculty.  Dr. Wigley is certified through the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) teaching certification program.

Area of Teaching Expertise

• Service learning
• Experiential learning
• Experiential learning with AI

Teaching Awards & Recognition

• Gertrude Golladay Memorial Award for Outstanding Teaching, College of Liberal Arts
• Outstanding Teaching Award for Tenured Faculty, College of Liberal Arts
• Nominee from the College of Liberal Arts to the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching for Tenured Faculty at UTA

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About

Dr. Dianna Woods-Jones is an Assistant Professor of Practice (APT) in Social Work at The University of Texas at Arlington. She brings more than 15 years of teaching experience and over 25 years of macro social work practice spanning community, organizational, and policy contexts. Her professional background includes work as a paralegal, program evaluator, and professor, with a sustained focus on partnering with communities and organizations to advance systems level change.

Dr. Woods-Jones is deeply committed to making a positive social impact through teaching, student engagement, and the mentoring of adjunct faculty. Her teaching philosophy is grounded in flipped classroom and project based learning (PBL) models, informed by heutagogy and adult learning theory. Through these approaches, she emphasizes student-directed, experiential learning that prepares emerging social workers to apply theory to real-world challenges and to function as adaptive, reflective practitioners.

Her scholarly and professional interests include policy analysis and advocacy, participatory action research, and applied research, with particular attention to how research and policy intersect to drive change across communities, service organizations, higher education, and related sectors. Dr. Woods-Jones views teaching and research as mutually reinforcing practices and intentionally cultivates classrooms and community partnerships as sites for cocreated knowledge, critical inquiry, and action oriented learning. She is dedicated to preparing students to become effective change agents within complex social systems.

Teaching Awards & Recognition

• Student Recognition, UTA-Division of Student Affairs. (December 9, 2024).
• Student Recognition, Division of Student Affairs. (December 2, 2023).

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About

Ahmad Bani-Hani teaches Construction Management courses in the Civil Engineering Department, bringing over five years of teaching experience focused on preparing students for success in the construction industry. His teaching integrates research, technology, and active learning strategies that emphasize student engagement, critical thinking, and real-world application. Ahmad’s background includes work on National Science Foundation (NSF) and Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) projects, which informs his instruction with applied research perspectives and contemporary industry-relevant examples.

A strong advocate for active learning, Ahmad designs his courses around interactive, student-centered activities that encourage participation, collaboration, and hands-on problem-solving during class time. He is deeply committed to creating an engaging and supportive learning environment and regularly participates in professional development workshops to continually refine his teaching practices and improve student learning outcomes. He is also a LEED Green Associate, reflecting his interest in sustainability and environmentally responsible practices in the built environment.

Beyond the classroom, Ahmad serves as a Faculty Facilitator for the Center for Research on Teaching and Learning Excellence (CRTLE), where he supports instructional innovation and effective teaching practices. He also serves as the faculty advisor for the Construction Management Student Organization, where he mentors students, hosts industry guest speakers, and accompanies students on field trips to active construction sites. Through these efforts, Ahmad fosters strong connections between students, faculty, and industry professionals while helping build a vibrant and supportive learning community within the program.

Area of Teaching Expertise

• Active learning
• Construction Management
• Civil Engineering

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CRTLE LEAD FACULTY FACILITATOR

About

Dr. Sarah is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English where she teaches composition and literature. She currently serves as Coordinator of Social Media, of the Rhetoric and Writing Studies Minor, and of the Internship Program for her department and serves as a MAFE Facilitator for UTA’s Center for Research on Teaching and Learning Excellence (CRTLE), helping faculty incorporate experiential learning into their courses. Her praxis interests include experiential learning, the materiality of classrooms and of reading and writing processes, posthumanist pedagogy, posthumanism, critical theory, composition studies, AI in composition studies, AI in literature, speculative fiction, fat studies, contemporary literature, young adult literature, feminism, disability theory, agential realism, and post-qualitative inquiry. Her work on “teaching elsewhere,” a posthumanist pedagogy, is outlined in a chapter for Towards Posthumanism in Education: Theoretical Entanglements and Pedagogical Mappings, forthcoming in May 2024. Her work in disability and fat studies has been published in Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society. She holds a BA in English from UT Austin and an M.Ed. in Teaching from UTA.

Area of Teaching Expertise

• Experiential Learning, Writing Process, Creative Composition and Advanced Exposition
• Multimodal Composition and Digital Authorship, Rhetoric and Composition, Literary Analysis and Interpretation
• Posthumanist Pedagogy, Open Educational Resources (OER), AI and Ethics in Literature and Composition, English Education and Pedagogy
• Critical Theory, Feminist Theory, Disability Studies and Literature, Fat Studies and Body Politics in Literature, Speculative and Fantasy Fiction, Contemporary Literature, Social Media Storytelling and Digital Humanities

Teaching Awards & Recognition

• UTA Libraries Open Initiatives Grant ($5,000), UTA Library. (2024).
• Experiential Learning Faculty Facilitators Grant (ELF) Grant, UTA Library. (2023).
• O’Neill Academic Excellence Award, UTA Department of English. (May 14, 2016).
• Philip Cohen and Elaina McMillan Graduate Fellowship Award, UTA Department of English. (November 12, 2015).
• Distinguished Educator Award, Mansfield ISD Education Foundation. (May 6, 2013).

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