Peering into a classroom taught by Jeffery Huston, Ph.D., professor of health sciences, may surprise the casual observer. Whether it’s tennis balls flying around the room, students scrambling with dry-erase markers, or sometimes, unusual use for tables, the students are engaged. An ideal classroom for Huston balances on the edge of chaos.
After more than 20 years of teaching, Huston said his focus in the classroom is to teach his students to lead a life of purpose and distinction. And he exercises the healthy minds of his students with interactive in-class activities.
Huston said it’s not always about students sitting, taking notes and being quiet in a lecture hall. Some of the best days in a classroom are when students participate in engaging activities, discussions and problem solving exercises. And that’s where the tennis balls come in.
“I cover athletic training, sports medicine and orthopedic evaluation,” Huston said. “One day you may walk by my classroom and see students standing on the tables and you'd look at and go 'why are people on the tables?’ And it’s because we need to do things to make sure that we're paying attention and engaged.”
But Huston’s classes aren’t always the same, sometimes he changes his tactics.
“I can say in all honesty that I look over my lessons and modify them all the time,” Huston said. “If I'm just going in and doing the same stuff over and over again, it will get repetitive and everything changes over time.”
Huston has always aimed to teach in a way in which he’d want his kids to be taught. Being fair, open and honest are important policies that Huston tries to implement in his classes.
Huston has a few different approaches when it comes to teaching. These include a flipped classroom approach, whiteboard speed dating inspired activities and a gamified classroom.
Huston creates pre-class activities that can include narrated lectures or YouTube videos. After going through course materials by themselves, students come to class and work on problem-solving based on that knowledge.
“One activity I came up with is something I call ‘whiteboard speed dating.’ I split everyone up with whiteboards, and they get 30 seconds to write something on that board. After I say ‘switch,’ they’ll go to the next board for another 30 seconds and so on,” Huston said. “When we’re done, they come back and work on their own boards so we can problem solve based on the work of their peers.”
Huston uses techniques from YouTuber Mark Rober by gamifying certain portions of assignments. Rober talks about a Super Mario effect: how you learn in life through video games, how to be persistent and how to learn from failures.
Huston said he wants students to be able to show how and what they’re learning in whatever ways possible. He enjoys giving options because not everyone learns the same way.
Huston’s dedication to his students led to him being nominated for and receiving the 2022 Outstanding Teaching Award.
“It was a huge surprise, especially because it comes from students,” Huston said. “It's not something that you go out and seek to have, but to be nominated by a few students for it was really humbling.”
The award honors full-time, nontenure-track and part-time faculty members who are nominated by students or alumni for being among the most dedicated, highly effective and motivated professors at .
“Years ago, I had a student who dropped a note in my mailbox. I'd had a rough couple of weeks, and I got this note from him. He’d said how much he appreciated me being flexible, having a great sense of humor, being someone that was engaging and showing that I cared about the class,” Huston said. “Sometimes you don’t hear that a lot so it meant a lot to me, it was really amazing.”
All 2022 Distinguished Teaching Award (DTA) and OTA honorees were acknowledged at the UTC’s Fall Celebration of Teaching Conference on Friday, Oct. 21, 2022.
To learn more about the School of Health Sciences, please visit www.kent.edu/ehhs/hs.
To learn more about the Outstanding Teaching Award, please visit www.kent.edu/utc/ota-recipients.