One is a Georgia Perimeter College English professor who moonlights as a novelist. Another teaches geology online and volunteers with a spay/neuter program for stray animals. A third, also an English professor, will spend two weeks in Jamaica this summer teaching impoverished children.

All three were selected for the prestigious Governor’s Teaching Fellowship program this year.

Jason Dew, English, and Dr. Deniz Ballero, Geology, recent completed the 2014 Summer Symposium Governor’s Teaching Fellow program at the University of Georgia. Dr. Terry Bozeman, English, will begin his experience this fall as a 2014-15 Governor’s Teaching Fellow.

Jason Dew

Dew is adding some things to his teaching “bag of tricks” as a result of his fellowship experience.

“It felt like graduate school,” he says of the symposium. “It was nonstop lectures about teaching techniques, classroom management and conflict resolution. We learned a lot of teaching strategies using technology and learned about dozens of programs you can get for free online.”

Dew also noted that Georgia Perimeter was highly regarded by others in the multi-disciplinary group, who hailed from 12 other University System of Georgia institutions. “It was nice to know what we’re doing here is on par with what professors are doing at other institutions,” he says.

When he’s not teaching English or American Literature or writing fiction—his published novels are “All the Bad Things” and “Gadly Plain”—Dew coordinates the Honors Program and evening and weekend classes at Dunwoody Campus. This is his 10th year as an instructor at GPC.

Dr. Deniz Ballero

Ballero plans to incorporate more video into her classroom discussions as a result of her experience as a fellow.

“We talked a lot about ‘flipping the classroom,’ which is essentially student-driven learning and what we do in online classes,” she says. “That’s where the students have the tools they need to read ahead and complete their exercises, and we use the classroom and discussion boards to iron out what they didn’t understand.”

The summer program also incorporated a yoga class into the mix to show faculty ways to take care of themselves and not get stressed out, she says.

Ballero has taught at GPC for 10 years, teaching biology and environmental science as well as geology, and serving stints at GPC’s Newton Campus and its former Gwinnett location before switching to online.

When she is not teaching or keeping up with her active three-year-old daughter, Ballero is involved in helping with a Walton County spay-neuter clinic and the non-profit she co-founded in 2002 called “Save Our Strays.” 

Since 1995 when the Governor’s Teaching Fellowship was established by former Governor Zell Miller, 45 GPC professors have been selected as fellows.

Miller envisioned that the 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 Governor’s Teaching Fellows program is an outreach program of the Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia.