Active Learning
Classroom debates, role-playing, gamification, and peer-teaching are active learning methods that UGA faculty use to better engage their students in the classroom. Tina Carpenter, a 2024 Meigs Teaching Professor from the Terry College of Business, teaches a course that she redesigned using a UGA Learning Technologies Grant. Students conduct live interviews with avatars, collect evidence, and build data analytics through a simulated fraud case using AI.
Lori Johnston from the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication won a 2024 Creative Teaching Award after she transformed a course using mock press conferences and beat pitch competitions judged by professional editors and reporters. Last year, she created an exercise that encourages aspiring journalists to meet people on their reporting beats, seek out resources in and outside the college, and connect with faculty and alumni.
Experiential Learning
Students at UGA accelerate their education by pairing hands-on activities with classroom learning. UGA is one of the nation’s largest universities to offer hands-on learning experiences—internships, research opportunities, and study abroad programs—to 100% of undergraduate students.
A recent student impact trip brought together students from different majors—microbiology, computer science, and risk management—to volunteer at the UGA Skidaway Institute of Oceanography. Their classroom learning took on real-world meaning as they orchestrated a marsh cleanup, handled live animals, and studied plant life in the field.
Connect Abroad, a new initiative that combines experiential learning and global education, completed its inaugural pilot program this spring. Connect Abroad seeks to create a new generation of global citizens at UGA by allowing students to study abroad in their first year and opening doors for students who might not otherwise get the opportunity.
