2024 Champion: Falconer, Emily
Biography
Emily Faulconer is an associate professor in the Department of Math, Science and Technology at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Worldwide Campus. With a doctorate in environmental engineering sciences from the University of Florida and experience as a laboratory chemist, she brings multi-disciplinary expertise to her teaching role. Dr. Faulconer’s research focuses on exploring and implementing high-impact practices in undergraduate online STEM education, particularly focusing on experiential learning (undergraduate research experiences and service-learning). Her efforts to establish and coordinate a team in the creation of a framework of support for undergraduate research for fully online students has led to the success of the Research Scholars Program at the Worldwide campus. Her latest research is focused on humanizing STEM teaching and learning across contexts through interdisciplinary and international collaborations. Safety is also an area of interest, and she serves as a founding member of the ERAU Academic Safety Committee where she leverages her expertise as a certified chemical hygiene officer. Dr. Faulconer remains dedicated to fostering a culture of innovation within STEM education, with commitment to excellence and synergy between her teaching, research, and service.
Campus
Worldwide
Position
Associate Professor, COAS
Courses Impacted
- PHYS 142
- PHYS 304
2024 Champion: Falconer, Emily
Comments
I would like to nominate Emily Faulconer for consideration for the 2023 Textbook Affordability Championship. She has invested significant efforts into generating in-house course materials for the Introduction to Environmental Science (PHYS 142) and Environmental Science (PHYS 304) Courses. New materials include podcasts, videos, and interactive elements using H5P and other educational technology tools. As a result, the textbook was eliminated from both courses and student satisfaction with the courses has improved. In the 2022-2023 academic year, 71 students enrolled in these courses creating student savings of at least $11,000. Beyond money saved by students, the in-house course materials were able to generate interest and deep learning. Students provided end-of-course comments such as “Really enjoyed this course, the way the wanders were tied into the material really made me think and it made it where I had invested interest. When im interested I really excel and focus. Great course.” Emily also shared her work with the educational community such as with Magna’s 20-minute mentors program (https://www.magnapubs.com/presenters/emily-faulconer-phd/) as well as freely shared the H5P interactive materials. Since the H5P materials are public assets, they do not provide interactivity reports. Along with varying the types of traditional open-source assignments (discussions, group projects, presentations), Emily has created many H5P interactive materials. This includes crosswords, informative videos/slides with reflective questions, slides where students click on different objects to learn about them, drag-and-drop activities to match definitions with their descriptions. These interactive materials increase student interest and are easy for other instructors to implement. -- Faculty Nomination