Stephanie Seidel Holmsten
Stephanie Seidel Holmsten is an associate professor of instruction in the College of Liberal Arts where she teaches core courses in the International Relations and Global Studies program, as well as Gender and Politics in the Government Department. Her teaching methods include global virtual exchange and team-based learning. She is Chair of the Provost Teaching Fellows, co-Director of the Brumley Next Generation Scholars Program, and Director of the Global Virtual Exchange faculty learning community. Her research explores minority women's election around the world. Her latest passion is co-hosting the PTF podcast, "The Otherside of Campus."
Initiative
Global Learning Experiences
Cross-cultural connections can deepen student engagement in the world around them and encourage their creativity about the course material. Such connections can happen in a UT classroom if the student body is particularly diverse, or if students participate in study abroad programs. Global connections are also being created through the Global Classrooms Initiative that connect UT students with students at universities from other countries through classroom activities, conversations and projects intentionally designed to encourage collaboration.
Impacts
Team-Based Learning in the Political Science Classroom (Journal of Political Science Education)
Team-Based Learning is a specific interactive educational method that has been shown to develop skills for meaningful teamwork. Through engaging classroom activities, students experience the benefits of working with others. According to the literature, students perceive the benefits of teamwork including understanding the course material more deeply and producing higher quality class assignments.
Measuring Impactful Teaching Practices in Global Virtual Exchange (International Virtual Exchange Conference)
"Measuring Impactful Teaching Practices" was presented at the International Virtual Exchange Conference, December 2022, Spain. We explore Global Virtual Exchange (or GVE) at the University of Texas at Austin in the last academic year, 2021-2022 to measure the impact of the faculty-led program, Our main takeaway was that professors and students participating in the GVE program find the greatest benefits to be in the intercultural student-to-student exchange and the exposure to different perspectives.
American Council on Education & Global Virtual Exchange Program & The American Council on Education Conference
The 2019-20 international collaboration between (US)-ESPOL(Ecuador)-UAM (Venezuela) provided evidence of the COIL model for course design in achieving student outcomes. Our experiences with icebreakers, collaborative projects, and assessment tools were shared at the American Council on Education's 2021 annual meeting.
Teaching Tips 2020-2021
Each year, the PTF Chair-Elect has the opportunity to share recurring Teaching Tips with all faculty at UT. These messages cover a variety of topics, styles, and methodologies, from brief and practical classroom strategies to in-depth conversations with voices from across campus.
This year’s Teaching Tips were written by Chair-Elect Stephanie Seidel Holmsten.
International Virtual Exchange Program (Texas Global)
UT's Global Virtual Exchange program provides small grants to promote meaningful collaboration across universities. Uniquely situated in an R1, the program offers new insights into faculty-led initiatives that support teaching innovation even where research is also highly valued. We presented program design at the International Virtual Exchange Conference 2020.