Edgar Virguez, a PhD candidate in Environment, was recently honored with the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Duke Graduate School. He is the second alumni of the Bass Digital Education Fellowship Program with Learning Innovation to receive this award. The award is given to recognize excellence in teaching by Duke graduate students across the university.
As part of his fellowship experience, Virguez led a project to integrate digital technologies and increase student engagement for Voices of the Environment, a course with Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum (and taught in Spanish) under the guidance of Deb Reisinger, PhD, Associate Professor of the Practice of Romance Studies. The fellowship project combined teaching pedagogy and digital learning to increase the participation of the course’s service-learning partner, Fundacion Ayuda por Colombia.
“Being able to envision, design and implement a pedagogical project with a high component of digital technologies changed my approach to teaching. Now that we are facing a global crisis that requires us to integrate virtual teaching as part of our routine, the experience of being a Bass Digital Education Fellow has shaped my teaching philosophy in a positive way.”
Edgar Virguez, Bass Digital Education Fellow
Edgar has a passion to improve the higher education sector. During the last decade he has held several higher education administration positions where he applied optimization and data analytics methods to improve the academic and financial processes of units. As a result, he has successfully defined, planned, and executed strategic research alliances across the globe. Edgar has also developed as a next-generation pedagogue having taught 16 courses, serving more than 560 students, and achieving a high rating by his students.
To Learn more about the Bass Digital Education Fellowship and how this program prepares the next generation of academic innovators, contact Learning Innovation.