Earning college and system recognition for outstanding work in preparing students for the real world are Lone Star College-CyFair’s Faculty Excellence Award winners Miranda Ashworth, David Maslane and Preeti Singh.
These faculty make content in their respective disciplines relatable and relevant to students’ lives, benefitting them both now and in the future, primarily through scholarly debate, healthy critique and engaging discussion.
Ashworth, now in pursuit of a doctorate in political science, brings knowledge and experience in criminal justice and international relations with concentrations on homeland and national security, to her eight years of teaching with the last five at LSC-CyFair. Believing it’s imperative for all to understand how government works, how to weigh potential outcomes of policy preferences and how politics affect lives, she strives to help her students “develop critical thinking skills to productively consider and discuss contentious topics facing our society.”
“Academic conversation is what truly seems to draw students into the topics,” she continued. “Once they are able to realize that the subject is relevant to them and their opinion is valued, they seem to become more self-motivated learners.”
Maslane, now in his 14th year teaching English LSC-CyFair, wants his students to better understand the power and effectiveness of well written stories and essays, their relationship to language and how language plays a large role in determining how their own thoughts interact with the world around them. He draws on active strategies his own instructors utilized in wasy that made classes challenging, yet enjoyable, such as “creative analysis, humor and a fine respect for the intellectual capabilities” or that left him “with a profound sense of wonder and self-reflection.”
“I have attempted to model my teaching by using these methodologies, as I believe they not only help create a better learning environment, but they also engender the intellectual rigor that can help the student to become a lifelong, curious learner,” Maslane said.
Singh, who moved to Houston in 2003 from India and with a master’s in Mathematics from the University of Dehli, began as an adjunct instructor for two years at LSC-CyFair, took time to earn her PhD at the University of Houston and then returned as full-time faculty in 2015. Believing learners need to be engaged and empowered to succeed, Singh has found “the more students discuss and communicate in class, the more they learn not just from me, but from each other”, one technique she said “creates a sense of belongingness in the classroom.”
“Math is a subject that is relatable to every field of study, whether it is physics, chemistry, biology, economics, accounting, etc. We can’t teach math in isolation, so giving examples from various domains help students connect math to real life and realize the importance of learning math,” she continued. “I aim to create a sense of love and understanding for math in students.”
Ashworth, Maslane and Singh said they respectively find the excellence award recognition an honor to be among the college’s talented pool of faculty, meaningful in having one’s work that benefits students and the college noticed, and a great source of further motivation, validation and inspiration.
For information on the college, go to LoneStar.edu/cyfair. It’s not too late to register for spring classes with multiple Next Start options available. For information, go to LoneStar.edu/regcyfair or LoneStar.edu/nextstartcyfair.