May 13, 2021
Jun receives 2021 K-State Global Campus Excellence in Online Teaching Award
Sim Jun, assistant professor in the sociology, anthropology and social work department in the K-State College of Arts and Sciences, has been selected as the recipient of the 2021 K-State Global Campus Excellence in Online Teaching Award.
The award is given to an instructor or faculty member who practices quality methods of online teaching; has a high level of teaching effectiveness as evidenced through students meeting learning objectives and use of student-centered approaches; demonstrates a concern for student development and learning through student mentoring; and practices and implements innovative approaches in course delivery.
"Global Campus is proud to honor the excellent work of innovative and student-centered faculty members like Dr. Jun through this award," said Karen Pedersen, dean of Global Campus. "It is fantastic to see faculty members invest in learning more about effective online teaching and then applying those strategies to enhance student learning in the online environment."
In the materials submitted for Jun's nomination, it was noted that, "Dr. Sim Jun is so amazing! She is hands-down one of the best professors. She is very active and engaged in her students' academic careers. She is caring and empathizes with students' struggles to learn during the pandemic. The way she structures her courses makes it easy and better to learn the material. From the additional readings, lecture videos, outside videos and guest lectures there is never a dull moment in her class. She provides this additional material to better her efforts to educate her students. She teaches research in a way that I feel we have developed a passion for doing it in our careers."
The nominators also acknowledged Sim's contributions to knowledge about online education in her field. They noted when all courses moved online in spring 2020, she partnered with colleagues to collect data on which online teaching methods work best for social work students. In addition to sharing the study results with colleagues, she has submitted a manuscript on effective social work online education in the midst of COVID-19 to the Journal of Teaching in Social Work — under review. In addition to her research on online education, Jun was granted an Open/Alternative Textbook Initiative Award to develop online open-access course materials for both SOCWK 330 and 530. As a result, her students save money and have easy access to online learning materials.