Proposals for Honors 4500 will be welcomed from regular, full-time faculty including lecturers and administrators in any college, as well from university-level administrators who hold a faculty appointment. The Honors College will compensate departments, not individual faculty members, $5,000 for each successful proposal. The Honors College transfers these funds directly to the faculty member’s department, center, or other units shortly after the beginning of the semester the course is taught. If resources permit, the Honors College will provide a modest professional development stipend to faculty to help them develop a Virtual Exchange component.

Proposals should include an outline of outside-the-classroom events, a budget for up to three events for the course, and creative syllabus building.  Events should be included in total contact hours. For example, if students attend a Rialto event that is two hours long, those two hours can count as contact hours, or serve as an assignment.

Proposals should respond in some way to the theme of civic responsibility/civic virtue. The entire course does not have to be centered around this topic, but some aspects of civic responsibility/civic virtue should be addressed. Two resources to help you consider how you can approach this theme include an article published by the American Bar Association on an alternative view of civic duties and a document from Tennessee State University defining citizenship and civic responsibility.

Course objectives should be aligned with college to career learning objectives. Faculty can use this tool to easily accomplish this goal. Assessments of learning must align with the course-linked college to career objectives and should produce evidence of learning suitable for students’ Portfolium accounts. Proposals that include a Virtual Exchange component support GSU’s Quality Enhancement Plan to develop Global/Intercultural Fluency Career-Readiness Skills.

This year, the Honors College encourages proposals that integrate Virtual Exchange into the curriculum, either partially in the form of modules or completely. Virtual Exchange is an exciting teaching and learning method that connects students and faculty at Georgia State to students and faculty at an international university to work collaboratively on some project tor theme. Virtual Exchange promotes students’ intercultural competence using a variety of teaching strategies, such as peer review, cooperative learning, online discussions, project-based learning, service-learning, and co-teaching.

Benefits to students:

• Increases global competency and engagement
• Promotes digital literacy
• Fosters cultural appreciation and understanding
• Develops professional skills
• Facilitates intercultural collaboration and communication

Benefits to faculty:

• Offers an economical way to bring in content and practicing expert
• Builds research and teaching networks at international institutions
• Creates professional development opportunities
• Globalizes your curriculum.

In collaboration with the Office of International Initiatives, the following support will be provided to faculty: 1) help finding an international partner, 2) one-on-one discussions on potential topics, best practices, and implementation, 3) introductions to other faculty with experience using this format including a Faculty Teaching and Learning Community for Virtual Exchange, and 4) assistance with technological issues.

For more detailed information on Virtual Exchange, please click here. To see recent examples of Virtual Exchange projects at Georgia State click here.

For more resources on Virtual Exchange, see:

• Link 1
• Link 2
• Link 3
• Link 4
• Link 5
• Link 6

The Honors Digital Literacy Initiative provides unique resources to faculty who plan to teach Honors courses in the 2021-2022 academic year. These resources offer increased opportunities for students to participate in active learning, engage in new approaches to their disciplines through digital discussion and problem solving and obtain skills important to academic and professional success. Resources include:

• eText and Course Development Assistance: The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) will provide resources to assist faculty with creating their own eTexts or developing other course materials and ideas.
• Technology-Equipped Academic Spaces: Participants will be eligible to teach in flexible classroom spaces that include technologies such as touch screens and classroom recording.
• An Exceptional Environment for Educational Research and Publication: This initiative provides many opportunities to conduct evidence-based research into how evolving digital tools affect learning. Help with preparing publications will be available.

Program Participation
Find out how even small changes to how you ask students to demonstrate evidence of learning can have a big impact. Discover more about digital pedagogy and resources for faculty from CETL. Explore classroom projects from the DL initiative at Edge Magazine.

Our goal is for the following outcomes and objectives to be met through our Honors College courses:

• Course requirements should demonstrate growth in knowledge and critical thinking through writing and oral discussion. Requirements should be creative and allow students to explore the enduring question through various perspectives, etc. Digital learning features are encouraged.
• Other requirements should ask students to demonstrate learning through creative, non-traditional ways.

Decisions are made by the associate dean in coordination with the director of academic assistance. The Honors College will balance seminars across colleges and disciplines. The Honors College, in keeping with overall university goals, will prioritize non-peak time and classroom assignments.

Honors College Interim Associate Dean Bill Nichols is available to consult with faculty developing course proposals. The Honors College librarian is also available as a resource to faculty members during the course development process.