Grant Awarded to Teacher/Student

Susan Volpe, an interior design instructor at Mission College in Sylmar, wants to become a better teacher.

Beginning with the fall semester, Volpe, who is also working toward a master’s degree in interior design at Cal State Northridge, will have an opportunity to research various teaching methods.

CSUN officials announced this month that Volpe is the 1998 recipient of the Omicron Nu-Eileen C. Maddex Fellowship.

The $2,000 grant from the Michigan-based honor society will fund Volpe’s research in matching student learning styles with different teaching methods in college-level courses.

“The grant has shortened the time for me to complete my education and will see me through the next year financially,” Volpe said.

Dorothy Mitstifer, executive director of the society, said the fellowship committee cited Volpe’s dual role as a student and teacher as the primary reason for awarding her the grant. “She is able to conduct research from multiple perspectives,” Mitstifer said.

Volpe said her research project came about when she noticed some of her students did not respond well to the traditional lecture format.

“It fascinated me in that some of the students got it while others did not,” Volpe said. “So, I started looking into alternative ways of teaching, such as group discussions, flash cards and videos, and found that some students respond well to different methods.”

Beginning this fall at Mission College, Volpe said she will administer a pretest to her students to determine what type of learning styles they prefer.

“That way, I can find out what type of learner they are, whether they’d be book-learners or lecture-learners, or whether they respond well to taking notes or taping lectures,” she said. “After that, my class will become a living experiment.”