Open SUNY Online Teaching Ambassador 2017 – Corning: Donna Moore Powers

Donna Moore Powers is a professor at Corning Community College in the Science Department, STEM Division. She earned her Ph.D. in botany from the University of Arkansas in 1999. Her first job, at Hamilton College (1999–2000), brought her to New York, and then finally to Corning Community College in 2000.

Once a non-science major, I relish on exposing my students to the common sense and yet mind blowing examples of biology and environmental science.  Having reinvented my teaching style over the past 20 years, I’ve settled into Team Based Learning in most of my in-class and online classes. Realizing that scientific competence is more significant to a non-major than minutia, I teach content through real world examples they can relate to. The collaboration I see peer-to-peer, the camaraderie that’s fostered translates to better and deeper comprehension of material. Teaching online became truly rewarding when I adopted a Team Based Learning format.