SUNY Online Teaching Ambassador 2022: New Paltz – Mercedes Rooney

Mercedes Rooney teaches at SUNY New Paltz in the Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures, where she is an instructor and coordinator of the French language program. She teaches French language, culture, grammar, and literature courses across all levels. She has been developing both hybrid and online formats to better serve the students on and off campus. She has focused on assessing teaching methods and student results and thus, has been active in GE Assessment Development at the departmental and college levels. She has also presented at several national conferences on issues dealing with language acquisition and pedagogy. Currently, Mercedes serves as a Peer Instructional Design Mentor Teacher for online and Hybrid Learning and is teaching a course for the new SUNY Language Consortium program.

Teaching has always been a passion of mine and I feel lucky to be able to fulfill it at SUNY New Paltz. Exploring various methods and pedagogical practices to deliver content comes naturally as I search for the most effective ways to engage students and meet their educational goals in our ever-evolving world. Online and Hybrid learning and teaching is an organic extension of this desire and I constantly try to identify novel learning paths and community-building activities to best serve students in this environment through trial and error. I am never afraid of failure. This necessary pain contributes to my personal and professional growth, and it is one of the reasons why I continue to love teaching.

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