Short Receives FITT Award from the Faculty Senate’s Information & Technology Committee
Associate Professor of Music Theory and Embedded Music Theory Tutor Coordinator Rachel Short, Ph.D., was awarded the Faculty Innovative Teaching with Technology (FITT) Award by Shenandoah University Faculty Senate’s Information & Technology Committee during the university’s full faculty meeting in May 2024.
Dr. Short constantly works on improving her pedagogy, including implementing new technology to help engage students and further their learning. She found creative solutions using technology when teaching online from 2020–2022, and continues to use technology creatively when teaching in both face-to-face and hybrid modalities. Technologies include using a MIDI keyboard and display with musical notation and keyboard overlay and audio merging while teaching on Zoom; teaching sight-singing and diction with visual Curwen hand signs; using iPads and Apple Pencils for in-class practice handouts, homework, and score analysis; using GoReact for time-stamped video assignment collection and feedback; and using the Owl Zoom camera for immersive hybrid classes.
Short was Shenandoah University’s nominee for the Virginia Foundation of Independent Colleges’ Excellence in Instructional Technology Award. She was also an inaugural Transformative Teaching & Learning Fellow during the 2020/21 academic year. Her recent publications also creatively use technology, including “Climatic Interactions between Music and Dance in Musical Theatre Tap Breaks,” a May 2023 article in the Society for Music Theory Videocast Journal, and a forthcoming article with video clips: “Three Sailors, Three Personalities: Choreomusical Analysis of the Solo Variations in ‘Fancy Free’” in the journal Music Theory Online.
The FITT award recognizes one faculty member, or faculty group, per academic year who shows evidence of outstanding and innovative use of technology to improve student engagement and learning in any course format (face-to-face, hybrid, online). The range of acceptable entries is broad; such as the incorporation of a new technology, or the use of an existing technology in a unique way.
