Albany State University College of Education assistant professor, Erica Decuir, has been selected as a 2017 Governor’s Teaching Fellow for the academic year symposium program. As one of 15 faculty members from institutions of higher education across the state, Decuir was selected after a highly competitive application and selection process.

The Governor's Teaching Fellows Program was established in 1995 by Zell Miller, governor of Georgia from 1991-1999, to provide Georgia's higher education faculty with expanded opportunities for developing important teaching skills. Miller envisioned that this program would address faculty members' pressing need to use emerging technologies and instructional tools that are becoming increasingly important for learning in today's society.

Decuir, who serves in the COE department of teacher education and as the director of the ASU Summer Learning Academy, borrows her teaching philosophy from a high school English teacher who taught her how to relate text to personal experiences. Decuir often promotes the importance of critical thinking and analytical writing in the classroom.

“Those are the two skills that really propelled me through college and also throughout my doctoral program,” Decuir said. “That’s what I hope to promote in my classrooms today. If you can possess those two skills, you can essentially transfer those skills within any field and be successful.”

Decuir will travel to Athens throughout the academic year to attend professional development sessions about teaching best practices and methods to improve teaching and learning in the classroom, among other topics.