Selber named 2021 Teaching and Learning with Technology Impact Award winner

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Stuart Selber, associate professor of English in the College of the Liberal Arts, is the recipient of Penn State's 2021 Teaching and Learning with Technology Impact Award.

The Teaching and Learning with Technology Impact Award celebrates the accomplishments of faculty members whose work transforms education through the use of technology. The award is given in recognition of excellence represented by a single contribution or series of contributions.

Nominators said Selber is a dedicated educator to both his students and his peers in the area of digital writing and using technology to advance education. He’s done that through leadership, authorship and teamwork.

Selber is director of the Penn State Digital English Studio, which helps educators incorporate digital tools into their classrooms, improve the usability and accessibility of digital tools and develop strategy for the best ways to design and employ digital products. 

The studio is a means for students and faculty to learn about, study, and use technology for teaching and research. It’s also where online courses are created and improved.

“Under Dr. Selber’s leadership, studio personnel have developed general education and specialized writing courses that have been taken by thousands of students, including students on physical campuses and engaging through Penn State World Campus,” a nominator said. “Dr. Selber has had a direct hand in designing these courses.”

Selber also coordinates the college’s Teaching with Technology certificate program where educators are required to demonstrate their critical use of classroom technologies to earn certification. Selber works directly with these educators.

Selber authored two books on teaching and learning with technology in the classroom and beyond. The first, “Multiliteracies for a Digital Age,” won the Distinguished Book Award for Best Book in Computers and Composition from the journal Computers and Composition and Best Book in Technical or Scientific Communication from the National Council of Teachers of English. The second, “Institutional Literacies: Engaging Academic IT Contexts for Writing and Communication,” lays out a blueprint for collaborating with information technology units to create effective institutional learning spaces for writing and the teaching of writing. This second book was recently published by the prestigious University of Chicago Press.

Selber said he honed his skills in the classroom, relying on his own experiences to shape effective strategies for teaching with technology.

“In all of my courses, I teach about and with technology, and so any measure of my teaching is itself a measure of how my use of technology has impacted student learning and engagement,” Selber said. “I have spent my entire career studying problems of teaching practice. My work addresses the ongoing challenges of integrating technology into writing and communication courses — and into academic institutions as a whole.”