UGA New Media Institute faculty members receive the 2024 Innovation in Artificial Intelligence Teaching Award | Campus News
The University of Georgia Office of Instruction recognized senior lecturer John Weatherford, academic professional Christopher Gerlach and instructor Tyler Mazurek for their work with the course NMIX 4410: New Media Capstone with the inaugural Innovation in AI Teaching Award.
The award was created by UGA’s Office of Instruction in 2024 to recognize faculty members “whose exceptional contributions to the integration of artificial intelligence in education have had a profound impact on a course, a program, the university or the larger academic community,” according to the Office of Instruction.
The award recipients described the capstone as the culmination of the New Media Certificate, a course where students can apply the things they’ve learned in the New Media Institute to hands-on projects that they can add to their portfolios. In the capstone, student teams are paired with clients who are interested in developing real-world applications of generative AI in their core lines of business. The student teams are encouraged to utilize generative AI throughout various stages of the product design process, including research, idea generation, iterative development, testing and marketing.
“We think that giving them the experience of working with emerging technologies, with clients in that context or with a team over a long duration, really gives students not just a cool portfolio piece, but also experience that will be valuable in interviews and as they start their careers,” Weatherford said.
The New Media Capstone has been around since the early days of the New Media Institute.
Gerlach and Mazurek have seen the capstone evolve through the years, as they both went through the program as students.
While the course predates the involvement of Weatherford, Gerlach and Mazurek, the trio has updated the structure based on student, industry and client feedback into the current format. They utilize a broad spectrum of interactive digital media in order to carry out projects for a diverse range of clients.
The three capstone instructors wear multiple hats within the program, each bringing diverse perspectives and expertise to the table.
“We all have kind of a unique teaching philosophy and approach. So, that kind of makes it great that we get to co-teach the Capstone members because we get to all feed off each other’s talents and personalities and backgrounds, to create a more dynamic teaching experience for the students” Gerlach said.
The team has gotten to work on a variety of groundbreaking projects. Weatherford, the first of the team to start teaching the course, has worked on 92 projects so far. These projects include an integrated marketing tool for startups to help generate social media content on demand, a guided meditation app that adjusts to user preferences and current points of stress and a mobile app that streamlines the research and donation process for community members contributing to nonprofits in the Athens area.
“A very fun one was when we shipped our first app to the App Store — it was UGA Stickers, which is still available, and we keep that updated every season” Weatherford said.
The capstone instructors expressed their desire to equip their students with the ability to adapt to the ever-changing technological landscape and the knowledge of how to tackle new and challenging projects.
“Whenever you’re working with a client, there’s always some volatility, trying to figure out how to match product expectations, student talent, things like that. And so there’s a lot of variables at play and so that always has some challenges. But also, I think that’s what makes the course fun and interesting and reflective of what you’ll kind of experience after you graduate … I believe, overcoming those challenges as part of the learning experience” Gerlach said.
