Meet Laura Carruth!

We are excited to welcome, Dr. Laura Carruth who recently began her role as the Associate Vice Provost of Transformative Teaching and Learning and the Executive Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning! Read the interview below and get to know CTL’s new leader!

What Is Your Role At CTL And What Are You Most Excited About Working On?

I’m happy to be joining the GT CTL as the new Executive Director and working with fabulous CTL team. There are several projects that I’m excited to work on, but two areas that are timely are examining the pedagogical strategies surrounding AI and helping faculty adopt inclusive teaching practices that support all learners and which can also reduce student stress and increase cognitive bandwidth.

How Did You Become Interested In Supporting Teaching and Learning in Higher Education? What Do You Enjoy Most About It?

I became interested in teaching and learning through my own experiences as a faculty member. I am a neuroscientist by training and have a background in science education research, and those two areas combined nicely to serve as the foundation for my work in teaching and learning.  My colleagues stated coming to me for teaching advice early in my career and I realized that helping people become better teachers was something I truly enjoyed. Understanding how memories are made, how the brain learns, and “how learning” works has been instrumental in my ability to effectively help my colleagues with their own teaching.

What Is A Recommendation For A Resource On Transformative Teaching and Learning You Have For Instructors at GT?

It is hard to pick just one resource!

• My first recommendation is this Inside Higher Ed article from 2022. It’s a quick read and serves as a nice overview of transformative teaching:
• My second is the Transformative Learning page from the Texas A&M CTL: The page is short and nicely defines transformative learning and describes the role of reflection.
• My third recommendation is the Journal on Transformative Learning or JoTL. This recommendation is for anyone who is interested in the research on transformative teaching and learning and/or anyone considering conducting SoTL work in this area.  JoTL is open access and there are two volumes published each year that cover a variety of topics related to transformative practices in undergraduate and graduate education.

What Is A Fun Fact About Yourself That You’d Like To Share?

I’m married and live in Decatur. I have two kids—my son lives in NYC and my daughter is a freshman in college.  I love to hike and be outdoors. I enjoy birding and started volunteering at Wild Nest, a songbird rehabilitation center in Decatur last year.