Peter Doolittle of Christiansburg, Va., associate professor of education and director of the Center for Instructional Development and Educational Research at Virginia Tech, received the university's 2010 Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Created in 1982 by the Virginia Tech Alumni Association, the Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching is presented to two Virginia Tech faculty members each year. Recipients are selected by the university’s Academy of Teaching Excellence from among those faculty members who have received certificates of teaching excellence from their respective colleges in the preceding three years. Each recipient is awarded $2,000, and is inducted into the Academy of Teaching Excellence.

A member of the Virginia Tech community since 1998, Doolittle’s scholarship has been widely recognized in the areas of college teaching and multimedia learning. He has successfully implemented extended campus degree programs across the state. He has conducted faculty development workshops for colleagues in many different colleges and departments at Virginia Tech on topics that include course assessment, grading, concept development, teaching strategies, socialization strategies, and memory and instruction.

His impact on improving classroom teaching extends beyond the Virginia Tech campus. He has written several articles in peer reviewed journals, including the Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, and Journal of Vocational and Technical Education. He has made more than 70 presentations at national and international conferences.

In the classroom, Doolittle has a well-established reputation as a challenging, caring, passionate, and fair teacher who uses a broad range of teaching models and strategies. Students rate him among the very best classroom instructors.

A native of Severna Park, Md., Doolittle is an associate professor in the Department of Learning Sciences and Technologies within the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. He received his bachelor’s degree from Southern Methodist University, a master’s degree from Baylor University, and a Ph.D. from The Catholic University of America.

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