kristen thyng receives aggies celebrate teaching awardthe aggies celebrate teaching award honors thyng for her excellent and transformational teachingapr 8 2019transformational teaching is a teaching that encourages students to question assumptions and challenge beliefs… such that they emerge from the experience a changed perspective influencing interactions and contributions to a modern world said dr debra fowler the director of the center for teaching excellence at texas a&m university on march 21 dr kristen thyng assistant research professor in the department of oceanography at texas a&m university was awarded a 2019 aggies celebrate teaching award during the third annual aggies celebrate teaching! – recognizing transformational learning reception hosted by the texas a&m center for teaching excellence this award recognizes outstanding texas a&m instructors and faculty members who have made significant impacts on their students through their dedication of transformational teaching a total of six texas a&m faculty members were chosen for their excellent transformational teaching including two from the college of geosciences dr brian balta visiting professor in the department of geology and geophsyics also received an aggies celebrate teaching awarddr kristen thyng assistant research professor at texas a&m oceanographyfrom left to right dr debra folwer (director of the center for teaching excellence) joshua farrar (graduate student in nautical archaeology) sherri macwillie (project manager of the center for teaching excellence) and dr kristen thyng (assistant research professor at texas a&m oceanography) at the aggies celebrate teaching! – recognizing transformational learning reception (photo provided by the center for teaching excellence)thyng received the teaching award for her python for geoscientists class i really enjoy figuring out how to solve problems using python programming that problem solving makes me feel like a wizard! she said in class i get to share that with students from august 2018 to february 2019 the texas a&m center of teaching excellence asked students to nominate a professor they felt exemplified transformational learning through their teaching students wrote essays giving evidence of and reflecting upon their professors impact on their lives including challenging students to think in new ways and inspiring students to learn more deeply thyng was nominated by joshua farrar a graduate student in nautical archaeology i try to put myself in the place of the student to start them learning the material especially for those who are new to computer programming thyng said then i try to pique and then sustain student interest through learning together how to create nice visualizations and analyzing data in interesting ways during the class her transformational teaching was to spend time in class working on homework problems so that class time is spent both on learning new material through lecturing with the students using the interactive materials and on working on in-class exercises and homework problems with classmates and with the ability to ask me questions as they work she said i am very honored to receive the act award i put a lot of effort into preparing material for class and i am happy to know that my students were able to work on their own problem solving through programming because of my class by bumsoo kim