Award-winning professor uses innovative teaching methods

Cadets learn using a 3D model developed by Dr. Shelby Stanhope, assistant professor of mathematical sciences at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. (Photo courtesy of.)

By Katherine Spessa
US Air Force Academy Strategic Communications

U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colorado. – When Dr. Shelby Stanhope first became an associate professor at the United States Air Force Academy, multivariable calculus was infamous.

Col. Scott Williams, head of the Academy’s Division of Mathematical Sciences, calls it a “barrier course” for cadets interested in STEM disciplines, and said Calculus 3 represents a turning point in a STEM student’s academic career and often determines whether they could stay on a STEM track.

Stanhope appears.

“Previously, students would finish basic training and no longer want to pursue a STEM field because they had heard about Calculus 3,” she said. “When I first arrived in 2018, I really wanted to understand it. I asked to teach the course.”

After making a number of changes to the course, including computer visualization, low-risk activities, and 3D models, they noticed a significant difference in students’ understanding and mastery of the material. Dropout rate increased from 15% to 6%, failure rate decreased from 5% to 2%; and enrollment increased by almost 20%.

Learning and innovation

The freedom to develop innovative teaching methods was what attracted Stanhope to the Academy in the first place.

“I knew I wanted to focus on an institution that puts teaching above all else,” she said. “The academy truly values evidence-based teaching practices and supports instructors who want to implement them in their classrooms.”

When she came to the Academy after Temple University in Pennsylvania, it turned out to be a bull’s-eye.

Dr. Shelby Stanhope, assistant professor of mathematical sciences, teaches a class using a computer visualization program to improve students’ understanding of calculus at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. (Courtesy photo)

“We emphasize student learning and using pedagogical approaches that help students learn,” Williams said. “Lecture is the wrong word – we don’t give lectures; we engage students in activities that are built to engage and enhance learning.

“Shelby, even before she came here, we could tell she really believed in that philosophy.”

“The second thing we really emphasize is innovation in the classroom,” Williams said. “She embraced it wholeheartedly, willing to experiment and try things that have the potential to help students learn.”

Award-winning professor

Stanhope was recently honored by the Mathematical Association of America with the Henry L. Alder Award for Distinguished Teaching for her innovative and passionate approach to teaching. The award is intended to recognize university faculty who have achieved “exceptional success and whose effectiveness in teaching undergraduate mathematics has been shown to have an impact that extends beyond their own classrooms.”

“Her passion, her desire when she walks into the classroom is to figure out how to make students successful, and she really brings that to everything she does, and it shows in her influence on the faculty,” Williams said. “They see that passion and innovation and creativity, and it rubs off on them. People are constantly bouncing ideas off each other and finding ways to help students use the materials better, and she’s at the forefront of that.”