Signing Success: CTC staff earn Learnie Award for ASL videos

CTC instructor Laurel Keyer at the UAF Pub with the Learnie Awards presented to her and Lizanne Hanson.
CTC instructor Laurel Keyer at the UAF Pub with the Learnie Awards presented to her and Lizanne Hanson.

UAF Community Technical College American Sign Language instructor Laurel Keyer and program assistant Lizanne Hanson were recipients of a Learnie Award during a ceremony at the UAF Pub on Nov. 9.

The Learnie Awards celebrate programs or classes that create excellent online course and video content to support student learning.

Keyer and Hanson collaborated on the development of ASL teaching videos for CTC's first online ASL class. The videos focus on various topics that students need to learn and were created as instructor lessons in the Center for Teaching and Learning’s new Teaching and Learning Studio. They emphasize important ASL elements like facial expression, gesture and posture, which would be very difficult to understand without a visual demonstration. Topics such as contrast and comparison were covered in the context of conversational ASL. These videos aim to provide students in an asynchronous ASL class with the essential tools to understand proper ASL signing and grammar usage.

Visit the Learnies website for more information about the awards and past recipients. The Teaching and Learning Studio is located inside the eCampus offices and is available to all UAF faculty, staff and students.