Featured Faculty

CGEP Featured Faculty – Dr. Scott Midkiff

Faculty Recognition & Support

Each year it is important for the college to highlight superb faculty teaching distance learning courses.

Dr. Scott Midkiff, a professor of electrical and computer engineering (ECE) became the department head of the Bradley Department of Electrical Engineering in August 2009.  Dr. Midkiff, who joined the Virginia Tech faculty as an assistant professor in 1986, is a leader among the faculty in terms of developing online courses, teaching courses offered via the CGEP, and providing consulting advice to universities regarding best practices for teaching engineering students located at a distance.  Collectively, he offers a unique perspective on the distance learning initiatives in the College of Engineering as a department head who is also an experienced professor having taught and developed online courses.

Dr. Midkiff sees a clear need to provide opportunities for keeping working engineers at all levels and in all areas participating in life-long learning experiences. He believes these experiences continue to expand knowledge in a society that is driven by rapidly changing technology. Short courses, seminars, tutorials, certificates, and full degrees are all mechanisms for continuous education that he feels should be utilized. In addition to this list of educational delivery formats he mentions development of “just-in-time learning opportunities” that are primarily supported by the Internet as students explore and gather knowledge to answer immediate questions.  Given these demands, he believes that educators must support the use of open network technology so students can obtain the information and tools they need to learn on their own without having to wait for a class to be offered semesters or years down the road.

Providing working engineers with more asynchronous online classes is very important to Dr. Midkiff and he strives to make this possible through his own department. As part of his accomplishments, he is proud of the totally online Masters of Information Technology program.  This degree program is available to learners that are interested in either a certificate or masters degree.  Dr. Midkiff was among the founding faculty members who developed the program over twelve years ago. This program supports and respects the fact that modern working engineers need to balance personal and work demands while gaining experience and knowledge that allows them to remain competitive in a demanding and fast-changing job market.

It is important to find a balance within online teaching, Dr. Midkiff says, so that students have the convenience of self-directed asynchronous learning while also having some level of interaction to allow students to gain insight into how content can be applied.  This can be accomplished through the instructor’s use of threaded discussions, online office hours, and social networking tools to increase interaction, not just between students and their instructors, but also between students and their peers.

Dr. Midkiff offers a few points of advice to professors, teaching assistants, and course designers in terms of teaching at a distance. First, it is important to understand that there are more instructional roles in an asynchronous online class compared to a traditional face-to-face class. In most cases, online courses involve content developers in addition to the instructor. The content developer has to think about others who will be teaching the class and respect their varied teaching styles, and should not overly personalize the content and instruction as much as possible. Another ounce of wisdom he offers is the importance of skilled instructional design. This includes knowing that your audience, as working engineers, tends to have different learning goals than those held by full-time students. Another instructional design tip is to break up content into smaller, more manageable modules along with keeping a video down to 10-20 minutes. This will break up viewing sessions and allow for reflection or a stopping point for reviewing previous modules. Also, recording the video in one take produces the best product. Students can learn from the instructor’s mistakes, so perfection is not required. Quick video/content production also allows for ease of content updating when it is time to make small updates or changes.

Dr. Midkiff sees asynchronous distance learning as becoming even more important for educating working professionals in electrical and computer engineering and looks forward to having Virginia Tech’s ECE Department play a key role in meeting this need.  On a more personal note, Dr. Midkiff will be teaching an online course in the fall, while continuing to balance his department head and teaching responsibilities with attempting to keep up with his 5 and 7 year-old children.

Previously Featured CGEP Faculty

Mark Pierson
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering

Leigh McCue
Assistant Professor, Aerospace and Ocean Engineering Department

Kathleen Meehan
Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Joseph G. Tront
Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Andrea Dietrich
Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Kimberly P. Ellis
Assistant Professor, Industrial & Systems Engineering

Luiz A. DaSilva
Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering

L. Kenneth Harmon, Jr.
Associate Professor, Industrial & Systems Engineering

Timothy Pratt
Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering