Dr. Joy James (pictured on right) receives Innovation in Teaching Award from The Academy of Leisure Sciences
Dr. J. Joy James, Associate Professor in Recreation Management (RM), received The Academy of Leisure Sciences Innovation in Teaching Award for 2017. The Academy of Leisure Sciences was founded in 1980 with its central purpose to serve the intellectual advancement of leisure sciences. The organization aims to bring together people from diverse backgrounds who share a mutual interest in better understanding the roles of leisure in life, including various contexts of recreation, parks, tourism, outdoor adventure, health, therapy and sport.
James’ innovative work addresses two specific needs: 1) Connecting and engaging students across the curriculum and 2) Helping the students to develop an understanding of poverty and its relationship to recreation.
The Beaver College of Health Sciences Recreation Management program’s teaching innovation is the “faculty-cooperative curricular activities and assignments” which are woven into the Council on Accreditation of Parks, Recreation, Tourism and Related Professions (COPART) accredited RM Core curriculum. Pedagogically, these activities act as threads woven within and between courses facilitating learning connections, reinforcement of concepts, as well as expanding the students’ knowledge. James utilized the Community Action Poverty Simulation to create a faculty-cooperative curricular activity between the two classes of Introduction to Recreation & Leisure and Inclusive Recreation. Introduction to Recreation & Leisure students play the roles of low-income families and the Inclusive students play the agency roles to experience decision-making and other barriers. This activity between two classes helped students relate not only to issues of poverty but to begin to think about how RM professionals could be more inclusive with people from differing socio-economic incomes.
According to James, “The success of the poverty simulation has gone beyond our own majors and into a general education RM course, as well as across curriculum in the Public Health program.” Beginning in the fall of 2016, James began implementing a second poverty simulation experience for the general education class RM Leisure and Society. Thus reaching other majors at Appalachian State University on the challenges of poverty and helping them to think about it in the context of leisure’s ability to help in society.
Originally, this innovation was to impact the RM program, creating a learning community for both students and faculty, but it has evolved to reach the general student population at Appalachian, become interdisciplinary and generated a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning research project.
Congratulations Dr. James on your well-deserved recognition!