Landscape Architecture Student Named Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Fellow

Demonstrating enthusiasm for teaching and learning and a willingness to innovate during a pandemic-altered semester earned Bailey Johnson recognition as the Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Fellow in the College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences for the

2020-21 academic year.

The undergraduate teaching fellows (UTF) program pairs faculty mentors with high-achieving undergraduate students who assist with day-to-day classroom management, administrative and teaching tasks. Faculty members nominate students for the outstanding UTF award who have shown exceptional skill or merit.

Johnson served as the UTF for Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning (LAEP) Department courses taught by Assistant Professor Jake Powell and Professional Practice Associate Professor David Anderson. Her work included aiding with four sections of introduction to landscape architecture, taught as hybrid face-to-face and online courses to just over 700 students.

“Bailey is a bright, articulate, fun and hard-working student,” Anderson said in his nomination. “She was a junior in LAEP, which is a highly time-intensive program and worked as my UTF under unique COVID-restrictions and complexities. Bailey did a great job.”

To begin her work as a teaching assistant, Johnson created a video introducing herself, sharing the story of how she settled on LAEP as her major, and guiding a virtual tour of the department’s design studios. Tasked with making a video to introduce principles of design to students, Johnson turned to her experience with floral design.

“She creatively used her skills as a floral designer to illustrate design principles such as balance, unity, variety, repetition, rhythm and dominance,” said Anderson. “It was a great way to talk about design principles in a tangible, relatable way.”

Johnson organized and taught two supplemental instruction sessions (SI sessions) for the Residential Landscape Design course focused on the students’ final projects. At Powell and Anderson’s request, Johnson also developed an extra credit assignment based on evaluating public benches that gave students two ways to meet the requirements and accounted for COVID restrictions

“Bailey is a tremendous example of what impacts an undergraduate teaching fellow can have on a class,” said Powell. “Professor Anderson and I were so lucky to have her enthusiasm and talents added to our course during such a challenging year. She is so deserving of this recognition.”

To learn more about the Undergraduate Teaching Fellows program visit usu.edu/utf/.