ID Faculty Wins Prestige Teaching Award
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EmailInterior Design Instructor, Kristy Kellom, MSU’s 2024 AT&T Excellence in Teaching with Technology Award
Interior Design instructor, Kristy Kellom, of the School of Planning, Design and Construction (SPDC) has been awarded MSU’s 2024 AT&T Excellence in Teaching with Technology Award. This prestigious award recognizes instructors who demonstrate outstanding use of technology to enhance teaching practices, making their courses more impactful, accessible, and engaging. The award specifically highlights practices where technology has been effectively integrated into teaching methodologies.
Kellom, representing the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (CANR), is one of three recipients of the 2024 AT&T Award, along with Brittany Dillman of the College of Education and Isaac Record of Lyman Briggs College.
Kellom’s consideration for this award is due to her work on and the teaching practices she employed in the course: IDES 454, Revit for Designers. In the course, students received Immersive Architectural Visualization Experiences.
This award is a testament to Kellom’s unwavering dedication to excellence in teaching and her continuous efforts to enhance the learning experience for her students.
For her part, Kellom thanks AT&T for, “championing teaching, with recognition and funding. This award is a rare and esteemed acknowledgement of some of the incredible and innovative teaching methods happening inside our classrooms every day.”
The Immersive Architectural Visualization Experience was hosted by Michigan State University’s Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL) and is the first of its kind. This 20-foot cylindrical room enables multiple users to simultaneously view a 360° projection screen for a shared collaborative experience while capturing the real-world height of the simulated environments, placing participants at the center of the space.
Learning objectives for the course focus on building information modeling (BIM) applications in the workflow of interior architecture and design. Taught in a specialized campus computer-lab setting using Revit software, this course is heavily focused on utilizing an advanced architectural modeling system. In this highly collaborative framework for architects, engineers, designers, developers, contractors, and other professionals can sync development to plan, design, construct, and project manage through the life cycle a building within one intelligent centralized model.
Since joining the Interior Design program as an instructor in 2010, Kellom has been a relentless advocate for the integration of technology in the classroom.
“I vividly recall how during the COVID lockdown in 2020, when our computer labs were inaccessible, Kristy Kellom secured a grant to purchase $25 Google Cardboard headsets for each of her students,” explained Interior Design Program Director, Linda Nubani. “[Thus] ensuring they could still have an immersive experience and not miss out on valuable learning opportunities,” Nubani continued.
By staying connected with technological innovations in the market and keeping abreast of industry needs, Kellom ensures that students are not only equipped with essential technology skills but are also prepared to compete with other programs nationwide.
Kellom was among the first cohort of researchers to creatively incorporate the use of MSU DSL's 360-lab into her research and teaching, providing students with immersive learning experiences. Additionally, she introduced four forms of virtual reality in her IDES 454 courses - VR headset, 360-panoramic lab, Google Cardboard, as well as VR desktop, offering multiple options to accommodate different abilities and comfort levels.
