Center for Instructional Development and Educational Research

Cortney Martin

Coordinator, Pedagogical Practice

Cortney Martin's background in teaching and learning, community building, and information design and management developed in a variety of contexts dating back to the early 90's and her role as the Assistant Director of the Blacksburg Electronic Village. She designed experiences and courses enabling area business owners to become some of the earliest of web adopters and worked with community groups such as the BEV Seniors to help them to build and integrate a successful online virtual community in support of their existing group that continues on today. More recently, Dr. Martin has been involved with Virginia Tech's innovative Earth Sustainability (ES) course series -- a four-semester, four-credit, interdisciplinary classroom learning community-based course that fulfills many of the liberal education requirements. Among the course goals are to enable and challenge students to become independent learners, problem posers and solvers in our increasingly complex world, and effective citizens valuing diversity. The pedagogy of this engaging and hands-on course is based in part on the works of Marcia Baxter-Magolda and Maryellen Weimer. Dr. Martin serves as the coordinator for the ES series as well as other courses and programs including a sustainable energy course in the College of Engineering and a summer fuel cell research experience for undergraduates.

Dr. Martin received her PhD in Human Factors Engineering and Ergonomics from the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. The systematic and iterative toolkit of human factors has application in pedagogy - performing a needs assessment, understanding students/users, designing the learning system, implementing the course or experience, evaluating outcomes, reflecting, and revising the learning system. Intentional action can revitalize any course making it a win-win for both student and instructor.

Dr. Martin maintains a fascination with education in any formal or informal setting and enjoys being on both sides of the teaching-learning equation. She's currently learning to play tennis and to run competitively which serve as ongoing reminders that it's not easy to gain new skills, but that the journey can be a lot of fun with a supportive community, good coaching, and positive reinforcement.

Personnel Information