Thomas Brumm, professor in agricultural and biosystems engineering, is the recipient of the faculty 2024 Distance Education Teaching Award from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Iowa State University. For the past 10 years, he has taught two online courses that have both face-to-face and online sections – Preservation of Grain Quality and Biorenewable Systems.
Brumm's teaching philosophy is focused on facilitating and modeling learning. He understands that people learn differently and adopts effective teaching strategies and pedagogies to cater to the diverse learning needs of his students. He believes in continuous improvement and actively seeks feedback from multiple sources to make positive changes that promote learning. Brumm also believes that success in any discipline is more than mastering the subject matter. It is about developing and demonstrating competencies.
In his online classes, Brumm faces the challenge of having simultaneous online and face-to-face sections. He has developed strategies to navigate the differences between these sections, experimenting with different pedagogies over the years. However, he acknowledges that developing personal relationships with online students remains a challenge. He strives to overcome this by reaching out to his online students through discussion boards, online office hours and providing feedback on assignments that encourage self-assessment.
Iowa State is a member university of Great Plains IDEA (Interactive Distance Education Alliance). Brumm is a faculty member for the Agricultural Systems Management and Technology online course-share program through the AG IDEA consortium. He excels at designing and implementing online courses that use evidence-based practices to support asynchronous learning. His course material selection is very intentional and reflects prevailing industry issues that are designed to engage and retain student interest. “The success of the ASMT AG IDEA program is in large part due to Dr. Brumm,” states a colleague. “His expertise in online pedagogy and learner engagement is invaluable to our group.”