HCTC honors Brad Dyer with teaching excellence award

HCTC honors Brad Dyer with the New Horizon Outstanding Faculty Award for his work with 3-dimensional simulation development. Dyer, Associate Professor of Computer Information Systems amp; Mathematics, is recognized for embracing a new technology and creating a new class. His special topics class, 3D Modeling amp; Animation, was a hit with students.

One great benefit to the college is that these students are obtaining the knowledge and skills needed to create custom 3D content for educational use and workforce trainings at HCTC, Dyer stated. He arranged a special internship for these students to work directly with HCTC s 3DVR project director, John Handshoe, on development of 3D content as needed by the college. HCTC had never had the opportunity before now to offer classes training students in the creation of 3D models and animations. This provided students with valuable skills in an emerging technology while meeting an HCTC need for custom content to utilize our new technologies.

HCTC President Dr. Steve Greiner noted, Offering this class and the related internship should increase the visibility of HCTC as a provider of new career and training opportunities and will help recruit students for a new graphic design degree being developed at HCTC.

Dyer noted the new technology can be used for workforce trainings, such as firefighter safety training, and 3D models as requested by faculty for classroom use. For example, nursing faculty might need to demonstrate a simulation on an organ of the human body, or a technical program might need a 3D model of equipment that is not currently available. This technology could allow faculty to more effectively teach concepts that are not easily visualized in the absence of a model.

To offer the new class, Dyer learned new technologies and developed curricular materials for the course. In this class, students learned to create 3D models and animations using the industry-standard software 3D Studio Max, which is currently used in the creation of many major 3D animated movies.

HCTC Vice President of Academics and Provost, Dr. R. Kathy Smoot, noted, Brad was one our first teaching faculty to step up and not only show interest in our new technology, but to think creatively about how this could be employed in his classes to better prepare students for new 21st century jobs.

HCTC 3D Program Coordinator John Handshoe applauds Dyer for his work. Brad will continue to be a valued and integral part in our future, both in the development of actual content and the evolution of the curriculum. I look forward to seeing other ideas from him and I know this program will be all the better because of his innovative visions.

Dyer began work at HCTC in 1999. He holds a master s degree in mathematics from East Tennessee State University and a bachelor s degree in mathematics from Lincoln Memorial University.