AECT announces inaugural fellows

Bloomington, IN. - The Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) announces its inaugural fellow awardees, Dr. Florence Martin and Dr. Charles Riegeluth. The AECT Fellows Award honors AECT members with a record of exemplary educational communications and technology accomplishments and research. The members were selected by the AECT Fellows task force and approved by the AECT Board of Directors.
 
“The AECT Fellow award recognizes members who have contributed to the field in important and ground-breaking ways,” said Dr. Joi Moore, AECT’s president-elect. “I’m delighted to announce that we have selected two trailblazers, Dr. Florence Martin and Dr. Charles Riegeluth, as the first recipients of this distinguished award.”  The fellows will be recognized at the AECT Convention in Orlando, Florida, which will occur October 15-19, 2023.
 
“The establishment of the AECT Fellows program is a perfect complement to our 100th anniversary in Orlando,” said Nolan Gruver, CEO of AECT. “Importantly, in our selection of our first fellows for AECT, we wanted to be sure we covered both the practitioner as well as research-based roots of our organization and its membership. Dr. Martin and Dr. Rieguluth have contributed to the field of Educational Technology through both research and publication, as well as by being hands-on practitioners of instructional design projects and methodologies that tested their theories in meaningful ways over a number of years. With this in mind, AECT is very proud to highlight these two amazing professionals as leading representatives of the dual strengths of our membership’s capabilities and talents.”
 
Dr. Florence Martin is a professor in learning design and technology at North Carolina State University. She received her doctorate and master’s degrees in educational technology from Arizona State University. Prior to her current position, she was a professor at the University of North Carolina Charlotte and an associate professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington for 15 years. She has worked on instructional design projects for Shoolini University, Viridis Learning, Maricopa Community College District, University of Phoenix, Intel, Cisco Learning Institute, and Arizona State University.
 
Dr. Martin engages in research to create transformative learning experiences by effectively designing and integrating digital teaching and learning innovations. In recent years, she has researched the design of online and digital learning environments and cybersecurity education. Dr. Martin has published the results of her research in several leading journals in the field of educational technology, including Educational Technology Research and Development, Computers and Education, British Journal of Educational Technology, Internet and Higher Education, Educational Research Review, and Educational Technology & Society. She has received over 2 million dollars in funding from the National Science Foundation to support her research. Her research has resulted in over 115 publications and 175 presentations. A nominator stated, “Her research impacts the design of her online courses as well as her consultations with others about online instruction.”

Dr. Charles Reigeluth is a world-renowned educational researcher and consultant. He received a B.A. in Economics from Harvard University in 1969 and a Ph.D. in Instructional Psychology from Brigham Young University in 1977. He taught high school science for three years, was a professor in the Instructional Design, Development, and Evaluation program at Syracuse University for 10 years, and was a professor in the Instructional Systems Technology Department at Indiana University for 25 years and chair of the IST Department for three years.

His research focuses on paradigm change in public education, including the design of high-quality personalized, competency-based, learner-centered learning experiences, the design of technology systems to support such learning experiences, the process for transforming school systems to the learner-centered paradigm of education, guidance for conducting research-to-improve, or formative research, and guidance for developing practical design theory based on the situations-methods framework for all of these lines of inquiry.

As noted by one nominator, “Reiguluth is an amazingly devoted contributor to practice.” Dr. Reigeluth facilitated a paradigm change process in the Decatur Township Schools in Indianapolis, where he worked for 11 years to develop more knowledge about how to help school systems transform to the learner-centered paradigm. He is internationally known for his work on instructional methods and design theories. He has published 13 books and more than 200 journal articles and chapters on those subjects, and eight of his books received an "Outstanding Book of the Year" award from AECT.