Introduced by her undergraduate mentee Melissa Allan, Martha Mamo, professor of agronomy and horticulture, was awarded a Holling Family Senior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award at the Holling Family Awards program on March 1.
Mamo serves as a faculty mentor for Allen’s Undergraduate Creative Activity and Research at UNL project on soil quality in rural Ethiopia. Allan, a senior global studies and geography major, said she has personally seen Mamo’s diligence, creativity and thoughtfulness she places on teaching and interacting with her students. Allen credits Mamo for the inspiration to do the same in her career. When asked by Allen why she became a soil scientist instead of going into a medical profession, Mamo said it was because of the impact soil and agricultural research has on rural communities. Mamo also shared with Allen that she wanted to be in a profession in which one can actively take part in teaching and research and affect change.
Mamo teaches AGRO 153 Soil Resources and AGRO 366 Soil Nutrient Relationships courses. In the Soil Resources class, she has focused on metacognition to improve students’ learning so they “think about their thinking” and develop a “metacognitive tool kit” to utilize not only in class but in other settings. Learning is further enhanced in her classroom through knowledge surveys given at the beginning and end of a unit and “exam wrappers” for students to analyze their exam performance and the effectiveness of their test preparation strategies.
Mamo created her courses with the intent of inspiring student interest in soil sciences. In her teaching, she utilizes some of her research information which extends from food security issues in Africa to the affect of grazing on nutrient cycling in the Nebraska Sandhills. She has also worked with distance education and creating online virtual environments to foster student learning.
Sponsored by the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources Holling Family Senior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award recognizes individuals who have been employed in faculty positions with the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources for more than six years. The award emphasizes imaginative and creative teaching efforts in carrying out IANR educational programs and is based on the following criteria:
- Identification of the innovative teaching project.
- Description of the goals of the project, target audience, estimated numbers involved, other colleagues involved, and time line.
- Outcomes of teaching activity on the learners, types of learner activities utilized (e.g., active learning; cooperative or collaborative learning; interactive learning using technology; distance learning processes).
- Evidence of peer evaluation of the nominee's work.
The Holling Family Award Program for Teaching Excellence was made possible by a gift from the Holling family to honor their pioneer parents. John Holling was a 1912 electrical engineering graduate of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and his brother, Gustave Holling, attended the College of Agriculture before farming the family's land in the Wood River area.
