Celeste Fenton
Dr. Celeste Fenton has been an educator for over thirty years. She began her career in education in 1989 as a Career Specialist for the School District of Hillsborough County, Florida. In 1999 she began working at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, and among other positions, served as the Director of Faculty Professional Development and Employee Professional Development for Hillsborough Community College. She was also the co-director of the Center for Innovative Teaching and Technology for the College until her retirement in 2016. Beginning in 2008, Dr. Fenton taught a variety of graduate courses in the Department of Leadership, Counseling, Adult, Career and Higher Education for the University of South Florida. Her research interests included effective distance learning strategies and adult learner role balance. She also taught as an adjunct for the University of Maine system from 2020 to 2022. Dr. Fenton has been a contributing faculty member for Walden University since 2010, teaching graduate and doctorate level courses in instructional design, adult education, and OREA.
Dr. Fenton was a co-managing partner for an educational consulting company, Training and Development Solutions, LLC, from 2006 to 2015. The company provided consulting services in the design and delivery of teacher professional development focused on teaching and learning strategies for face-to-face and online learning. Clients included individual K-12 schools, school districts, community colleges, State of Florida Department of Education, McGraw Hill Publishing, and the League for Innovation.
Areas of research interest include: Adult learning preferences and teahing philogophy matching and reporting system (Priority Patent Application Number 61/626,043); Integration of Web Tools; Higher-Ed faculty professional development; K-12 teacher professional development; IT3: Information Technology + Instructional Technology + Innovative Teaching (a 2 million-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Education for the Improvement of Education (I was the PI and grant manager; the project resulted in the first online model of professional development for in-service teachers in the School District of Hillsborough County).
Other notable experiences, awards, and contributions include:
*member of the Florida statewide steering committee for Career and Technical Education Professional Development (2009-2016)
*Served as one of 35 panelists for the United States Department of Labor Trade Adjustment Assistance Grant Selection Committee (2011-2014)
*Selected as Keynote Speaker for the 2011 League for Innovation Learning College Summit Conference, Phoenix, AZ (June, 2011)
*Co-authored the textbook for the Perkins Grant focused on Career and Technical Education teaching strategies, 21st Century Teaching Strategies for Career and Technical Education (2012)
*Received the 2010 Woman of the Year award from the National Association of Professional Women
*Received the 2008 Innovation of the Year award from the League for Innovation for development of a multimedia tutorial and diagnostic tool in reading/writing for students taking the community college placement tests (College Board Accuplacer) *2008 recipient of the Cross Papers Fellowship and co-author of the 11th volume of the Cross Papers
*Co-authored Fluency in Distance Learning (2007), used in several states and by institutions as a foundation course to certify faculty for online teaching
*Awarded the 2007 Platinum Award for outstanding online teaching from the United States Distance Learning Association 2004-2008
*Principal Investigator for College Placement Test multimedia tutorial development 2002-2004
*Principal Investigator for U.S. Department of Education Fund for the Improvement of Education grant focused on research and development of teacher training program for teaching strategies and technology integration
Courses Taught
EDUC 6135 - Distance Learning
EDPD 8021 - Assessment, Evaluation, & Accountability: Political & Economic Factors
EDPD 8020 - Organizational Research: Assessment, Evaluation, & Accountability
EDPD 8023 - Programs, Organizations, and Systems Evaluation
EDUC 8900,/9002/8990/8991 - Doctoral Capstone - Dissertation
EDPD 8900/8910 - Writing a Quality Prospectus
EIDT 6510 - Online Instructional Strategies
EDUC 6105 - Organizations, Innovation, and Change
EDPD 8022 - Assess for Individual Growth
EDPD 8024 - Dynamics of Communication for Impact and Results
EIDT 6511 Assessments in Online Environments - Assessments in Online Environments
EDUC 7314 - CAPSTONE LEADERSHIP SOCIAL CHANGE IN EDUCATION
Education
PhD, University of South Florida
MEd, National Louis University
BA, University of South Florida