Dr. Heloisa

Rutigliano: Award-Winning Teaching is Shaping Curriculum for Future Veterinarians

Associate Professor Heloisa Rutigliano has won several teaching awards during her time at Utah State University, including most recently a USDA Excellence in College and University Teaching Award in the regional category. Now, in addition to being an outstanding educator, she chairs the College of Veterinary Medicine’s curriculum committee where she is working to shape what generations of new veterinarians will learn.

Hailing from Brazil, where her father is a farmer and her mother is a Portuguese teacher, Rutigliano earned a doctor in veterinary medicine degree from Sao Paulo State University as well as a master of science and a Ph.D. in animal biology at the University of California Davis. She received USU’s Eldon J. Gardner Teacher of the Year Award in 2021, and she remains committed to both pedagogy and research.

What is it about your approach to teaching that students respond to?

Dr. Rutigliano: I care about my students’ success and their learning. I come from a family of farmers and educators, so agricultural education has always interested me.

My mission as a mentor and educator is first to expose students to knowledge that intrigues and inspires them; second, to train well-rounded professionals with skills such as problem-solving, pro- fessional conduct, and logical and ethical reasoning; and finally, to create an environment that allows for collaboration and learning.

I think of my classroom as a learning community, and a few attributes are needed to make that work. Students engage through active rather than passive learning activities, and I try to make learning relevant, engaging, and fun using real-life and clinical cases. I also work to establish clear expectations that align with my instruction and assessments to help foster transparency. Finally, I aim to create an inclusive learning environment that empowers my students to become confident professionals and life-long learners.

You have numerous publications on bovine pregnancy and other subjects. How does the research side of your job affect your work as an educator?

Dr. Rutigliano: I maintain an extramurally funded research laboratory where students can become involved in research activities related to reproductive physiology in ruminants, and I have directly trained and mentored over 20 students in my laboratory ranging from high school to Ph.D. students. As a mentor, my goal is to provide opportunities for my mentees to acquire the knowledge and skills to become successful scientists, such as a solid theoretical foundation in their field of study, critical and independent thinking skills, and a strong work ethic. I strive to maintain a collaborative and interactive environment in my laboratory by meeting with mentees often, clearly presenting my expectations and timelines for student progress and completion of their degrees, providing them with timely and specific feedback, and by keeping their professional goals in mind during training.

I also provide senior graduate students the opportunity to mentor less experienced students. This provides a dual learning opportunity in which the senior graduate students gain mentoring experience while the junior students gain new knowledge and skills.

My scientific background also helps me in my teaching. I approach teaching similarly to how I approach research. The scientific method tells us to ask a question or identify a need for change, search the literature on what is already known about that event, construct a hypothesis and objectives, conduct a study with appropriate controls, collect and interpret results, communicate those results, and then develop a new hypothesis.

I believe the teaching method should be similar. I strive to use empirical evidence to identify the best practices in teaching I should use. I identify something in my course that could be improved or changed, search the literature to see what is known about it, and implement a new teaching method, assignment, or assessment. I collect and interpret the results to see if the approach was effective, and I communicate my results to colleagues via conference presentations, publications, and discussions. Finally, I try to identify parts of this process that could be further developed and improved.

How has your experience as an educator prepared you for your role on the curriculum committee?

Dr. Rutigliano: The opportunity to chair the curriculum development committee of the new College of Veterinary Medicine was a dream come true. Throughout my 10 years of working as an instructor of vet med courses, I’ve always gone out of my way to integrate my course content with other courses, to make teaching relevant and applicable to our future veterinarians, and to develop my students’ professional skills. The curriculum we’re creating encompasses several of the things I’ve been trying to do in my courses, such as content integration, alignment of content between disciplines, case-based learning, and developing the capacity in our students to be critical thinkers, problem solvers, effective communicators, and life-long learners.

What’s the greatest challenge you’ve faced on the curriculum committee? And what have you found to be most rewarding?

Dr. Rutigliano: The greatest challenge has been to do something I’ve never done before. Even though I had participated in the curriculum review process at the Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine, developing a curriculum from the ground up has forced me to develop new skills. There are only a few publications about curriculum review in veterinary schools, and it’s hard to find people with such experience.

I’ve been lucky to be surrounded by a committee that’s been amazing to work with. We’ve had our ups and downs and moments of not knowing what direction to take or how to move forward, but gradually, we’ve been able to trust ourselves and our capacity to do something novel.