Congratulations to Ignacio X. Domínguez, assistant teaching professor, on winning the 2024-25 Gertrude Cox Award for Innovative Excellence in Teaching and Learning with Technology.

This award, named after “the First Lady of Statistics,” Gertrude Cox, honors NC State faculty who work to integrate new technologies into their instruction, creating new strategies for teaching. Domínguez is the fourth Department of Computer Science faculty member to win this award, joining Michael Rappa, distinguished university professor, Edward Gehringer, professor, and Jason King, associate teaching professor, as recipients.

“I teach technologies, but also use technologies to teach,” said Domínguez. “I see technology as a way to reduce the frictions that often appear during instruction, such as ease of access and timeliness of access to materials, connections to real-world concepts, and effectiveness of communication.”

Domínguez received his B.S. degree in Informatics Engineering in 2010 from Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas, Venezuela. He earned his M.S. (‘15) and Ph.D. (‘18) degrees in Computer Science from NC State before joining the department as a faculty member in 2019. Since his time in graduate school, Domínguez has been involved with the Senior Design Center, and has helped shepherd the program, first as a teaching assistant and technology specialist, and now as assistant director and technical advisor.

“From my time as a teaching assistant, I found there were gaps between the computer science curriculum and the skills students needed to complete web-based Senior Design projects,” said Domínguez. “This coincided with an increase in industry-sponsored projects requiring web development skills.”

Domínguez knew the best way to help prepare students for the increasing demands of Senior Design (and by extension, the workforce) was to offer a completely overhauled CSC 342: Applied Web-Based Client-Server Computing. He designed this course from the ground up in Fall 2022 incorporating novel pedagogical approaches like Ungrading, and later adopting a flipped classroom model.

“This was the first fully (and formally) ungraded class in the department. Instead of giving grades on assignments, we provide extensive qualitative feedback on students’ work,” said Domínguez. “At the end of the semester, students propose and justify what their term grade will be.”

During the first offering of the revamped CSC 342, Domínguez requested and was awarded Educational and Technology Fee (ETF) funds to purchase server equipment for the class. This was instrumental in winning the Cox award.

“This allowed me to provide each individual student in the class a dedicated Linux virtual machine,” said Domínguez. “Now, students are asked to deploy their assignments to a real server, where they can test them on any of their devices. This has proven to be an extremely valuable learning tool, as it illustrates many of the nuances of web development realistically, without relying on contrived examples.”

This focus on learning through real work, not just textbook examples, is a key focus of the department, and Domínguez’s, teaching.

“This helped me realize one of the goals I had when envisioning this class, which was to provide experiences that would serve students well not only in other classes, but into their professional careers,” said Domínguez.

In the end, it all comes down to student success.

“I feel honored being recognized by the university,” said Domínguez, “but my favorite reward is hearing from students how this class has impacted their growth, professional prospects and educational experience.”