This month’s Featured Faculty spotlight highlights Amanda Borosh, M.Ed., BCBA, ABD, Assistant Professor of Special Education. Amanda brings more than 15 years of experience in school-based settings, including roles as a special education teacher and district-wide behavior analyst. Her work focuses on improving the implementation of evidence-based behavioral practices in schools, with particular attention to implementation science, organizational behavior management, and sustainable interventions that address challenging behavior at the school-wide, class-wide, and individual levels.
In her teaching, Amanda is intentional about creating frequent, varied opportunities for students to participate, reflect, and demonstrate understanding. Because she primarily teaches synchronous online courses, she pays close attention to how students are invited into the learning experience and how participation can be structured in ways that do not rely only on verbal discussion. To support this goal, she uses Pear Deck as one tool for building interaction into her live online class sessions.
Amanda designs these opportunities throughout class rather than treating participation as a single discussion moment or end-of-session check-in. She uses interactive prompts on Pear Deck to support in-class formative assessments, small-group activities, class reflections, and exit tickets. She also adapts similar activities for asynchronous learning. When teaching live, students can respond as she facilitates the session; for asynchronous activities, she can add audio so students can move through the material and respond on their own time.
A key part of Amanda’s practice is reducing barriers to participation. Students have shared that this approach gives them a way to engage without needing to unmute or speak during class if they are uncomfortable doing so. In an online learning environment, where students may differ in their comfort with speaking aloud, appearing on camera, or responding spontaneously, this creates additional pathways for involvement and helps more students contribute to the learning process.
Amanda also uses student responses as real-time formative feedback. Rather than waiting until after class to learn where students may be confused, she can gauge understanding during the session, adjust her pacing, and identify concepts that need clarification. Because every student has a way to respond, Amanda can assess participation and understanding more broadly across the class, not only from the students who are most comfortable speaking up.
Her approach also creates a lower-pressure channel for student questions. Students can submit questions directly to her, and she can choose how to address them with the full class. This allows important questions to surface without requiring individual students to speak publicly or identify themselves in front of peers.
Amanda’s teaching practice reflects the kind of intentional, manageable strategy this series is designed to highlight. Her use of Pear Deck supports the larger instructional goal: creating a more responsive, accessible, and participatory online learning environment where students have multiple ways to engage, ask questions, and show what they are learning.
