Beyza Lorenz, Ph.D., MSIDT

Dr. Beyza Lorenz is Instructional Designer and Quality Matters Coordinator at UNG Dahlonega. She has over a decade of experience teaching and researching in higher education and holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and a M.S. in Instructional Design and Technology. Before joining UNG, she worked as a faculty member at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she taught undergraduate and graduate language and literature courses. During her time at UCLA, she also served as Instructional Training Coordinator and led interactive workshops to train graduate students from humanities and social sciences in best practices in course design and delivery. In addition to her role as faculty member and training coordinator, she contributed to designing online scenario-based cultural literacy modules for foreign language learners at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, The Flagship Culture Initiative.

She became interested in online learning during her doctoral studies at Pennsylvania State University, where she taught courses in person, hybrid, and online and received several certificates in online teaching methodology and practices. At UCLA, she earned an award from the Mellon Foundation to conduct U.S.-wide needs assessment research on the requirements of students learning foreign languages and presented her research in international conferences. In addition to her role at UNG, Dr. Lorenz is actively serving as an executive board member for associations on foreign language instruction and peer reviewer for academic journals on instructional design, language, and literature.

• University of California, Los Angeles
  • Middle Eastern Cities, Elementary Turkish, Advanced Turkish, Ottoman Turkish Reading and Translation, Ottoman Diplomatics, Turkic Tradition
• Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  • World Literature, Introduction to Literary Humor, Myths and Mythologies

• Ph.D., Comparative Literature, Pennsylvania State University
• M.S., Instructional Design and Technology, Cal State Fullerton
• M.A., Cultural Heritage Management, Koc University
• B.A., English Language and Literature, Bogazici University

• Instructional Design and Technology I and II, Cal State, Fullerton
• Accessibility in Online Teaching, Pennsylvania State University
• Online Presence, the Pennsylvania State University, World Campus
• Effective Online Teaching, Pennsylvania State University, World Campus

• Online learning
• Faculty training
• Gamification
• Scenario-based learning
• Quality Matters
• World literatures and languages

Peer-Reviewed Publications:

“Novel Anxieties: An Ottoman Counter-discourse on Time and Space.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East vol. 40. Issue 2 (August 2020): 387–400. 

 “Provinciality and the City in Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul.” Orhan Pamuk: Critical Essays on a Novelist Between Worlds. Ed. Taner Can et al. Hannover: Ibidem Press, 2017. 159–83.

Book Review:

Uncoupling language and religion: an exploration into the margins of Turkish literature by Laurent Mignon. Turkish Studies (2021). 

Comparison: Theories, Approaches, Uses. Edited by Rita Felski and Susan Stanford Friedman. Comparative Literature Studies volume 51 issue 3 (2014) 509-512.

Other:

 “Beyond the Breakout Room: Four Online Tools for Interactive Teaching” American Association of Teachers of Turkic Languages Newsletter.

 “Current Needs of Students and Teachers of Turkish.” American Association of Teachers of Turkic Languages Newsletter. January 2017, 11.

Invited Talks:

• 2021: “Creative Online Units in Language Instruction.” Excellence in Pedagogy and Innovative Classrooms (EPIC), UCLA
• 2021: “Course Design Process.” Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles 
• 2021: “Instructional Tools and Technologies for Online Teaching.” Near Eastern Languages and Cultures Department, UCLA
• 2021: “Research Methods in Comparative Literature and History.”  Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and Department of International Studies at American University of Sharjah
• 2021: “New Methods in Teaching Turkish Online.” International Workshop on Teaching Turkish as a Foreign Language. University of Cyprus, Nicosia
• 2019: “Beyond the Classroom: Advancing Literacy Skills through Encounters with Native Speakers” American Association of Teachers of Turkic Languages Roundtable in the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Conference 

Conference Presentations:

• 2021: “Teaching in Medias Res: Challenges and Opportunities of Teaching Intermediate Ottoman Turkish” Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Annual Conference     
• 2021: “Dynamic Spaces for Collaborative Learning and Assessment in Online Teaching.” Digital Transformation of UC: The Next Chapter. October 20-21. University of California
• 2017: “Teaching Ottoman Turkish through Literature” in American Association of Teachers of Turkic Languages (AATT) Conference
• 2016: "Possibilities of Technology Use in Language Teaching: Planning a New Online Source for Turkish Instruction” in American Association of Teachers of Turkic Languages (AATT) Conference