Center for Instructional Innovation and Assessment - Western Washington University's Teaching and Learning Center
Innovative Teaching Showcase
Welcome to the Innovative Teaching Showcase, an online publication created by the Center for Instructional Innovation and Assessment (CIIA) as a way to highlight and share exceptional teaching practices by Western Washington University faculty. Each year, several instructors are nominated to participate, and then work extensively with the CIIA to create this in-depth resource. The Showcase is published on this website at the end of each academic year.
The CIIA is pleased to announce the following instructors for the
2011-12 Innovative Teaching Showcase
to be published on June 1, 2012.
This year’s Innovative Teaching Showcase theme, “Empowering Peer Learning,” seeks to honor faculty who bravely have changed the power dynamic in the classroom to support collaboration and teamwork in their courses in a variety of ways. The following instructors have been nominated by their colleagues and selected by the CIIA Advisory Board for inclusion in this year's Showcase:
- Garth Amundson, Professor in the Art Department, promotes collaboration amongst his students via social networking, dynamic critique of art projects, and a group effort for fundraising and submitting to professional exhibitions in the professional art world outside the classroom.
- Joe Garcia, Bowman Family Distinguished Professorship of Leadership Studies in the Management Department, created a new course that fosters leadership skills in upper division undergraduates who, in turn, become mentors to one another in their shared role as instructors to other undergraduates in break-out sessions of a lower division leadership course.
- Ann Stone, Lecturer in the Finance/Marketing Department, incorporates a team learning project into her Brand Marketing class where each group crafts a “creative brief” of a brand and presents it to the rest of the students who are each role-playing the part of creative marketing professionals and writing critiques during the presentation.
When students work together on coursework, both inside and outside of the classroom, they learn more, think more critically, and gain an appreciation for diverse perspectives.
—Quoted in the 2010 National Survey of Student Engagement
(Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005; Gerlach, 1994)
Collaborative learning combines two key goals: learning to work and solve problems in the company of others, and sharpening one’s own understanding by listening seriously to the insights of others, especially those with different backgrounds and life experiences.
—High Impact Educational Practices, Association of American Colleges & Universities
Peer learning should be mutually beneficial and involve the sharing of knowledge, ideas, and experience between participants. It can be described as a way of moving beyond independent to "interdependent" or mutual learning.
—David Boud, Ph.D., University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
The 2011-12 Showcase will become the new "Current Edition" on June 1, 2012.
Please peruse past Showcases via the navigation to the left or search all Showcases. To connect directly to this year's Showcase, select the link to the 2010-11 Showcase on the left navigation under "Current Edition."
