Innovative Pedagogies

Faculty members in the School of Arts & Sciences are eager to find new and relevant ways to connect students to new ideas. Many professors choose to participate in the Program for Enhancing Teaching Effectiveness (PETE) at some point in their careers.  Ten members and a faculty coordinator meet to discuss approaches to teaching through discussion and reflection on theories and practices. The group sponsors forums and workshops to introduce new concepts and issues to a wider audience of professors from across the disciplines.

Other faculty members utilize the Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology to integrate technology into the courses they are already teaching. Technology specialists help professors incorporate Web sites, blogs, podcasts and audio/visual technology into their courses to produce unique learning experiences for students. Students and faculty can also take advantage of the support staff and resources in the Technology Learning Center (TLC) to make full use of innovative technologies in their classes.

Recently, faculty members have collaborated on a series of new classes sponsored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant. Each course pairs two professors from different disciplines, and they design a class with relevance in both their subject areas. For instance, Dr. Gary Radice, biology, and Dr. Gary Greenfield, mathematics, came together to create a course in biological imaging. Dr. Joseph Gindhart, biology, and Dr. Barry Lawson, computer science, created a class in bioinformatics. Courses like these introduce students to two different worlds and show them firsthand the benefits of interdisciplinary thinking.