Friday Profile

Friday Profile: Theresa Tinkle, Winner of 2012 Provost's Teaching Innovation Prize

How can a lecturer engage an auditorium full of undergraduates in analyzing the subtleties of a poem written more than 400 years ago?  That was one of the questions motivating Theresa Tinkle's teaching innovations in English 350, a course surveying literature written before 1660.  

Along with her team of GSIs, the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of English Language and Literature set the goal of improving students' skills at literary analysis, and then they focused their teaching efforts on replicating the advantages of a small course in a large lecture setting.  The group creatively deployed technologies like iClickers and CTools online quizzes to ensure students completed readings and engaged actively with lectures.  And they created assignment sequences that allowed students intensive writing practice and provided individualized feedback (without significantly increasing anyone's grading load).  This combination of strategies resulted in significantly improved student skill with the complex task of close reading.  Read more »

Submitted by tbraun on Fri, 09/14/2012 - 7:25am
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Friday Profile: Lola Eniola-Adefeso, Winner of 2012 Provost's Teaching Innovation Prize

"You are asked to design an original experiment that would be suitable for a high school teacher to use in demonstrating any mass or heat transfer principle or concept to his/her class. The goal is to use your experiments to attract high school students to chemical engineering."  

So begins the group project assignment for Chemical Engineering 342 designed by Assistant Professor Omolola Eniola-Adefeso, winner of the 2012 Provost's Teaching Innovation Prize (TIP). Motivated to improve retention rates of diverse students in STEM fields and inspired by her own experiences with hands-on learning early in her undergraduate engineering career, Dr. Eniola-Adefeso developed an assignment that combined self-directed learning, collaboration, and outreach.   Read more »

Submitted by tbraun on Fri, 09/07/2012 - 11:01am
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