2013 Provost's Teaching Innovation Prize Winners

Associate Professor Brent Gillespie
Mechanical Engineering/CoE

Student Comments:

“I can personally attest to the power of [the Cigar Box project] to give an intuitive representation of frequency response. ...seeing it in operation helped the reality of what was occurring during a frequency response test to ‘click’ with me. It gave me a more innate feel for what was occurring that allowed me to identify everyday systems that exhibit a similar behavior.”

The Cigar Box’s MATLAB compatibility with Arduino “allow[ed] me to develop plotting and tracking algorithms for the nervous signals that we were reading from the rats that we were working with.”

“From helping us visualize the effects of the individual components of PID (Proportional-Integral-Derivative) control to helping plot Bode plots, the Cigar Boxes turned dry chalkboard content into fun projects.”

“My group designed a program that lets [Cigar Box] users feel the force feedback of a ball bouncing between a ceiling and a floor.”

“The project expo at the end of the class was thoroughly enjoyable as we got a chance to explore the variety of projects done by the different groups in the class.”

Arthur F. Thurnau Professor
Associate Professor Mika LaVaque-Manty
Political Science and Philosophy/LSA

Student Comments:

“[POLSCI 101] required me and my peers to not only take full responsibility [for] our final grades, but also turned the class into a game and interactive experiment.”

“Students were enthusiastic and excited to contribute.... This was not a tedious endeavor for most students.”

“Students gained points for completing tasks and also gained badges or extra credit if they performed exceptionally well.”

“Choices about assignments...allowed the students to evaluate their strengths and how they learned best.”

Encouraged “to create unconventional projects about the texts,” students “were presenting card games and comic strips to explain political theory.”

“Students not only understood the presented materials, but were given the opportunity to actively engage in the concepts: a style of teaching that truly prepares students to be successful after college.”

Associate Professor Michael Hortsch
Cell and Developmental Biology/Medical School

Student Comments:

“In a class [where] many students have little to no prior experience, SecondLook allowed us the practice needed to master the difficult material.”

“We could quiz ourselves by clicking through the slides... We had to think of the answer (recall),” but actual exam questions were multiple choice (recognition). “So when I mastered the SecondLook slides, I knew I would succeed on the exams.”

“SecondLook is one of the most valuable teaching tools that I have encountered in medical school. I have not encountered a single classmate who does not use this resource before taking the exam.”

“In dental school, I have found that flashcards and study guides are crucial to retain knowledge, yet we often lack the time to create these resources. SecondLook gave us the required material in an effective, ready-to-use format.”

“I wish every class had SecondLook.”

“Helps students to understand the importance of active studying and self-testing to make broader connections and to recognize patterns within the material—a skill which carries over into all disciplines.”

Associate Professor Michael Gould
School of Music, Theatre & Dance
Residential College/LSA

Student Comments:

Setting a new standard for music education, the iBook format “combines visual, audio, and textual elements into one package; no CD or DVD required.”

The advent of streaming video websites introduced new opportunities to see how a given musician plays, but “it was a bit of a scavenger hunt trying to piece together information from disparate sources, and with often questionable quality.”

“The audio portion of the ebook is executed with the utmost attention to detail; I cannot find a single mistake in the recordings, and I have been listening hard.”

“The complete integration of enriched media content in the iBook format...puts the history of our instrument at our fingertips.”

“The curriculum of Drum Diaries provides a new and different challenge each day, with the goal of kick-starting one’s own creative process.”

“Scheduling each lesson for a particular day of the week is a useful organizational tool for the many musicians... who have trouble figuring how to pace themselves.”

Lecturer I Antonio (Tony) Alvarez 
(School of Social Work)

Student Comments:

“Each student had to form a relationship with their stick and create a journal reflecting our thoughts and feelings throughout our experience.”

“I mean, it’s obviously great as a walking stick, but what else can a stick achieve?”

“I try to interact with it a few minutes every day—usually rubbing my hands over the bug holes, thinking about the time it took for the insects to burrow into the wood, and the unforeseen, unintentional beauty that resulted.”

“Makes me think about the childhoods of a lot of the youth. They see everything and experience so much, but have no voice.”

"In the beginning, I thought the project was too free-spirited and impractical. Why would I want to spend hours and days carrying a stick around in awkward situations and wracking my brain to find some unique way to make it my own? ...because being a good social worker requires self-reflection, creativity, innovation, knowing how to handle awkward moments, and the ability to take control of a therapeutic process.”

“A huge revelation...the Stick did not need to be anything, but rather it was a means of our experience. ... I have learned the power and influence of creating experiences. They are life-transforming, no matter if they fail.”