Driving Pedagogical Innovation from the Ground Up through Strategic On-Campus Partnerships
Jeffrey Olimpo, University of Texas at El Paso
Elena C. Bitner, University of Texas at El Paso
Jessica Duran, University of Texas at El Paso
Janet Hill, University of Texas at El Paso
Adrian Meza, University of Texas at El Paso
Alejandro Miramontes, University of Texas at El Paso
Mitsumasa Overstreet, University of Texas at El Paso
Empirical studies of instructional innovations at the undergraduate level have repeatedly emphasized the strong connection existent between faculty success and student engagement, learning, and achievement (e.g., Condon et al., 2016, Wright et al., 2018). In this context, faculty success entails providing the resources and capital necessary to enhance instructional capacity – the ability for an educator to facilitate high-quality instructional experiences in their learning environments (Cohen & Ball, 1999). One mechanism to promote this outcome is for faculty and other key stakeholders (e.g., laboratory course coordinators) to establish on-campus partnerships with divisions and centers responsible for promoting faculty and student success. This might include Centers for Teaching & Learning and Instructional Design, the college/university library, student support centers (e.g., for writing, supplemental instruction), and makerspaces. Regardless, beyond their ability to effect change in single contexts, these partnerships ideally ensure that those impacts advance the institution as a whole.
In this interactive symposium, we will first describe how a unique unit – Creative Studios – integrated within our university's Institute for Scholarship, Pedagogy, Innovation, and Research Excellence (INSPIRE) has not only revolutionized how instructors teach using technology, but also transformed the types of networking occurring between centers and departments on campus. We will then describe how our current effort to redesign the core curriculum at our institution, including the successes achieved from that process, was actualized, in part, due to the on-campus partnerships and faculty-center connections that were fostered. Throughout this conversation, attendees will have an opportunity to reflect on the benefits and challenges of engaging in such partnerships as well as strategize about new avenues for promoting student and faculty success on their own campuses.
Program
We intend to divide the symposium into two, 30-minute sections – one focused on the role that on-campus entities (e.g., Creative Studios, Centers for Teaching/Learning) can have in effecting small- and large-scale changes to instructional excellence and a second focused on a specific initiative (Reimagining Core @ UTEP) that successfully leveraged such entities to increase student engagement in high-impact practices (HIPs) while simultaneously creating new professional learning communities (PLCs). Both sections will integrate content with attendee engagement, so as to provide a seamless experience overall. More acutely, the first five minutes of each section will be devoted to participant reflection, which will occur via a series of scaffolded prompts with embedded polling (see Engagement section). The next 20 minutes will include section-specific content (e.g., description of the Reimaging Core workflow and examples of interdepartmental innovations that emerged from that project) with opportunities for Socratic and whole-group dialogue. The last five minutes of each section will be devoted to a Q&A period.
Note that Olimpo, Bitner, Duran, and Overstreet will be the four primary presenters. The remaining co-authors will help facilitate discussions and engagement activities.