Inspiring Student Success

“Inspiring Student Success” took center stage at the recent Teaching and Learning Symposium on February 22. The Office of Faculty Development’s annual event saw more than 120 attendees participate in NC State faculty-led interactive sessions, view poster presentations and engage in timely discussions on pedagogy in higher education.

“We want to facilitate the success of our faculty, and the Teaching and Learning Symposium gives them an avenue to get their ideas out into the academic marketplace and connect with other scholars focused on student success,” said Diane Chapman, director of the Office of Faculty Development. “The event also promotes interdisciplinary scholarship and collaboration and community among our world-class faculty.”

Brett Jones, professor of educational psychology in the School of Education at Virginia Tech, gave the 2018 ACC Teaching Lecture. In “Designing Motivating Courses: Lessons from Jazz Composition,” the saxophone-playing Jones applied gleanings from jazz composition to college teaching to help educators develop new patterns of thinking and doing in the classroom.

Thirty-three teams of faculty, staff and students presented at the Teaching and Learning Symposium’s poster session, with topics ranging from discipline-specific classroom enrichment to integrating technology in teaching, motivating and mentoring students and more. Carrol Warren, a teaching assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership, Policy and Human Development, presented on “Enhancing the Ed.D. Student Experience with Executive Mentoring Partnerships.”

“With our Executive Mentoring Program, we want to provide Ed.D. students with experiences they will not be exposed to inside the classroom,” she said. “We took on the challenge of redesigning our program in community college leadership, with a strategic focus on providing qualified leaders for anticipated vacancies at community colleges. Last fall, we launched a mentoring program that matches our students with mentors who are community college leaders from three states and Washington, D.C. This presentation outlines what we hope to achieve as the program grows.”

Warren’s presentation, along with many others, points to the value of experiential education in impactful teaching and learning. Judges chose from these poster presentations an overall winner and two honorable mentions. They are:

Outstanding Poster:

• “Teaching Young Science Scholars to Write ‘Unscientifically’” (Nancy Swisher, Lecturer in English as a Second Language, Foreign Languages and Literatures)

Honorable Mentions:

• “Oh Snap! How Four Thirty-something Librarians Conquered the World’s Most Confusing Social Media App to Revitalize the Library Scavenger Hunt” (David Tully, University Library Technician, NCSU Libraries; Anne Burke, Associate Head, Learning Spaces and Services, NCSU Libraries)
• “Development and Implementation of Inquiry-based Case Studies in a High-Throughput Discovery Class” (Stefanie Chen, Teaching Postdoctoral Scholar, Biotechnology Program; Carlos C. Goller, Teaching Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences)

Additionally, attendees could choose from a variety of breakout sessions facilitated by the NC State Academy of Outstanding Teachers. Presenters included Maria Oliver-Hoyo, Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor in the Department of Chemistry, who gave insight on “Promoting Student Engagement via Pedagogy and Content.”  Sessions covered flipping classrooms, providing helpful feedback to students, how to inspire student success over a lifetime and more.

“Our faculty continue to use their scholarship to inspire the integration of engagement and life-changing research into providing high-impact education to our students” said Chapman. “We hope that the Teaching and Learning Symposium serves as a launching point from which great ideas become reality.”