Innovation in the classroom

In late April, 115 faculty, graduate students and staff members gathered at Lehigh’s annual Symposium on Teaching and Learning, which featured 24 presentations on a wide range of innovative approaches to teaching. Sessions were held in the Fairchild-Martindale Library.

“We want to highlight the work that’s happening by our faculty and by our support staff in the Center [for Innovation in Teaching and Learning] that’s really making amazing things happen in the classroom,” said event organizer Greg Reihman, associate vice provost for teaching and learning and director of the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CITL), in his welcome. “We want to thank those people for the time they put in, showcase the work that they’re doing and get ideas out there.”

Sessions included “Projects that Engage and Instruct,” “New Roles for Image and Voice in Student Learning,” and a “lightning round” of five-minute presentations covering a variety of instructional approaches.

In the first session, Bruce Taggart, vice provost for library and technology services; Ziad Munson, associate professor of sociology; Almut Hupbach, associate professor of psychology; Thomas Hyclak, professor of economics; Vince Grassi, professor of practice in chemical and biomolecular engineering; and Arindam Banerjee, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, explained student projects they’d developed to increase student understanding of course material.

The second session, which featured ways in which faculty are making educational uses of student-produced digital scholarship, included presentations by Annabella Pitkin, assistant professor of Buddhism and East Asian religions; Brooke Rollins, assistant professor of English; Michael Kramp, associate professor of English; Anna Chupa, associate professor of design; and John Pettegrew, associate professor of history. Visiting presenter Bill Shewbridge, director of the New Media Studio at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, shared how his studio engages students with similar projects. 

Several presenters in the first two sessions received course development support from the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CITL), the Mellon Digital Humanities Initiative (MDHI) and the Baker Institute for Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Innovation's KEEN (Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network) program.

Participants moved to a classroom in the newly renovated Center for Teaching and Learning in Fairchild-Martindale for the third session. This “lightning round” featured rapid-fire presentations that provided a glimpse into the wide range of innovative approaches used by faculty in classrooms across campus. A reception and open house rounded out the day’s events.

"We were especially pleased with the scope of participation this year," said Reihman. "Faculty from all four colleges, staff and graduate students from across the campus came out to learn more about the great things happening in Lehigh's classrooms. ... It was great to see the wonderful learning experiences that are created when faculty and CITL/LTS staff work together. When teachers bring energy and pedagogical imagination to their classes, students respond by engaging more deeply with the material and getting more out of their coursework.”

“The open, collaborative environment fostered by the symposium was second-to-none,” wrote one faculty member after the event.

"The real impact of the symposium is not any one thing—it's the aggregate effect of being energized by all of the innovative activities that your colleagues are involved in,” another noted.

The goal of CITL is to foster excellence and innovation in teaching, learning and research by providing faculty and students with development opportunities, teaching tools, course development opportunities, classroom and instructional support, and consultation services. CITL includes the following LTS teams: Instructional Technology, Writing Across the Curriculum, Distance Education and Summer Session, Instructional Media Services, Research Computing, Digital Scholarship Projects, Classroom Technology and Public Site Support.

For more information on the Symposium and to view the recordings of the 2016 presentations, click here.