CATL announces Spring 2017 Teaching and Learning Grant recipients

The CATL Teaching and Learning Grants program supports innovative teaching and learning projects. Grants typically range from $1,000 to $5,000, and support start-up and one-time expenses. Below are the recipients of the Spring 2017 CATL Teaching and Learning Grants, along with a description of their grant project.

​Matt Buckmaster (assistant dean of global education and associate professor of music), Jenn Grimmett (media services assistant), Janelle Decato (assistant director of study abroad), Sean Walker (media services lead), Jeff Lampson (event support specialist), and Shanna Van Beek (assistant director of study abroad), are collaborating for a project on global citizenship and global engagement. The group was awarded a grant of $3,550 to experiment with digital tools to enhance global teaching and learning. This grant will support the purchase of six GoPro HERO4 kits to launch a pedagogical partnership pilot between the Isabella Cannon Global Education Center and Teaching and Learning Technologies. Plans for the project include using the GoPros as tools to capture authentic assessment evidence, scaffold reflective learning projects, deepen cross-cultural learning through video interviews with local people, enhance journaling through digital storytelling, and develop media ethics knowledge and skills.

Julie Lellis, associate professor of communications, was awarded $1,725 to support tuition for advanced training to improve her yoga knowledge and teaching skills, specifically for The Reincarnation of Yoga in America, an interdisciplinary honors course that covers yoga philosophy and a physically led practice, which supports Elon’s model of engaged learning. Beyond her own professional development, the training will increase her knowledge and experience with Sanskrit, the “language” of yoga and secure more connections to the local yoga community, which may lead to guest speakers in the honors class. The training also enhances her other commitments on campus including a winter term class she teaches, her role as co-advisor of the Elon Yoga Club, and her service related to yoga, mindfulness and contemplative pedagogy.  

Carmen Monico, assistant professor of human service studies, was awarded $3,000 for a project analyzing, interpreting and reporting on the professional experience of human services delivery in Guatemala carried out by students in Human Service Studies practicum away courses taught since Winter Term 2014. This research-based teaching and learning project will draw from student assignments, faculty participant observation of the practicum activities, and feedback collected from partner organizations. Results of the grant-funded project will be used to improve the pedagogy of an innovative and inclusive model of global learning that moves students from awareness to a change in perspective through experience, to becoming more competent professionals in this field.

Assistant Professor Cora Palfy in the Music Department was awarded $1,600 for iPads for use in music theory and aural skills classrooms to examine the ways this technology affords an opportunity to engage in sustainable, accessible, interactive teaching, and to extend student learning beyond the classroom. This grant-funded technology will allow faculty and students to interact with scores readily through music notation software, complete in-class compositions and sight-reading games, and work together to complete analyses and interpretations of musical scores.

Kim Shively, assistant professor in the Department of Performing Arts, was awarded a $1,500 grant for a team to build a raked platform to be used in rehearsals and performances for the 2018 Winter Term play, “Moment” by contemporary Irish playwright Dierdre Kinahan. Although raked stages (a performance space that slopes towards the audience) have a long history in the theatre, Elon does not have a permanent or temporary raked stage. Because performing and designing on an incline requires deep understanding of spatial relationships, a raked stage offers unique technical challenges to students. This grant-funded platform will expand and add to current performing arts pedagogical offerings in design theory, acting technique, construction methods, and theatrical history, and also engage students in hands-on theatrical problem solving.

Assistant Professor Jennifer Zinchuk in the English Department will use $4,470 to support a Multilingual First-Year Writing Pedagogy Working Group that brings together five faculty teaching cross-cultural English 110 for a series of workshops focused on teaching multilingual writers and fostering linguistic and cultural diversity in their classrooms. Specifically, these faculty will teach English 110 classes in Fall 2017 with both domestic students and “pods” of four to six international students. The Working Group will meet monthly from August to December 2017 and the workshops will include themes of curriculum design for language diversity, addressing plagiarism with multilingual students, designing effective assignments and assessing writing and engaging linguistic diversity in classroom activities.

Founded in 2005, the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (CATL) serves as a catalyst for effective teaching and engaged learning at Elon University. CATL faculty promote intentional,evidence-based, and inclusive teaching and learning practices, contribute to University-wide initiatives related to teaching and learning, and foster the scholarship of teaching and learning at Elon University. One way the center fulfills its mission is through the Teaching and Learning Grants. For more information on the grant program, visit our website at http://www.elon.edu/e-web/academics/teaching/grants.xhtml.