UW Educators Learn and Present at Lilly Conference on College Teaching

Fourteen educators and students from the University of Wyoming participated in the recent 43rd Original Lilly Conference on College Teaching, which is among the nation’s most renowned conferences centering on the scholarship of teaching and learning.

The UW cohort -- composed of faculty across disciplines as well as two undergraduate learning assistants -- attended the conference in Oxford, Ohio. UW’s contingent was part of two learning communities that were sponsored by the UW Science Initiative’s Learning Actively Mentoring Program (LAMP) and the Ellbogen Center for Teaching and Learning (ECTL).

LAMP educators spent the past year learning about theories of change and producing their own scholarship research on the scholarship of teaching and learning. Lilly Conference reviewers require a multipage submission that is rigorously evaluated. UW’s LAMP educators shared both posters and oral presentations at the event.

“LAMP educators made a formidable impression on conference attendees with their integrated and cross-level research. We were the only team of researchers to incorporate undergraduates into our learning community and scholarship of teaching and learning work,” says LAMP Director Rachel Watson. “Our learning community has spent a year getting to know one another. We have assisted each other with research and buoyed one another up whenever teaching challenges arose.”

Watson says nothing nurtures bonding more than traveling together.

“While the robust research is a highlight, the friendships solidified in the travel will be the thing that allows the educators to persist in facilitating transformative learning for our UW students long after the presentation titles have been forgotten,” she adds.

Presenters, listed by name and UW department, and student majors and hometowns with poster titles, were:

-- Amy Peterson, an assistant professor of communications disorders, “Team-Based Learning in a Graduate Course for Speech-Language Pathology.”

-- Ashleigh Pilkerton, Science Initiative’s community engagement and undergraduate research programming coordinator, “Near-Peer Mentoring Enhances STEM Identity."

“It was truly a privilege to attend the conference and engage with cutting-edge teaching pedagogy and innovative approaches that can enhance the learning environment and expand opportunities for our students,” Pilkerton says.

-- Dawson Poteet, a kinesiology and health major from Laramie, “Instructor Control and Student Resistance: Exploring Autonomy in STEM Courses.”

“Being at this conference has made me, as an undergrad, feel heard from instructors and has reinstated my faith in our institution’s ability to create and pursue change in academia,” he says.

-- Cedar Wiseman, an assistant lecturer of mathematics, and Jaden Cook, an engineering major from Littleton, Colo., “Developing a Calculus Concept Inventory for Assessing Problem-Solving Ability.”

“As an undergraduate, I gained immense insight in which I now have a far better understanding of a professor’s perspective and challenges as well as how I can help my peers succeed as I contribute to the success of the calculus curriculum,” Cook says.

Presenting oral presentations, listed by name, UW department and titles, were:

-- Kayla Burd, an assistant professor of psychology, “Team-based learning in a large course: Preliminary data.”

“The conference was invigorating. To hear other educators discuss their insights and methods -- and with such excitement -- was a reminder of what a privilege it is to be in the classroom,” Burd says.

-- Jacob Layer, an assistant lecturer of kinesiology and health, “A Scalable Visual Framework of Teaching and Learning for Near-Peer Mentors.”

-- Reshmi Singh, an associate professor in the School of Pharmacy, “Educator Learning Communities: A Rural State Success Story.”

-- Watson, a senior lecturer of kinesiology and health, “Students’ feelings of classroom inclusion depend on controllable factors.”

At the Lilly Conference, UW educators helped to facilitate a half-day workshop led by Christi Boggs, an associate director of online and digital education in the ECTL.

Randa Jabbour, an associate professor of plant sciences; Sarah Lee, an assistant lecturer of family and consumer sciences; Alissa Siceloff, an assistant lecturer of kinesiology and health; and Marian Stordahl, an instructor in the English Language Center, were part of the ECTL team -- led by Boggs -- that presented the half day workshop.

ECTL educators in the learning community centered their learning on alternative assessment strategies. Termed ungrading or alternative grading, these strategies enable professors to shift students’ emphasis away from the grade and toward learning through feedback that is not tied to grades.

“It has been an incredible journey with this group of innovative and dedicated instructors,” Boggs says. “Acceptance for leading a workshop is an honor, and the members of our group did an incredible job organizing and facilitating. I’m proud to be part of this initiative.”

Kiana Henny, a physics and astronomy graduate student form South Whidbey, Wash., also attended the conference.