Elon University has been selected by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to lead a national initiative on student participation in the scholarship of teaching and learning. The Carnegie Institutional Leadership program is a three-year project that will explore ways to improve student learning in the classroom by studying the best practices of learning and teaching.
Elon’s role in this program is a direct result of a campus initiative from 1999 to 2005 called Project Interweave, which formed unique student-faculty partnerships to do collaborative research on learning and teaching in Elon classrooms. In 2006, Project Interweave was replaced by the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning’s Scholars program, which dramatically expands Elon’s investment in student-faculty partnerships. Four faculty scholars have been chosen annually to work with student partners on two-year teaching and learning research projects. These research teams will be active participants in local, national and international dialogues about the scholarship of teaching and learning. For more information about the first group of CATL scholars, visit http://www.elon.edu/e-web/academics/special_programs/catl/scholars2006.xhtml.
“Our goal is to transform Elon into a national model of engaged student learning, one that is grounded in the scholarship of teaching and learning,” says Peter Felten, director of the Elon Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. “Participation in the Carnegie Institutional Leadership program will help us build and nurture an environment where faculty and students together learn and grow.”
Faculty members Deborah Long, education; Donna Van Bodegraven, foreign languages; Jeffrey Coker, biology; Peter Felten, director of Elon’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning; and rising senior Jessica Waugh helped prepare Elon’s application for the Carnegie Institutional Leadership program.
The group’s first meeting will be in Washington, D.C., in November.
-30-