The Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning announces the recipients of Fall Teaching and Learning Grants.
Xiaolin Duan, assistant professor in the History and Geography Department, was awarded $1,530 for a collaborative student project focused on acquiring, researching and cataloguing Asian-related artifacts. Students in Duan’s winter term 2017 class who are studying abroad in China will purchase one local artifact based on their predeparture research. These objects will then become part of Elon’s permanent collection, which future courses and exhibits can draw from, including, most immediately, a spring course on material culture in East Asia. Students in the spring will pick an object and write a research paper about it. This grant-funded assignment will improve the study abroad learning experience, encourage cross-course, trans-disciplinary collaboration, and enhance the Elon art collection and engagement with Asian culture.
Natalie Hart, assistant professor in the Performing Arts Department, will use $1,880 to purchase software for students that will aid collaboration, track progress, share documents, and provide brainstorming tools with the goal of team learning. Students will manage their Learning Teams like a business model of their choosing (such as a PR firm, an NGO, an Art Department, etc.). The students will serve as collaborators and supporters for each other’s papers and projects and serve as small discussion panels. This software and team-based assignment will model work environments that seniors will encounter upon leaving Elon and to provide a stronger interface for students to collaborate on work.
Linda Sabo, an associate professor in the Performing Arts Department, will buy technology with a grant of $1,534, to enhance, modernize, organize, store, and make easily accessible the different forms of media used to teach in the areas of dance and music theater. Some of the equipment will be for the use of all musical theater professors for class or rehearsal room use, and will allow for the archival of work students and professors create for the musical theatre program. This grant enables effective teaching through improved access to a great range of material, such as digitized music, scores, sheet music, scripts, historical videos, videos of stage and film musicals, for quick reference, and to more easily share research with students or co-conduct research with student partners. The equipment will support the ongoing and continually evolving teaching research project that Sabo hopes will engage and inspire her students, keeping her material and methods both current and creative.
The CATL Teaching and Learning Grants program supports innovative teaching and learning projects. Grants typically range from $1,000 to $5,000, although smaller and larger proposals are considered. Grants generally support start-up and one-time expenses (materials, stipends, and so on), rather than paying for ongoing operational costs. For more information, visit our website at http://www.elon.edu/e-web/academics/teaching/grants.xhtml.