Support and Enhance Effective Teaching
IUPUI"s effectiveness and, indeed, our survival as an institution depend on our ability to meet the learning needs of an unusually diverse, nontraditional student body with whom the "tried and true" approaches to college teaching are less than successful. The work on enhancing undergraduate student learning and success discussed in this self-study could not have been accomplished without sustained institution-wide effort to create a campus environment that fosters teaching excellence and innovation. Key strategies in this effort have included creation of meaningful rewards and incentives for teaching achievements, development of resources that support active, student-centered pedagogies and encourage reflective, informed teaching practices, and a series of highly visible campus-wide initiatives (including campus participation in national initiatives) focused on seeking solutions to the particular teaching challenges IUPUI faces as a large, urban, commuter university.
The success of these strategies relies, in turn, on our ability to understand and address teaching and learning as collective responsibilities that can be most effectively carried out through evidence-based, coordinated action. This understanding of teaching as a collaborative activity runs counter to many traditions of the academy and, at IUPUI, to the decentralized structure of the campus itself. An effort to cultivate a sense of shared responsibility for teaching has thus been woven throughout the various strategies and initiatives we have pursued. Just as our work on learning has concentrated, to a great extent, on creating community among our students, our teaching efforts seek to develop a sense of community and shared purpose among faculty and staff. An extended example of such an effort is presented at the end of this "teaching" portion of the self-study.
This portion of our special emphasis self-study focuses on three major themes that have informed our initiatives to support and enhance effective teaching:
Go on to: Ensuring Rewards and Incentives for Effective Teaching
