Western Carolina University

This article features an event that occurred in the past.

Western Carolina University’s fourth annual Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Faire to be held April 2-3 will center on “Making Connections.”

The event, which expands this year into a two-day event, celebrates research conducted to improve and foster effective teaching methods. The theme “making connections” alludes to connecting students to subject material, connecting faculty across disciplines and connecting students and educators holistically to the community and to the world.

“Many faculty at WCU are helping students to connect, to integrate, to synthesize their learning beyond the classroom to other disciplines, to the community, to the world and to future careers,” said Anna McFadden, director of Coulter Faculty Center. “At Western’s SoTL Faire, faculty make their work public. They share with colleagues their attempts to help students who experience content and then ask ‘so what?’”

Each session will be monitored by student advocates who are there to look at what the faculty are doing from a student perspective and advocate for what students want to see, said Laura Cruz, faculty fellow for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Coulter Faculty Center.

“There is a culture on this campus that encourages this kind of scholarship, and we pride ourselves on being really good at teaching,” Cruz said. “At the SoTL Faire, we get to see the creativity and rigorous reflection about teaching that goes on here.”

Several sessions at the event focus on helping students make those connections.

Some will center on connecting students to the region and to the world. Claire Eye, visiting assistant professor of theatre, will talk about a theatre program’s partnership with Cherokee community members and area schools. Sharon Metcalfe, assistant professor of nursing, will describe developing relationships between WCU students and health care professionals overseas to explore international solutions to global health care issues.

Other sessions explore service to the community as a learning tool. In one, Bill Richmond, associate professor of business computer information systems, will lead a panel discussion of the WCU Service Learning Fellows Program that combines education, action and reflection to help connect students to future careers and the community.

In addition, sessions will cover ideas to help students integrate what they are learning with future career goals, such as a presentation by Mary Teslow, assistant professor of health sciences, about using Telework to link learning and experience in a WebCT virtual workplace.

Barbara L. Cambridge, president of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, will deliver the keynote address, “Near and Far: From Inside Classrooms to Across Continents,” in the theater at A.K. Hinds University Center at 9 a.m. Monday, April 2. Cambridge is the senior program officer for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade for The National Council of Teachers of English. Cambridge She also is executive editor of “Change” magazine and editor of the Journal of Teaching Writing.