From May 12-14, 2018, a team of graduate students and post docs from Wayne State University (WSU), and a cohort of adjunct instructors and lecturers from Lawrence Technological University collaborated in an immersive three-day pedagogy workshop on LTU's campus designed to offer instructional tools to better serve academically and financially at-risk students from underserved populations.

Funded by WSU's National Institute of Health's Broadening Experience in Scientific Training (NIH Best) program, with additional funding from LTU's King-Chavez Parks (KCP) 4S program and LTU's Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), the workshop continued the LTU-WSU partnership built in 2012. This partnership, inspired by a conversation by Dr. Hsiao-Ping Moore of LTU and Dr. Joseph Dunbar at WSU, has a history of providing new and emerging instructors with pedagogy training and whenever possible, teaching opportunities.

New components for 2018 include the inclusion of two welcome participants from additional KCP member institutions and incentivized participation for LTU adjuncts and lecturers through LTU's CTL. By the end of the 2023 KCP grant cycle, a cohort of over fifty LTU adjuncts from all four colleges will be trained in classroom techniques. This population is vital to serving students, yet is often missed by traditional faculty training methods.

The workshop itself was led by Dr. Jeffrey Morrissette, Dr. Julie Zwiesler-Vollick, and Dr. Shannon Timmons, who required participants to experience active-collaborative, problem-based, entrepreneurially-minded, and other learning strategies, and then tasked them to create modules of their own.

Although this marks the final year of NIH BEST sponsorship, the workshop will continue the relationship with WSU and additional KCP instructors in years to come. Funding for LTU instructors will continue to come from LTU's KCP 4-S grant.

The Wayne State partnership is led by Dr. Ambika Mathur, Dr. Heidi Kenaga, Dr. Annmarie Cano, and Dr. Joseph Dunbar. Coordination with our campus is led by Holly Helterhoff, Director of the CTL, and Kevin Finn, PI on the KCP grant.

Written by Director of Center for Teaching and Learning Holly Helterhoff

Workshop Participants | photo by Jason Barrett

Left to right, front row: Holly Helterhoff, Bhim Chamlagain, Raef Aidibi, Sagar Paudel, Matthew Fountain, Julie Zwiesler-Vollick, Sharon Carter, Sergey Gladyschev, Lisa Westbrooks, Montia Watkins, Lea Wojciechowski

Back row: Wisam Bukaita, Montisa Watkins, Shannon Timmons, Oriehi Anyaiwe, Jeffrey Morrisette, Gayle Fawcett, Mackenzie Smith (not pictured: Sonja Murphy)