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Eight Career Readiness Competencies

Consider integrating activities and assignments into your curriculum that will teach students eight Career Readiness Competencies. These could also be incorporated into other communications or major activities outside of the classroom, e.g. business club, social work club, etc… Critical Thinking/Problem Solving: Exercise sound reasoning to analyze issues, make decisions, and overcome problems. The individual is […]
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Ideas for Making Teaching More Engaging

  “An explanation of four key principles of student engagement. Concrete suggestions on how to actually put each of those principles into practice. Anecdotal evidence from instructors in a variety of disciplines who have used the principles to teach in creative ways.”   https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/advice-teaching?cid=wcontentgrid_article_bottom
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Leveraging Existing Areas of Innovation

 For a couple of decades, the Honors Program languished as an underfunded afterthought to Northwestern’s academic mission, despite the yeoman work of several past faculty directors. In Spring 2016, this changed when the faculty unanimously passed a major overhaul to the honors curriculum.  Among the numerous changes, two aspects of this overhaul were significant:  […]
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Integrating Campus Experiences for Enhanced Learning

 Although the vast majority of NWC undergraduate students participate in athletics, fine arts, or other campus groups, about 23% of the student body does not participate in extra-curricular activities. This is problematic for retention, as students who are involved in co-curricular activities both at NWC (and in higher education in general) have better retention […]
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Revamping survey courses

“An important thread running through those conversations: A good survey course is, most emphatically, not a content-driven information transfer; it’s more like a curated collection. Some of the smartest advice I ever received about this came from a senior professor who told me, when I started teaching a survey: “Dare to omit.”” “If a survey course […]
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Director of Teaching and Learning Innovation

 Introducing effective innovation into the classroom often takes time and expertise that individual faculty members do not have. Most faculty members have not had training in pedagogy, nor are they able to keep up with new pedagogical technologies and techniques while simultaneously keeping abreast of their own field. Computing services personnel are not trained […]
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Increased External Learning for All Programs

 NWC must continue to establish strong, enduring, and multifaceted relationships with regional businesses and organizations.  These relationships can take many forms such as responding to a local educational or research need; collaborating to reinvigorate civic culture; partnering to create mutually beneficial programs; and developing experiential learning opportunities.  Increasing these relationships will enhance students’ educational experience and offer needed assistance to […]
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Ensuring NWCore Promotes Success in Today’s World

 & Ideas From Other Institutions A liberal arts degree is intended to develop students into well-rounded individuals who can succeed in their personal, professional, and public lives. NWC’s mission discusses preparing students for both a “successful career” and “leading a faithful life.” A number of higher education institutions are updating their general education requirements […]
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Problem and Experience Based Learning

 It was less than 25 years ago that the shift in emphasis from teaching to learning was dubbed “a new paradigm” for higher education by Barr and Tagg in Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning.  Yet the paradigm shift did not merely codify a new normal.  Instead, learning-centered models have served as fertile ground in the development […]