WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
CIIA > SHOWCASE INDEX > SHOWCASE 2001
Center for Instructional
Innovation and Assessment

INNOVATIVE TEACHING SHOWCASE

2001
2002
ISSUE 03
This year's Showcase theme, Authentic Learning, is about learning that uses real-world problems and projects and that allow students to explore and discuss these problems.

June Dodd insists that her learners take center stage as they take on the instructor role in her Introduction to Distance Education class, take turns teaching course content to each other online, and create their own online courses based upon the instructional design process. She works with each student to customize these projects based upon their past work and educational experiences as well as the potential for actual delivery of the instruction in their professional lives.


Marc Geisler's main message in his 'Introduction to Shakespeare' course is that a good reader is more like a film director looking at a potential script than a passive recipient of information and universal truths. Professor Geisler's students demonstrate their understanding of Shakespeare by developing their own imaginative responses to The Bard's dramatic language.


Marc Richards wishes to instill in his students his passionate conviction that learning and history really matter. He therefore requires his students to understand they too are historians and teachers.


Stan Tag teaches a section of Humanities and the Expressive Arts, a core course in Fairhaven College's curriculum. His Group Performance Project in the Humanities course pushed his students to new levels of creative work and expression, and challenged others to learn how to work together in groups.

"Authentic learning may be more important than ever in a rapidly changing world, where the half-life of information is short and individuals can expect to progress through multiple careers…expert thinking and complex communication will differentiate those with career-transcending skills from those who have little opportunity for advancement."


—Marilyn M. Lombardi, Authentic Learning
for the 21st Century: An Overview, 2007