The Innovative Teaching Showcase is a series publication created by the Center for Instructional Innovation (CII) at Western Washington University featuring best practices of some of Western's most dynamic instructors.
This year's Showcase, based on the theme of Fostering Agency in Learning, honors faculty who create opportunities for students to exercise choice, purpose, and rigor in their paths toward engaged, meaningful learning. These practices also reduce barriers, introduce authentic experiences, and strengthen students' capacity to learn how to learn.
Agency complements the accessibility work faculty have advanced since the Department of Justice’s final ruling on digital accessibility and aligns with Universal Design for Learning (CAST.org) by proactively supporting student ownership of the learning process and designing multiple means of:
This Showcase will highlight the many ways WWU instructors promote a sense of agency, belonging, and ownership of the learning experience, in many ways, such as:
"Designing learning environments that support learner agency requires continually examining the relationship between educators and students and creating space for learners to make sense of content individually and collectively through interaction and reflection. Further, supporting learner agency requires recognizing dimensions of culture and identity, and examining where bias may be a barrier to learners being able to fully exercise their agency."
—Goal of UDL: Learner Agency, Cast.org
For each Innovative Teaching Showcase edition, the CII, with the help of its faculty advisory board, accepts nominations for instructors whose teaching reflects the Showcase teaching strategy theme.
Showcases include:
The CII Advisory Board reviews nominees for inclusion in each Showcase. Selected instructors work with the CII to develop the resource. The published work remains on the site indefinitely.
Since 1999, the Showcase has featured nearly 80 WWU instructors. It is a Creative Commons-licensed collection of teaching practices, catalogued in Western Libraries and followed by a global audience.