Four CWU faculty members recognized for innovation in teaching 

Earlier this month, CWU hosted the Faculty Showcase for Innovative Teaching to recognize faculty members whose innovative teaching techniques are improving learning opportunities for students. 

The May 2 event in Samuelson Hall, sponsored by Multimodal Learning and the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, recognized four CWU professors whose work stood out during this spring’s peer-reviewed selection process.  

Faculty members from across all four colleges attended the fourth annual event, co-hosted by Delayna Breckon, Director of Instructional Technologies and Design, and Joy Fuqua, Executive Director of Interactive Instruction and Innovative Delivery. 

“The submissions are judged by Faculty Fellows using a blind peer-review process,” said Breckon, who started the Faculty Showcase event in 2022 to identify and celebrate innovative teaching practices at CWU. 

This year’s Faculty Innovator of the Year was Physics Professor Bruce Palmquist, whose submission, “The Who, What, Why, Where, When and How of Student-Created Audio Podcasts,” earned him the $500 grand prize and a plaque. 

Two Innovative Excellence Awards were presented to Professor of Political Science Bernadette Jungblut and Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies Gary Bartlett, while the Best Innovative Flop went to Associate Professor of Physics Cassandra Fallscheer. 

Jungblut’s submission was titled “Ideal Society”, and Bartlett’s was titled “Dividing the Streams — Building Engagement Both In and Out of Classroom.” Additional details about each of the winning submissions will be posted soon on the event website. 

Fallscheer’s project, “Is That a Reasonable Answer?”, earned Best Innovative Flop honors for an ingenious idea that didn’t pan out.  

As Breckon explained, the Best Innovative Flop category gives colleagues an opportunity to look at other people’s ideas from a different perspective. The most important thing is to just put those ideas out into the world.  

“Without mistakes and failures, innovation doesn’t happen,” she said. “You never know if your failed idea might spark a revelation for someone else. Putting those ideas out there helps other people develop new and interesting methods that could end up becoming breakthroughs.” 

The primary goal of the showcase is for faculty to share their teaching innovations with each other across disciplines.

“I consider this our Academy Awards for teaching,” Fuqua said. “There are so many brilliant ideas from CWU faculty, and the showcase is a great way to feature them.”  

The 2024 Innovator of the Year went to a trio of Health Sciences professors — Ana Freire, Kelly Pritchett, and Robert Pritchett — for their submission called the Science Her Way Podcast. The Innovative Excellence Awards were presented to Maurice Blackson, a Senior Lecturer for CWU Libraries (CWU Students Record Oral Histories During Paid Internship); and Karen Roemer, Professor of Health Sciences (Exams and AI Bots). 

The 2024 award for Best Innovative Flop went to John Durham, Senior Lecturer of IT Management, for his submission titled “Reclaiming Failure: Normalizing Failure in the Classroom to Promote Growth Mindset.”