The Teaching & Learning Center

• FYE is a dynamic class that introduces first year students to all facets of university life. Students learn about academic requirements, co-curricular opportunities, success strategies, advising, electronic tools, policies and procedures, research, and so much more.
• Class Structure: FYE is taught by a team of faculty. FYE classes meet in-person with a large section and in smaller breakout sessions, while also incorporating a variety of online components.
• Contact Shannon Mrkich, Director of FYE@WCU (smrkich@wcupa.edu)

• WCU uses Google Sites as its portfolio platform; Navigating Digital Learning provides a tutorial for how and why students should create and contribute to their portfolio.
• Portfolios provide an opportunity for students to gather artifacts from courses and activities; draw links across courses, allowing them to see their academic career holistically, rather than as boxes to check off; reflect on their own learning and why it matters; forge their own professional and personal digital identity and share who they are and all they’ve accomplished.
• Metacognition—the at of reflecting on one’s learning—is itself a high impact practice in and of itself.

• Experiential learning provides hands-on experiences for college students to intentionally further their knowledge and skills related to their interests.  The intentionality embedded in these experiences make them high impact, as it’s not just about the experience, but the reflection, learning, and action that take place during and after the experience.
• There are many opportunities for students to engage in experiential learning through the curriculum and co-curriculum.
• For more information on the benefits of integrating experiential learning, visit the Experiential Learning overview site.
• Contact exl@wcupa.edu

• The Honors College emphasizes high-impact practices as the heart of its mission. We offer multiple ways for students to participate in honors education at varying points in their academic careers.
• Common Intellectual Experience: Students on the core pathway take almost their entire general education curriculum together as a cohort. They also live together in a living learning community designated for honors. This sequence concludes with a capstone experience that emphasizes community impact.
• Travel: Honors courses include multiple opportunities for domestic and international travel, including a partnership with the Nobel Institute in Oslo.
• Honors students participate in program milestones along the way to structure their undergraduate experience: including an honors first-year symposium, a spring sophomore year “crossroads” reflection, and a “launchpad” in senior year to consider options after graduation.

Sustainability pedagogy requires that we assess and transform fundamental assumptions of our economic, sociocultural, and civic lives in order to understand how they imperil our and other beings’ ability to live healthily and prosperously on earth and to chart a sustainable future for our graduates. A pedagogy that helps reach such lofty goals includes:

• Helping students see the complexity of the systems in which they are embedded and how to begin changing them.
• Guiding critical thinking around core western values such as individualism, definitions of success, equity and opportunity, responsibility of government and citizens, and the differences between want and need.
• Incorporating empowering activities (HIPs) that take students beyond the classroom to interface with campus and community groups, especially by conducting local research, proposing solutions to local problems, taking action on those problems, and connecting those activities with larger, global conditions.
• Reinforcing the more abstract lessons with material classroom practices that save resources and minimize impact.

• Participating in Research is one of six recognized involvement activities that are classified as high-impact practices by the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
• Access to research opportunities equals retention of students.
• Literature indicates that students who participate in research and scholarship:
  • Are more satisfied with their college experience (Bauer & Bennett, 2008; Hu, Scheuch, & Gayles, 2009; Ishiyama, 2002; Volkwein & Carbone, 1994; Webber et al., 2013).
  • Are retained, persist and graduate at a higher rate both at university and within their major (Nagda et al., 1998; Jones et al., 2010; Gilmore et al., 2015; Collins et al., 2017; Tsui, 2007; TBR, 2022)
  • Are more likely to be accepted to graduate and professional school (Bauer, K. W., 2001; Seymour, Hunter, Laursen, & DeAntoni, 2004).
  • Are more competitive when searching for jobs (Budesheim et al., 2021; Finley, 2021; Hunter, Laursen, & Seymour, 2007; Merolla & Serpe, 2013).
• Currently, the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs offer the following research opportunities:
  • SURI: Summer Undergraduate Research Institute
  • WCU-SURF: a student undergraduate research foundations opportunity
  • SRCA awards: student research and creative activities awards for students who have completed research in their field of study.
  • Research and Creative Activities Day: an opportunity for students to present their on-going research/creative activity to the university community.