U N I V E R S I T Y  O F  P I T T S B U R G H

Diverse Projects Receive ACIE Awards Program Funding

This annual issue of the Teaching Times describes faculty instructional projects that received funding in 2006 through the Innovation in Education awards program sponsored by the Provost’s Advisory Council on Instructional Excellence. The eight award-winning projects were submitted by faculty from both the Pittsburgh and regional
campuses and received a total of $151,400 in funding.

This year’s funded projects are

• Fiona Cheong, English: Hill House Center for Creative Writing
• Karen Curto, Biology, and Trudy Bayer, Communication Lab: Speaking Like a Biologist: Developing Instructional Communication Modules and Synchronous Presentation Feedback for Scientists
• Ping Furlan, Chemistry, University of Pittsburgh at Titusville: Incorporating Modern Nanoscience into the
  First Two Years of Chemistry Laboratory Curriculum
• Laurence Glasco and Maureen Greenwald, History: Image and Content: Viewing Black Pittsburgh through
  Teenie Harris’ Photographs
• Sherry Koshman, Information Sciences: Building Tools for Teaching Interactive Information Visualization Systems
• Rhonda Rea, Pharmacy: A Systematic Approach to Ill-Defined Problem Solving Using a Computer Aided Lear ning Branched Tree Algorithm in Combination with Problem-Based Learning
• Larry Shuman, Engineering: Internationalizing the Undergraduate Industrial Engineering Curriculum
• Valerie Swigart, Nursing: Teaching Ethics in the Era of Globalization

The program was established in 1999 - 2000 to support innovative approaches to teaching. Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs Andrew Blair chairs the Council.

Proposals are annually invited from all of the University’s academic units for projects that

• Enhance teaching at the University of Pittsburgh.
• Foster new instructional approaches that represent advances over existing approaches.
• Can be replicable in other instructional settings across academic disciplines.
• Foster collaboration among faculty from different departments, units, and campuses on the development of
  innovative approaches to teaching.
• Develop innovative course materials.
• Create significant curricular improvements.

Blair observed that “Proposals annually are submitted by faculty from a wide spectrum of the University’s academic units, and this year’s were no exception. The funded projects for this academic year represent a continuation of
the past pattern of diversity of approach and methodology; they are outstanding examples of the creativity our faculty bring to the instructional process at this multifaceted teaching and research institution.”

At the annual Teaching Excellence Fair, scheduled this year for November 8 at Alumni Hall, directors of projects funded in the previous year make presentations to the University community describing their projects. In addition to highlighting those awards, the fair provides a forum for a variety of other presentations on teaching and the use of various instructional technologies.

The awards program is among a number of programs that the Advisory Council undertakes in its efforts to promote
teaching of the highest possible quality at the University of Pittsburgh. The Council is comprised of faculty from across the University’s fields and disciplines, and its 2006–07 membership consists of the following:

A newsletter devoted to the support of teaching and learning at the University of Pittsburgh

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