Booske Presents Lecture on Instruction Innovations

John Booske

John Booske, direc­tor of the Wis­con­sin Col­lab­o­ra­tory for Enhanced Learn­ing, presents a pub­lic lec­ture, “Back to the Future: 21st Cen­tury Instruc­tion Inno­va­tions in Higher Edu­ca­tion,” on Mon­day, Nov. 26 at 3:30 p.m. in the Cen­ten­nial Engi­neer­ing Cen­ter Audi­to­rium on the UNM campus.

The Wis­con­sin Col­lab­o­ra­tory for Enhanced Learn­ing (Wis­CEL) is an approach to instruc­tion, learn­ing meth­ods and design of learn­ing spaces. Ped­a­gog­i­cally and through phys­i­cal design, Wis­CEL facil­i­tates and sup­ports col­lab­o­ra­tive learn­ing and instructor-as-coach mod­els to max­i­mize stu­dents’ time-on-task; uses instruc­tional tech­nolo­gies to pro­vide imme­di­ate learn­ing progress feed­back and build fun­da­men­tal skills com­pe­ten­cies; and frees time that TAs and lec­tur­ers cur­rently spend grad­ing home­work, in favor of more inter­ac­tion with students.

The competency-based learn­ing approaches used in Wis­CEL nur­ture the devel­op­ment of life­long learn­ing skills, mak­ing stu­dents more self-reliant in their learn­ing. Based on over a decade of suc­cess else­where across the nation, Wis­CEL pulls together all the best teach­ing and learn­ing meth­ods for the instruc­tion of intro­duc­tory courses in which learn­ing is mostly gained through prac­tice rather than lis­ten­ing to a lec­turer. With Wis­CEL, UW-Madison is ven­tur­ing forth into the new domain of 21st cen­tury learn­ing meth­ods and spaces, with the intent of ensur­ing that our stu­dents get the edu­ca­tion they deserve.

John Booske is the Duane H. and Dorothy M. Bluemke Pro­fes­sor of Engi­neer­ing and cur­rently serves as Chair of Elec­tri­cal and Com­puter Engi­neer­ing at UW-Madison and direc­tor of the Wis­con­sin Col­lab­o­ra­tory for Enhanced Learn­ing (Wis­CEL). Since 2009, Pro­fes­sor Booske has led an effort to estab­lish 21st cen­tury learn­ing spaces that max­i­mize the ben­e­fits to be gained from research-proven meth­ods of improved instruc­tion and learn­ing in many cam­pus courses. This has cul­mi­nated in Wis­CEL and coin­cides with an excit­ing, rapid growth of cam­pus com­mit­ment by many per­sons, units and lev­els to inno­vate and improve stu­dent learning.

Media Con­tact: Car­olyn Gon­za­les (505) 277‑5920; email: cgonzal@unm.edu