Teaching awards showcase motivational skills

“What’s my motivation?”

The question is not confined to the acting profession. Students at all levels want to know why they should they care passionately about subjects in which they may have no inherent interest. They look to their teachers for inspiration.

The university has recognized a group of motivational leaders through its Distinguished Teaching Awards for 2001. Each Distinguished Teaching Award comes with a $5,000 stipend. This year’s recipients will be honored at a ceremony Tuesday, April 17, at 3:30 p.m. in L160 Elvehjem Museum of Art, 800 University Ave. They are:

Jeffrey Braden, Professor of Educational Psychology
Van Hise Outreach Award

Seeing his students emerge from learners to colleagues helps fire Braden’s own enthusiasm for his work.

“The transition is exciting, as current and former students begin to take ideas they learned in class and extend them in new and different ways, sometimes opening new lines of inquiry or collaborating with me on research” on educational assessment and standardized testing, his specialty area, he says.

Indeed, Braden’s work with his students on this topical subject has brought respect and admiration on and off campus. With colleague Steve Elliott, Braden has developed a case-based Internet learning environment to expand knowledge about and use of educational assessment tests.

His partnerships with schools and districts help Braden make sure his students will learn and grow effectively, says Braden, who joined the Department of Educational Psychology in 1993. A case in point is work he did with former student Christine Kostrubala. Their collaboration resulted in the first American Sign Language translation of a widely used standardized intelligence test. Similarly, research conducted with undergraduate Jenny White for her honors thesis yielded a better understanding of the cognitive skills that standardized intelligence tests measure.

Aaron Brower, Professor of Social Work and Integrated Liberal Studies
Chancellor’s Award

Helping students see connections between classroom learning and their own lives is Brower’s specialty. His approach to freshman instruction has introduced beginning college students to higher education through the university’s Integrated Liberal Studies Program, Interdisciplinary Studies in the College of Letters and Science, and the Bradley Learning Community, which Brower helped found in 1995 and where he will become faculty director in fall. Regardless of the educational venue, he seeks to show students how connections exist in seemingly unrelated places.

“The central theme in my ILS Critical Thinking and Expression course is rites of passage. One unit deals with how different cultures address birth, marriage and death. Students become ‘anthropologists’ of their own culture and life, and I encourage them to talk to others, examine their own lives, connect their lives to those of others and connect their learning with more traditional scholarship and content from the course,” he says.

“When students ‘get’ the connection between what they’re doing in class and what they used to regard as ‘real life’ outside the classroom, it’s as if a veil drops from their eyes,” Brower says. “They really do change how they approach their course, education and, often, how they think of themselves. Seeing this happen is by far the most rewarding part of my teaching.”

Martin Cadwallader, Professor of Geography
Chancellor’s Award

To understand a concept, make it visual.

This is one of Cadwallader’s favorite teaching axioms — “During the course of a lecture I cover the blackboard many times over with diagrams, graphs, maps and equations,” he says. “In fact, my most important teaching prop is the blackboard.”

This semester, he uses those diagrams, graphs, maps and equations in his course, Introduction to the City, which usually enrolls around 80 undergraduates. Cadwallader has taught it since 1974.

Lizzy Fitzgerald took the class in fall 2000. “I had to learn many math formulas as well as the use of critical thinking. He took each topic and discussed it until he was confident it was understood. His kind personality helped in understanding all of the material. His humorous personality helped encourage students to think further about topics we were discussing,” she says.

“I try to talk to undergraduates about the strategies involved in research so that they think of themselves as researchers,” Cadwallader says. “A major aim is to have the students think of themselves as active participants in urban research.”

In addition to his classroom duties, Cadwallader has served since 1990 as associate dean for the social sciences in the UW–Madison Graduate School. An expert on urban and regional migration, he has three books to his credit and has been on the geography faculty here since 1974.

John Coleman, Associate Professor of Political Science
Chancellor’s Award

Putting students into the midst of controversy and inviting them to sort out and weigh possible options is at the center of Coleman’s motivational philosophy. An expert on American politics, both contemporary and historical, Coleman’s courses range from the evolution of American politics to large introductory classes to American political parties. In all courses, he presents students with real-world cases to deconstruct and analyze.

“I like to give the students as many chances as possible to work with actual data. In my introductory class, for example, I had students do some Web-based research on campaign finances, interest group ratings of Congressional members, and voting records,” he says.

Coleman’s goal, of course, is to prepare the next generation of voters and policy makers to step up to the political plate in due season. Consequently, he says, course material emphasizes current issues and future trends.

“In the course on political evolution, we focus on how the Internet might affect political participation, whether the country is moving toward a more liberal political period or will remain on a more conservative path, and the role that the individual, community and religion do play and should play in American politics,” he says.

“When my students tell me that they’ve become much more interested in the political system after taking one of my courses, or that they now can have discussions with their parents never possible before, that really hits home.”

Despite a substantial teaching load, Coleman has kept up with his own scholarship. He is working on a study of the relationship between campaign financing and public cynicism, knowledge and involvement. He joined the Department of Political Science in 1992.

Heather Dubrow, Bascom and Tighe-Evans Professor of English
Chancellor’s Award

The power of words, and respect for them, infuses Dubrow’s teaching style.

Committed to the idea that students learn better — and enjoy it more — if they can talk with faculty and each other, Dubrow engineers discussion into every class, even the largest lecture. Her belief in discussion as a potent learning aid extends outside the classroom as well as within it.

“Everyone in the 250-student Introduction to Shakespeare course I’m teaching this semester is welcome to have lunch with me and some of the teaching assistants every Monday in Chadbourne Residential College,” she says. There, they can informally “chew on” points made in class or questions on students’ minds. Dubrow also organizes other interactive opportunities, including pizza parties and other soirees for her students.

Likewise, writing assignments enter routinely into every course, according to colleague Bradley Hughes, director of the Writing Center. He stresses that the practice is extremely labor-intensive for the teacher, but also undeniably effective for the students.

“Insisting that students write regularly, setting very high standards for students’ work, meeting with students individually to discuss their writing in detail, responding exhaustively to papers and revisions of papers takes extraordinary commitment,” he says.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, Dubrow is a regular mentor to the center’s writing fellows (undergraduate “coaches” for peers), as well as to other undergraduate and graduate students, and junior faculty. Indeed, one newly published author, who made Dubrow’s acquaintance in an undergraduate course, wrote in the book’s dedication, “On the journey to this book, I have had the good fortune to share the company of many. But for Heather Dubrow, I would not have begun the trek.”

Dubrow, who also directs her department’s job placement services, joined the faculty in 1990.

Raymond Guries, Professor of Forest Ecology and Management
Chancellor’s Award

During 25 years on the UW–Madison faculty, Guries has made a lasting impact on forestry and non-forestry majors alike by educating on a broad scale.

Specifically, he strives to get each student, whether freshman, graduate or international, to understand and appreciate the complex ecological and cultural forces that shape the forest.

“Many students start with a very narrow perception of a forest, so I try to get them to think about all the ways we have viewed and used forests in art, literature, science, mythology and other disciplines,” he says. “Similarly, professional foresters need to realize that their notion of the forest may not be shared by others who may have a different world view. That old adage, ‘We can’t see the forest for the trees’ certainly holds true for many people, including foresters.”

However, the classroom is far from Guries’ only teaching avenue. Out-of-class discussion, impromptu debates and field trips contribute to his overall teaching effort. He is also one of his department’s faculty advisors, helping both majors and undecided students select courses, pursue internships and chart career paths.

Ever the mentor, Guries makes a point of keeping in touch with former students as they pursue their careers. “The most rewarding aspect of teaching is seeing students become successful professionals and good citizens,” he says. “We really only have a short period of time to influence them, and I’m always happy when I hear they’re leading successful and productive lives.”

Stephen Kantrowitz, Assistant Professor of History
Chancellor’s Award

About 30 UW–Madison students will get on the bus this summer as part of an experimental course that will follow, literally, the trail of the American Civil Rights movement. Stops at key sites in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana will give students direct experience with places where history was — and continues to be — made.

Kantrowitz helped create the class and will be an instructor. He also teaches courses on the Civil War era, 19th century America and the team-taught Southern Slavery, Southern Freedom course.

“Each of them has followed in some important way from my scholarship,” he says. “To my surprise and delight, I’ve discovered that my classes have led me to rethink my own areas of inquiry. For example, a few years ago I assigned students in one of my classes to analyze a heated debate among black abolitionists in Massachusetts about the advisability of encouraging Southern slaves to revolt. That debate did not square with most historians’ analysis, and working through it with my students encouraged me to begin a book project about the political culture of antislavery. I’ve only just begun this new research, but already I can see how it’s going to enrich my teaching, and add new dimensions to all the lectures and seminars I offer.”

Undergraduates in his department recognized Kantrowitz last year with the Karen F. Johnson Teaching Award. Under his direction, history students created and published a journal of their own research. The publication won a national award for writing excellence. In addition, he serves on the Chadbourne Residential College steering committee, and next year will represent his department in the College of Letters and Science Advising Service. He became a faculty member here in 1995.

Seth Pollak, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Steiger Award

Pollak brings abstract and difficult concepts home to students in his psychology classes with the audience-rousing enthusiasm of a talk show host.

Since arriving on the UW–Madison faculty in 1997, Pollak has taught everything from 450-plus lecture classes to small graduate seminars. His presentations have received almost universal acclaim for clarity, substance and vitality.

Yet, Pollak is a completely self-taught pedagogue, with virtually no teaching experience before coming to the Department of Psychology. To remedy that situation, he spent much of his first year on campus immersing himself in teaching resources available to faculty. He began by asking students who the best teachers were, and proceeded to ask their advice. He took the Center for Biology Education’s Innovations in Teaching symposium, and joined a campuswide, interdisciplinary “teaching circle.” The Instructor Network for Teaching in a Multimedia Environment — was particularly helpful in illustrating how to use technology to make complicated ideas understandable in large lectures, he says.

“I always approach an undergraduate class with the perspective that UW–Madison graduates are going to be making important decisions,” Pollak says. “Some of the students in the lecture hall are going to be future governors, and when I prepare for class, I think, What is a future governor of Wisconsin going to need to know about a particular psychological condition? I’m thrilled when students leave my class with increased compassion and sensitivity for people struggling with psychological problems, and when students learn to think creatively about how to make things better.”