Posted in: 2025
Reflections on SoTL, 2025
By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development On Friday, April 11, fourteen Valpo faculty and staff attended this year’s annual Midwest Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) conference at Indiana University, South Bend. The theme of the conference was “Care,...
What VUE Students are Doing for Fieldwork
By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development One of the distinctive features of the VUE (Valparaiso University Experience) courses that have replaced Core is Academic Experiential Learning, otherwise known as VUE Fieldwork. Since this is the first year of the...
Using the Gaming Center to Promote Student Engagement
By Cynthia Rutz, Director, Faculty Development (CITAL) On Monday, March 31, there was an Open House for faculty at the new Center for Games & Interactive Entertainment. Martin Buinicki (English) introduced the features of the Center and spoke to faculty about...
A Day of Music with VOCES8
By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITA On February 25, the Music Department created a hands-on music education experience for 180 music students from 12 different local high schools as well as for Valpo music students. Classes and sessions...
A Student Perspective on Valpo’s Transition to Canvas
By Soniya Ottayil, Junior Nursing Major & CITAL student aide Last semester, all of my courses were still on Blackboard; this semester, every one of my classes are in Canvas. This transition was pretty extreme for me; I didn’t know...
Valpo’s Honor Code and AI
By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL Faculty are increasingly encountering AI in the classroom, whether they want it there or not. Not surprising, then, that there is an increase in the number of Honor Council (HC) cases involving...
Virtual Reality in Nursing Classes
By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL A nursing student wearing a virtual reality (VR) headset as they take the vitals of a virtual patient? This scenario is not science fiction but science fact at our College of Nursing...
Exploratory Learning
Written by Raina Isaacs, Instructional Designer, CITAL Exploratory learning is an active and inclusive activity that is the reverse of traditional instruction. In traditional instruction, we teach students the underlying concepts and then ask them to solve problems. In exploratory...
Teaching as Coaching: Actively Engaging Students
Written by Andrew Richter, Physics & Astronomy I have been teaching introductory physics courses at Valpo for twenty years, always with a continuous improvement mentality. I try new things based on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and then...