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The IMPACT Symposium was held on the morning of Wednesday, April 6, 2016 in Purdue Memorial Union’s East and West Faculty Lounges. Dr. George Kuh, professor emeritus at Indiana University and the founding director of the widely used National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), spoke at the Symposium about high impact education practices, such as undergraduate research, learning communities, and writing intensive courses. Dr. Kuh said that through all of our endeavors, we must teach students to:

  • Reflect on their experiences in and out of the classroom,
  • Apply what they have learned to new challenges and opportunities, and
  • Integrate what they are learning from different courses and out-of class experiences.

    Dr. George Kuh presenting at the 2016 IMPACT Symposium

    Dr. George Kuh presenting at the 2016 IMPACT Symposium

Hosted by Purdue’s IMPACT program (Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation), a University-wide initiative in which instructors redesign foundational courses to make them more student-centered, the Symposium aimed to promote discussion of innovative teaching and learning at Purdue. The Symposium planning committee was comprised of Libraries faculty Clarence Maybee (Chair) and Michael Flierl, and ITaP staff Suzanne Ahlersmeyer and Sheree Buikema.

Of the 100 attendees at the Symposium presentation, 70 stayed to engage in faculty-led table discussions about three themes that Dr. Kuh spoke about: 1) forging tomorrow’s workforce, 2) empowering diverse learners, and 3) fostering student success. The ten table leaders were faculty who had previously participated in IMPACT.

In the afternoon of April 6th, Dr. Kuh facilitated an Assignment Charrette workshop with a group of instructors from IMPACT and the Teaching Academy. An architectural term, a charrette is an intense creative effort in a limited time period. The fifteen instructors who attended this workshop shared and discussed ways to make one of their assignments more effective.

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