UT Faculty attend tenth annual Wakonse South conference on college teaching
Werner Krauss, Meta D. Jones, Lynn Jones Eaton, and Jim Bryant at the 2007 Wakonse South conference.
Each spring, a group of faculty from colleges and universities across the southwest gather at the Canyon of the Eagles Lodge and Nature Park on Lake Buchanan to interactively engage in informal dialogue about teaching. The first Wakonse Conference on College Teaching took place at Camp Miniwanca on the shores of Lake Michigan in 1989. Regional Wakonse conferences evolved as more and more faculty have been inspired and energized by the conferences.
Over the years, the University of Texas at Austin has co-sponsored these events along with Baylor University, Texas Tech University, Texas A&M University, Oklahoma State University, University of Oklahoma, University of Houston, Texas Christian University and Texas Womans University.
Wakonse is a word from the Lakota Indian language meaning "to teach, to inspire." Wakonse creates a climate where faculty can display and discuss teaching ideas and projects, learn about themselves as teachers, find joy in the tasks and issues of creative teaching, and provide feedback that supports, promotes, and shares the excitement and satisfaction of teaching.
James Bryant, who teaches biostatistics for biology majors in the College of Natural Sciences says, “I leave the conference feeling invigorated and with a renewed perspective on how to proceed in the year ahead with my teaching.”
The 2007 Wakonse South conference attendees.
DIIA staff member Lynn Jones Eaton says that even though the 2007 Wakonse South retreat occurs during a very busy time in the school year, this is when faculty benefits most from encouragement, nourishment, and revitalization. “Meeting new faculty and learning what they do in their classrooms has given me new respect for the level of effective and innovative interactive skills our faculty bring to their teaching at UT Austin.
Werner Krauss, faculty member from the department of Germanic Studies says, “I appreciated the weekend very much. It was great to get away from Austin, to have a break, and at the same time to have the possibility to learn something new about teaching. I liked the really open atmosphere; normally professors or lecturers don't talk that much about what they are actually doing in the classroom, what difficulties they have and what works out fine. The mixture is really interesting—liberal arts folk and natural scientists have really different experiences and expectations, but all want to be good teachers.”
Krauss continues, “Coming from Europe, I also learned a lot about attitudes and expectations in American universities. Somebody explained the importance of being absolutely clear in respect to assignments; this was eye opening for me. I liked that people were really interested in classroom discussion and making students talk, which I guess is a more European habit. I also learned a lot about bluebonnets, buffalo fishes, Aggies, snakes, shuffleboard, and roadrunners; about mathematical methods to explain sustainable development, genetics, creative writing and Texan politicians.”
The participatory program is built around the interests and expertise of the faculty attending. They hear from experienced teachers and then reflect on their own teaching experience and share successes and failures with their colleagues. When they return to their campus, they take with them ideas that can be adapted to their own classrooms, along with a network of new friends and colleagues.
Says Bryant, “I came away with ideas and solutions to a large number of questions that had been plaguing me with regards to my teaching. I am more readily employing active learning, problem solving skills, critical thinking skills and group activities successfully in my courses.” He adds, “Over the year I have actually been able to raise my students’ standards of achievement, increase the workload, and include group research projects. The students appear happy to meet these challenges, appear content, laugh a lot, and their ratings for me and the course have improved.”
Jones Eaton is working to build momentum and support for UT faculty to attend the annual conference. To this end, she encourages department chairs and deans to consider sponsoring faculty at Wakonse as a welcome and appropriate reward for good teaching. For more information about the Wakonse Conference, or DIIA workshops and seminars for faculty, contact Dr. Lynn Jones Eaton, 232-1777 lynnjeaton@austin.utexas.edu, or Dr. Karron G. Lewis, 232-1776 kglewis@mail.utexas.edu.