Planning, Public Policy and Management
jvoelker@uoregon.edu | 541-346-2179
Courses:
- PPPM 663/623: A two-part professional development series
- PPPM 604: Internship/Internship Nonprofit
In my courses you will:
- Make connections to lived experiences and real-world challenges.
- Explore new perspectives.
I was invited into the Teaching Academy because:
- I am a Williams Fellow.
- I was a member of the Working Group on Inclusive and Intercultural Teaching.
In what ways are you working to make your teaching inclusive?
Students in all of my courses are asked to adapt and inflect the coursework in connection with their own academic, research, and professional interests. I want all students to find the entry point and moment to direct the own learning—as well to become a central contributor to any learning community in which they engage.
Students need to see themselves, their interests, and their questions within the course work to make it relevant. I’m experimenting with ways in which students assess and assign grades to themselves, schedule their own deadlines for assignments, and develop shared annotated resource lists.
Additionally, we set ground rules for open discussion that elevate listening, self-care, and non-closure. I am working to be a less private person and share stories from my own life that have shaped and challenged my professional and academic pathways. I share my own experiences as an invitation to students to more openly participate in class discussions as well as to see there is not one way to navigate the academy or one’s profession.
What do you do in terms of professional engagement with the teaching and learning culture on campus or nationally?
I attend workshops and conferences sponsored by disciplinary associations of my unit as well as other national organizations focused on teaching and learning. I am an executive member for a local chapter of an international women educators group that offers consistent, regular training programs and resources. I directly talk with colleagues from various disciplinary departments about their instructional approaches and attend TEP, DEI, and other trainings that focus on the changing needs of students and shifting work of the academy. Such discussions have led to opportunities for publishing articles and editing journals (see for example, my recent article on remote teaching co-authored with Teaching Academy colleague Alisa Freeman).
As Director of UO Common Reading, I help bring together groups of faculty and graduate students who devise curriculum guides around each year’s selection. The resources and instructional approaches offered through these guides and related workshops help me reflect upon and improve my teaching, whether in terms of student experience, content delivery, or address of hidden curriculums.
In what ways was your teaching in this course research-led—informed by research on how students learn and inflected by UO's research mission?
Each class I teach is guided by specific learning outcomes, invites students to participate in small-group discussions or activities, and asks students to formatively and summatively reflect on their learning (in other words, to have low-stakes practice ahead of higher-stakes grades).
I have always preferred to teach in settings that ask students to engage with their colleagues and the material at hand rather than my presenting material through extended lecture. I’m working to more explicitly articulate specific course-to-career transferable skills. I continue to modify and update assignment guidelines with a goal of transparency regarding the assignment and its benefit to the student and goals of the course.
What are you reading right now?
I always have multiple books in process! Here are a few on both my current print book and audiobook shelves: The Future of Whiteness by Linda Martin Alcoff; Black Rights / White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism by Charles Mills; Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez; Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You can Do About It by James Lang; Meeting the Ethical Challenges of Leadership: Casting Light or Shadow by Craig Johnson; and Venomous: How Earth’s Deadliest Creatures Mastered Biochemistry by Christie Wilcox.