We're Doing Amaizing Things in CASL!

Hello all! It is wonderful to be communicating with you all once again. Happy, very belated New Year! I am excited to be writing to you to share news of the wonderful success that we are having around our new Practice Based Learning initiative. You may recall that last year our work on high impact practices, including PBL was highlighted in the Chronicle of Higher Education as a model to be considered by other colleges and universities. Likewise, if you’ve spent any time reviewing the UM-Dearborn strategic plan, you will see that PBL has now become the centerpiece of our campus identity (https://umdearborn.edu/strategic-planning). I am very excited that the college is leading the way in this exciting new approach to teaching and learning. Last year, the college identified four themes around with to organize our PBL work (Justice; People and Technology; Health; and Storytelling) and we developed three brand new freshman level courses (all interdisciplinary in focus) to introduce students to both these areas and to this way of learning. The results are now in, and I cannot state emphatically enough just how amazing these experiences were for our students. Don’t want to just take my word, take a look at these recaps of the courses: Storytelling: Podcasting and Storytelling https://umdearborn.edu/fall-2022-exploration-storytelling Justice: Mapping Justice/Injustice in the Motor City Mapping Unequal Environments in the Motor City Google Photo Album Health: Nanomedicine https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jfJpTf9S2DbYH_d8T4EmClzUKLzzCEl9/view I’m certain that you will agree that these courses, along with the faculty and students engaged in them, exemplify the very best of CASL. The PBL initiative gives me great hope for the future of our college and affirms that the work that we are doing is as transformational as ever. Thank you for your ongoing support of the college, of our students, and of the work that we are doing!