Faculty highlighted for teaching mastery

A group of educational leaders showing the way into the new century have won this spring’s university Distinguished Teaching Awards.

Details: Distinguished Teaching Award winners will be honored Tuesday, April 25, at 3:30 p.m., L160 Elvehjem. Information: 262-3958; brjohnson@bascom.wisc.edu.

Whether played out in a residential learning center, computer lab or community clinic, the teaching mastery exemplified by the winners is a vital part of the way UW–Madison continues to build on its tradition of academic excellence.

William Cronon, Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of History, Geography and Environmental Studies, Chancellor’s Award

In close to a decade on the faculty, Cronon has brought his educational philosophy into courses dealing with environmental history and the American West. He’s also extended his instructional vision to the Chadbourne Residential College, where opportunities to learn infuse the very fabric of everyday life.

“One of the most important tasks of higher education is to prepare students for their place in the world. A residential learning community illustrates what it means to be actively and responsibly involved in a community,” he says.

As director of the College of Letters and Science Pathways to Excellence Project, Cronon has presented undergraduates an exciting hands-on array of learning opportunities. He helped one group of students produce an award-winning guide to UW–Madison. He played a role in launching the UW–Madison Writing Fellows Program, through which undergraduates work with other undergraduates to perfect their skills. And he often works with students conducting their own research.

Christopher L. DeMarco, professor of electrical and computer engineering, Chancellor’s Award

Something of an educational conduit, DeMarco has a special gift for creating synergy between on-campus undergraduate students and nontraditional students who take his distance-learning courses.

Working engineers in continuing education classes contribute real-world problems and concerns that DeMarco incorporates into the rest of his courses. In turn, he transfers back to industry the new developments and insights gleaned from the classroom and lab.

Students of all levels cite DeMarco’s use of innovative technology in teaching. He has “engineered” an extensive set of computational tools used by students on campus and off. And DeMarco is experimenting with web-based video materials to supplement difficult lecture material in one of his electrical circuits courses.

“Skills students develop in electrical and computer engineering are critical in shaping our nation and world, enabling the creation of vital new technology. Perhaps more importantly, they foster analytical thinking and a problem-solving approach that will be necessary to effectively manage this new technology and integrate it into society in a beneficial manner,” says DeMarco, who joined the engineering faculty in 1985.

Patrick E. McBride, associate professor of medicine, cardiology and family medicine, Van Hise Outreach Teaching Award

Not content to limit himself to treating patients, McBride has developed a number of educational initiatives for health care providers to improve preventive coronary services.

Using a variety of teaching methods, McBride has taken his programs across the state, allowing physicians in every corner of Wisconsin to reflect upon their practices, staffing, health care delivery systems and ways to implement the national guidelines that McBride helped create.

“The demand for information is high, and there is a continued need to provide comprehensive and efficient education to help professionals evaluate the quality of information out there. We need to allow for continuing education for professionals and the rest of the population so we can all take advantage of advances in medical science and health care,” he says.

McBride, appointed to the Medical School faculty in 1984, was named to the UW Teaching Academy in 1996.

Richard Moss, professor of physiology, Chancellor’s Award

A special pleasure for first-year UW medical students is Moss’ annual Valentine’s Day lecture. Not surprisingly, its subject is the human heart. Perhaps a bit more surprisingly, the subtext is the whole human being, according to second-year medical student Amy Sobota.

“In concentrating too much on ion flow and muscle contractions, it is sometimes easy to lose track of the person affected, and Dr. Moss played an important role in helping us maintain a better perspective,” Sobota says.

“A key aspect of medical education is the development of problem-solving skills,” Moss says. “We teach in large and small group settings, and in laboratories so that students can apply basic physiological principles to understand the basis for a specific disease or syndrome.”

Moss will add his teaching award to a list of accomplishments during 21 years in the Department of Physiology.

Nadine Nehls, associate professor of nursing, Steiger Award

Taking seriously the adage to learn by doing, Nehls has created a new curriculum for undergraduate nursing education at UW–Madison. Incorporating such elements as collaboration, mentoring, individualized instruction and more, she has brought together not only faculty, staff and students, but members of the community as well.

“It is likely that we will continue to see rapid changes in the delivery of health care, and providers will need the ability to anticipate changes and adapt quickly. I try to create a learning community that is nurturing, yet challenges taken-for-granted assumptions by constantly asking students what they would do in a given situation. In the process, students learn by thinking,” Nehls says.

In addition to her groundbreaking work in the classroom, Nehls is an active researcher of women and borderline personality disorders. She chaired the UW–Madison Teaching Academy (1997-98) and remains a member of the academy’s executive committee.

Benjamin Rifkin, associate professor of Slavic Languages, Chancellor’s Award

During the last two years, four university students have won competitive National Security Education Program scholarships to study in Russia; one was ranked the number one applicant in the highly competitive national program. All were Rifkin’s students.

Graduate students studying with him also excel: A group of them wrote a paper on gender representation in Russian-language textbooks which was published in the prestigious “Modern Language Journal.” During the past decade, 11 students in Rifkin’s department have won teaching awards, and he has supervised all of them as language teaching assistants.

His secret? “In all my classes, I try to promote students’ autonomy. I require them to manage a large amount of information from different, sometimes contradictory sources, synthesize that material, decipher and apply rules, pay attention to detail and meet deadlines. These skills will be valuable in any job they will have in the future,” he says.

Rifkin says that he also works to foster understanding, respect and appreciation of foreign cultures. He has just returned from such an endeavor as a NASA consultant, assisting staff in teaching American astronauts how to work more effectively with their Russian colleagues on the ground and in the international space station now under construction. While he was away, Rifkin taught his Madison classes via video.

Rifkin joined the UW–Madison faculty a decade ago. He has been a member of the Teaching Academy since 1997.

Gary Sandefur, professor of sociology and American Indian studies, Chancellor’s Award

The way a teacher organizes material is a vital element in learning, according to Sandefur. For example, his textbook-in-progress on race and ethnicity arranges chapters around such topics as identity, immigration, inequality and more.

“It will be very different from most existing textbooks in that it takes a comparative approach,” he says. “I think it will give students a much more useful understanding of race and ethnic issues in the United States than focusing on the experiences of American Indians, African Americans or Jewish Americans separately.”

Sandefur takes a similar approach to using his research in class. A world-renowned specialist in social demography, Sandefur uses his analytical methods to give the hundreds of undergraduates who take his basic courses a more thorough understanding of the complicated issues they study.

Described as a “model university citizen,” Sandefur has earned a reputation for giving students the tools they will need to continue learning about issues of race and ethnicity long after the class is over. “It is very important for citizens to keep themselves informed about issues,” he says. “Not only will they have to read, they will need to know how to synthesize and interpret what they read from an ever-growing number of sources, including books, newspapers, magazines, broadcast media and web sites.”

Sandefur has been on the sociology faculty since 1984.

Susan E. Skochelak, associate professor of family medicine, Chancellor’s Award

In 13 years on the Medical School faculty, Skochelak has emerged as a champion of community-based education for all medical students. She began in 1990 by working with faculty in the departments of family medicine, pediatrics and internal medicine, as well as more than 100 community practices to create clinical experience in primary care for all third-year medical students.

She continued the theme of community-based education with the Generalist Partners Program established in 1993. Using a federal grant, the GPP matches medical students with local primary care physicians. Students attend the same clinic each month for two years.

“Before, medical students had minimal experience with patients until the students’ third year,” she says. “Now, first- and second-year students are out working in the community and have a chance to apply what they are learning in class to patient care.

“Most physicians work with facets of managed care and constrained resources, and must understand the system in order to be effective advocates for their patients,” she adds.