Increasing Engagement and Infusing Positivity into the Classroom
by Emily Baxstrom
November 2018
Some of the challenges faced by today’s teachers surround a decreasing attention span in our society. Commercials and advertisements are shorter and more fast-paced, Twitter limits our word count, and smart phones and social media absorb more and more of our time. Studies have even found that our ability to focus has decreased by 50 percent during the last ten years.
Andrew Pueschel, director of the Emerging Leaders program in the Robert D. Walter Center for Strategic Leadership and lecturer in the Department of Management in the College of Business, uses several strategies to not only combat these challenges in the classroom, but to simultaneously infuse positivity and increase engagement among his students.
Place-Based Pedagogy
The following story is the first in a three-part series about projects currently being supported by the 2017 cycle of the Academic Innovation Accelerator. These projects already have made significant strides at OHIO. Each project is unique and made
possible by many different teams of University individuals working together.
by Emily Baxstrom
June 2018
Jerry Miller, professor and associate director of undergraduate studies in the School of Communication Studies, first came up with the idea to bring place-based education to Ohio University in May 2017. He traveled to the Teton Science Schools with the Ohio Fellows Program for a one-week communication and environmental leadership event in the Wyoming mountains.