Eastern’s faculty is starting to focus more on evidence-based communities of faculty and students where student learning goals and outcomes are central.

Ernest Boyer, author of “Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate” and Lehdol Calder, assistant professor of history at Augustana College, inspired some faculty to change their approach in the classroom.

Bonnie Irwin, dean of the honors college, presented on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Wednesday in the Effingham Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.

She used Calder as one of her favorite examples to this new approach.

Calder created a project for his American history class by breaking down his lesson into three moments in American history with the goal of his students thinking more like historians.

“He layered the education dealing with the primary source of the literature,” Irwin said.

Jeffrey Stowell, associate professor of the psychology department, conducted a project using remotes to answer questions during class.

It was interesting to see the honesty that students had and how much participation went up with these remotes, Stowell said.

Irwin gave helpful tips on how to conduct a project starting with reflecting on what frustrates teachers in the classroom. She also let the faculty interact with each other by bouncing ideas off fellow colleagues.

Irwin had a project idea that she was going to use on her students in her myth and culture class.

“Myth and culture looks intimately at religion and of other cultures,” Irwin said. “I wanted my students to think about how their religion has an influence on the material.”

Although the project wasn’t fully executed, she came to a conclusion about her students.

“Students have strong ideas and don’t pack away their feelings in a suitcase when they enter the classroom,” Irwin said.

For many professors from the Carnegie Scholars Program, the results from their projects are the biggest reward, Irwin said. However, getting to the reward seems harder to achieve because it is not the material you teach but how you teach it that is going to eventually help you achieve your goals.

“I have a personal interest in this because I feel that there is always room for improvement,” Irwin said. “And once you’ve found something that works better in the classroom, it is more efficient and very rewarding.”