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Two University of Wisconsin Oshkosh professors Jordan Landry, English, and Jennifer Szydlik, mathematics, have been appointed by the UW System Office of Professional and Instructional Development (OPID) as 2008-2009 Wisconsin Teaching Scholars.

One or two professors from a wide variety of disciplines in every UW system school are appointed each year as Teaching Scholars and contribute to the dissemination of educational research to the UW academic community.

The purpose of these appointments is to assist faculty in studying their own teaching and making improvements in the classroom, Szydlik said.

“If you’ve always studied to be a chemist or mathematician, it’s likely that you’ve never done educational research before,” Szydlik said. “The beauty of this program is that not only are teachers given the opportunity to study their own teaching, they also are able to make connections across a broad range of study and connect through education and teaching.”

This year’s Wisconsin Teaching Scholars met for the first time at the Faculty College May 27 to 30 at the UW-Richland Center and will meet again at a one-week Summer Institute June 23 to 27 in Madison.

“I’m really looking forward to focusing on teaching and working to reinvent ways to teach,” Landry said of the dynamic, community-oriented opportunities to be presented to participants. “It will be refreshing to bring a new perspective to the classroom with new techniques and strategies.”

In Madison, the scholars will begin to discuss ideas for their year-long Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Project (SoTL).

Szydlik, who was a Wisconsin Teaching Fellow in 2003-2004, plans to conduct research on “mathematical sophistication.” Landry hopes to continue established research on “meta-cognition” and discover a more effective way to teach students to evaluate their thought processes in regard to issues of social justice, such as internal sexism and racism.

Teri Shors and Stephen Szydlik, UW Oshkosh Wisconsin Teaching Scholars for 2007-2008, presented their final poster projects at the Institute on Race and Ethnicity/Office of Professional and Instructional Development Symposium April 17 at UW-Milwaukee.