Hubbard and Hayes Earn Academic Innovation Awards

Joanna Hubbard, assistant professor of biology, and Elizabeth Naranjo Hayes, assistant professor of Spanish, were the fall 2022 winners of the Truman Academic Innovation Award.

Hubbard was recognized for using “Not-Exams” to engage and assess students. She implemented “Not Exams” in place of traditional exams to promote higher-order thinking and science communication skills in her 500-level BIOL electives. Students were asked to complete a creative project that communicated a concept from the three-week unit which allowed students to engage more deeply with a topic of their choosing and practice communicating scientific concepts to a broad audience.

Hayes was recognized for building intercultural competence through proficiency-based projects. This proficiency-based assessment is one of five that she uses in her lower-division language classes, where she gives students a real-world scenario and they use all the course content to that point to complete the task. In this project, students were Mexican ROOMGO agents who set up clients with shared living spaces worldwide based on their needs. Students presented their clients, roommates and lodging they selected, with classmates voting for the most creative presentation and best client/lodging fit.