WWU students head up keynote presentation at St. Louis conference

Three Western Washington University undergraduates headed up the presentation team for an invited keynote address titled “Engaging Student Voices as Co-Inquirers” at the Maryville Conference on the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning in St. Louis on Oct. 1.

Annemarie Curd, Daniel Espinoza-Gonzalez and Connor Powell joined Teaching-Learning Academy director Carmen Werder and program assistant Megan Otis in presenting the keynote address for this second SoTL conference at Maryville University. Curd is a sophomore planning to apply to Woodring in Elementary Education; Espinoza-Gonzalez is a junior planning to apply for the Secondary Education program and also for Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies; Powell is a senior in Woodring’s Special Education and Elementary Education programs. A fourth undergraduate, Shanyese Trujillo, a sophomore also planning on a career in elementary education, was part of the presentation planning team though she was unable to attend.

Western’s presentation centered on the students' common experiences in the Teaching-Learning Academy, as well as Curd and Trujillo’s experiences as student co-researchers in the Writing Research Fellows program that pairs faculty and students who are studying teaching writing practices. Both the Teaching-Learning Academy and the Writing Instruction Support Programs are now part of Western’s Libraries.