• A student feels neither comfortable nor confident speaking up in a discussion section because her spoken English is different from other class members.
   
• A student fails to take advantage of a required office hour visit because child care responsibilities make it impossible for him to return to campus later in the day.
   
• A student lacks the confidence to critique peers' artwork because he feels like an outsider as a first-generation college student.

These examples illustrate chilly classroom learning environments. Since chilly classroom climates undermine a student's academic success, the Ellbogen Center for Teaching and Learning is interested in exploring ways to warm them up.

The project has been developed in two phases: a nomination process and the development of case studies.

 The project began in fall 2001 with student nominations. We were interested in learning from students the names of classroom teachers who value diversity as defined by age, disability, ethnicity, gender, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic background. On the nomination form, we asked students to describe the organization of the class, the kinds of discussion the teacher held, office visits, assignments in the class, lectures, or readings. We asked for details about ways the teacher is skillful in teaching students from a variety of backgrounds and with different ways of knowing and learning. The nomination process ended with an awards ceremony in December 2001 congratulating fifty-two UW teachers and the students who nominated them. See Nominations of faculty for more information about this process and for pictures of the reception.

Then, the Ellbogen Center invited the fifty-two nominees to consider participating in a second phase of the project, a set of case studies that would exemplify warming up chilly classroom climates. Of the faculty and lecturers who applied, six  were selected: Donna Amstutz, adult education and technology; Kent Becker, counselor education; Julie Sellers, modern and classical languages (Spanish); Dominic Martinez, university student recruitment; Mark Ritchie, art; and Sally Steadman, engineering. Under the direction of interviewer and writer Laurie Milford, these six have now completed case studies of their teaching. Go to the case studies page of this website to read their case studies, watch video clips from the interviews, and examine related classroom materials.