Teaching Academy Annual Report | 2025

Erika Offerdahl
This seminar provided an overview of teaching philosophies and their purpose. Participants began drafting their own philosophy statements and received feedback to support their continued development.

Jeffrey Abbott, Sarah Guess, & Tina Owen
Panelists discussed how the context statement, Educator’s CV, teaching portfolio, and supporting materials work together to present a cohesive narrative of contributions to teaching and educational leadership. Participants learned practical strategies for navigating the promotion process and address-ing common challenges.

Susan Matthew
This seminar guided educators in using CVM Teaching Academy templates de-signed to streamline the documentation of teaching for promotion. Participants learned how to tailor the Educator’s CV, teaching portfolio, and supporting materials templates to align with their assigned roles. They also began using the templates to organize their materials and document their achievements.

Susan Matthew
This session highlighted the three grant programs offered by the CVM Teaching Academy to support members in advancing their teaching and educational scholarship. Participants reviewed funding opportunities for teaching-focused professional development travel, instructional innovation projects, and educational research. The session also included discussion of strategies for leveraging this support and fostering effective collaboration to enhance education within the CVM.

Samantha Gizerian & Steve Lampa
This session explored how AI can streamline the development of clear and effective learning objectives. By the end of the seminar, participants were able to use AI tools to generate specific, measurable learning objectives and evaluate the quality of AI-generated objectives using established educational frameworks.

Jeffrey Abbott & Jillian Haines
This session introduced the CVM Teaching Academy’s two 2025–2026 Learning Communities, Hitting Pause and Beautiful Questions in the Classroom. Facilitators described how Hitting Pause applies intentional pause strategies to clinical teaching and how Beautiful Questions in the Classroom emphasizes purposeful questioning as a means of fostering curiosity. Participants examined how each text connects to everyday teaching prac-tice and supports ongoing professional growth.

Samantha Gizerian & Mara Varvil
This session examined how rubrics can enhance teaching effectiveness. Participants considered how well-designed rubrics enable instructors to work more efficiently while supporting students’ skill and knowledge development. Although open to all instructors, the session was particularly relevant to those teaching in the undergraduate curriculum, where clear and structured rubrics are especially beneficial for novice learners.

Jeffrey Olivarez
This session introduced partici-pants to wabi sabi, a traditional Japanese art form grounded in the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The philosophy emphasizes an appreciation of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.” The session encouraged creativity and highlighted the value of imperfection in both art and the classroom, culminating in the creation of participants’ own wabi sabi–inspired works.

Susan Matthew
This seminar highlighted the purpose of an Educator’s CV as a tool for documenting teaching and educational leadership activities, making it especially useful for annual reviews, promotions, and awards. Participants were introduced to the CVM Teaching Academy Educator’s CV template and learned how early use of the template to compile and track activities streamlines future reporting. Faculty were encouraged to adopt the template to support accurate and efficient documentation of their teaching and educational leadership contributions.

Jeremiah Grissett
This session examined frustration as a primary emotion of learning and explored strategies for supporting both students’ learning-related frustrations and instructors’ teaching-related frustrations.

Jessica Bunch & Arno Werners
In this session, presenters examined the rationale and implementation of pass–fail grading. They reviewed the foundational elements of these grading systems and engaged participants in dialogue about their advantages and limitations. The session also addressed competency-based grading, milestone progression throughout the clinical year, and best practices for assigning passing, marginal, or failing grades.

Regional Teaching Academy Guest Fellow—Naomi Nishi (CSU)
This session addressed the increasing number of DVM students who identify as neurodivergent, including those diagnosed and seeking accommodations partway through their programs. The presenter examined how ableism can manifest within educational structures through the normalization of neurotypical ways of learning, which may marginalize or isolate neurodivergent students. The session also explored how neurodivergence may present in learning environments and offered strategies for creating more inclusive teaching practices and educational settings that better support neurodivergent learners.

Samantha Gizerian
This seminar provided an overview of how AI can be effectively and ethically integrated into teaching. Participants examined the spectrum of mindsets from AI-ready to AI-resistant and explored examples of AI tools for course and assignment development. They also discussed approaches for designing authentic assignments that support skill development. The session addressed strategies for helping students critically evaluate AI-generated information using frameworks such as the CRAAP test, the FLUF(F) test, and iSearch.

Claire Burbick, Iwona Driskell, Jillian Haines, Shana O’Marra, Eric Winzenried
This session introduced concept mapping as a powerful visual tool that helps learners organize and connect ideas to promote deeper understanding. Participants examined what concept mapping is and why it enhances teaching and learning across disciplines. They also explored practical strategies for creating and using concept maps in their own educational settings.

Jeffrey Abbott, Jessica Bunch, & Jeffrey Olivarez
In this low-stakes session, participants explored the connections between learning to paint with watercolors and educating students. The seminar emphasized goal-oriented practice and the use of targeted feed-back, allowing attendees to experience firsthand how these instructional strategies support learning and skill development.

Tasha Bradley, Daniel Haley, Shayna Grogan, & Rebecca Haley
This session examined how learners develop mastery and how educators and staff can either support or unintentionally inhibit that process. The facilitators shared key educational research on skill and knowledge development and offered strategies for maximizing students’ time, attention, and overall learning effectiveness.

Rachel Halsey, John Hinz, Steve Lampa, Matthew Peck, Tania Perez Jimenez, & Catherine Perillo
In this interactive session, participants explored how students’ knowledge organization influences their ability to retain, apply, and transfer learning. Drawing on insights from How Learning Works (Chapter 3), the session examined differences between novice and expert mental models. Participants reflected on their current teaching practices and were introduced to strategies, such as sorting tasks and concept mapping, to help students build more meaningful and structured knowledge networks.

Martina Ederer, Lisa Gloss, Philip Mixter, Erin Pinnell, Chelsea Sykes, & Cassondra Yarlott
This session focused on the use of checklists and exam wrappers to support students’ preparation for assessments. Participants examined how these techniques clarify expectations before an exam and promote reflection on strengths and areas for improvement afterward. Both strategies were emphasized for their role in fostering a growth mindset, which is essential to effective learning.

Stephanie Anderson, Hannah Cohen-Rodriguez, Emily Davies, Jeremiah Grissett, Mary Packer, & Mara Varvil
This session featured an interactive discussion focused on strategies for fostering students’ development as self-directed learning.

Rachel Halsey
This interactive session guided participants through the process of designing clear, well-structured survey items aligned with their research goals. Through real examples, collaborative discussion, and hands-on revision, participants examined common pitfalls, applied best practices, and refined their survey items to enhance data quality and respondent engagement.

Development of a Hemostasis Learning Module

PI: Dr. Mara S. Varvil (VCS)
Co-PI: Dr. Hannah Cohen-Rodriguez (VCS); Dr. Bonnie Campbell (VCS); Dr. Shana O’Marra (VCS), Dr. Sarah Guess (VCS), Mary Packer (WSU), Oluwafemi Johnson

Background: E-learning modules have been utilized to promote self-directed learning and to engage learners in collaborative learning. Within veterinary medicine interactive online modules have been used as teaching models in a variety of subjects, demonstrating that the student engagement relating to recognizing relevance of information increases with utilization of interactive learning modules. Hemostasis and coagulation are complicated topics in veterinary medicine programs. There are no current reports on the use of an electronic hemostasis learning module in a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Program to aid in learner understanding.

Purpose: To develop and evaluate the use of a learning module in teaching hemostasis concepts to veterinary learners within the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine program.

Study type: This pilot study employs a within-subjects, paired-sample design.

Methodology: This pilot study evaluates changes in knowledge and learner perceptions following engagement with an interactive hemostasis learning module. Participants will include 42 approximately second-year DVM students enrolled in VM589 (Veterinary Clinical Pathology), each acting as their own control. Their baseline knowledge of hemostasis topics will be evaluated prior to receiving any formal didactic training with a pretest. After receiving standard didactic instruction on hemostasis and washout period, students will complete the pretest again assessing baseline knowledge. After another washout period, participants will then complete the Introduction and Novice sections of the learning module, followed by a posttest and a structured survey. This design enables within-participant comparisons and sub-group analyses based on prior academic performance or behavioral indicators of engagement, such as mod-ule completion or interaction time.

Assessment: The pretests and posttest will consist of instructor-developed multiple-choice and clinical scenario-based items, aligned with the course’s learning objectives and focused on core hemostasis concepts. Both assessments will be administered under course-supervised conditions and will be matched in content scope and cognitive demand.

Students will engage with the Introduction and Novice sections of the interactive module, which includes narrated explanations, case-based reasoning exercis-es, and a glossary of key hemostasis terms and diagnostics. Upon completion of the module, students will complete the posttest and a structured survey within two weeks of the module completion. The survey will include Likert-scale and open-ended items.

December 2025 Update: Summary of progress: The project has been moving forward according to the proposed timeline. The pilot study was conducted on a small subset of the planned module components in order to gather data and feedback before developing the other parts of the module to ensure a student-centered approach and student engagement. While the data from the pilot study are still being analyzed, preliminary results show a statistically significant increase in learning related to hemostasis topics from the starting point (prior to formal hemostasis education in the DVM program) and traditional instruction methods. Additionally, after implementation of the module, learning retention and continued learning are documented. Qualitative feedback shows a positive response to in-module activities and case-based learning within the module and a perceived higher understanding of hemostasis topics.

Deviations from plan: Initially we had planned to include purchased videos discussing hemostasis topics. Ultimately, we found that creating our own animations integrates better with the module as we have designed it, so that funding has not yet been used in that capacity.

Challenges: The pilot study has been conducted as planned; unfortunately, we had significantly less participants (12) than planned (42). This discrepancy was likely due to the timing of the recruitment in conjunction with the heavy courseload for the DVM Year 2 Fall semester. Fortunately, the feedback we received from the participants was positive and helpful in continued development of the module.

• Planned response: In the next phase of this project and study, we plan to avoid asking DVM year 2 learners to participate in the Fall semester. Additionally, we plan to complete the IRB process well in advance of the study, as this process took longer than expected (or estimated on the IRB website) which delayed our recruitment for the study.

The software used to administer the pre/post tests had unexpected limitations in how questions could be asked, which potentially introduced confusion into the testing process. Because of this, between Pre-test 1 and Pre-test 2 some questions were reworded to better fit the format and ensure participant understanding.

• Planned response: For the future study, we are looking into other testing software that will ensure a variety of question types and depth.

Future directions: Present module, study findings, and process in a WSU CVM Teaching Academy seminar on May 1 at 12 pm.