Teaching Innovation

Redefining Higher Education at PSU

The Office of Academic Innovation’s mission at Portland State University is to support and resource PSU educators as leaders and co-creators in designing equitable, community-sustaining learning experiences that further student success. Our work is guided and informed by our commitment to learner-first approaches that honor the wealth of community knowledge and lived experiences at PSU.

We work closely with faculty cohorts, departments, and students to pursue new creative solutions to increase accessibility, encourage persistence, and foster inclusive and innovative pedagogy, culturally sustaining teaching, and equitable curricula in PSU classrooms.

We invite you to explore our areas of focus below and visit our teaching support page for more information about instructor services and our teaching community.

OAI 2022-23 Strategic Plan

About OAI

Thought Leadership

OAI collaborates closely with instructors to examine challenging problems and design creative, new approaches to teaching. Our office provides data-driven insights into pedagogical best practices and fosters engaging professional development, delivering workshops and facilitating communities of practice where faculty learn from each other.

Emerging Models

OAI fosters the exploration and adoption of emerging education paradigms that enable PSU to adapt and remain relevant, pivoting towards new models such as digital credentials, stackable programs, and accelerated learning approaches.

Flexible Learning

OAI partners with faculty to ensure students' needs for flexible and engaging learning are met at PSU, expanding opportunities for online, hybrid, and dual delivery courses. We consult on strategies to increase accessibility and encourage persistence despite the competing demands and challenges in students’ daily lives.

Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

OAI provides research, strategies and curated resources for inclusive pedagogy, culturally-sustaining teaching, equitable curricula, anti-racism, social justice, and other means of advancing JEDI in PSU classrooms.

Digital Learning Environment

OAI facilitates the skillful implementation of innovative teaching tools and advances teaching and learning through effective implementation of academic technology and multimedia at the university.

Community-Based Learning

OAI supports the integration of learning with the Portland community through community-based approaches, including social justice education, experiential education, hands-on learning,
place-based education, service education, community engagement, and more!

Universal Design for Learning

Instead of getting us stuck in one “right” way to teach, learn, or participate, UDL asks educators to design inherently flexible experiences from the ground up. By encouraging this level of flexibility around how content is shared, how learning is expressed, and how students engage, the true scope of knowledge can be celebrated. OAI offers a variety of guided and self-paced resources to support faculty to design inherently flexible experiences accessible to all.

The OAI Strategic Plan was compiled in 2022.

OAI Strategic Plan

With COVID and the shift to Emergency Remote teaching in the Spring of 2020, all PSU educators were required to teach in a remote modality, many of them for the first time. This report covers the results of Remote Synchronous and Attend Anywhere teaching at PSU.

Remote Learning Report 2020

Current Initiatives & Projects

Trauma-Informed Teaching

OAI is committed to supporting instructors to create and implement curriculum that is appropriately responsive to the cognitive impacts of individual and systemic trauma on our students. We promote the adoption of trauma-informed teaching practices at PSU by offering resources, strategies, and peer cohort support.

Program and Institutional Assessment

OAI is dedicated to improving the overall student experience at PSU by working with academic programs to advance program and institutional goals. Through our application of the PSU Five Step Program Assessment Model, we help to create a more inclusive and supportive learning environment that prioritizes the success and well-being of

Career-Connected Learning

OAI is partnering on the expansion of career connected learning at PSU, including scaling credit for prior learning and developing a portfolio of micro-credentials for students.

Strategic Development  of Online Learning

OAI is strategically and intentionally expanded PSU’s online courses, certificates, and degrees, with emphasis on creating high-quality digital learning facilitated by prepared, responsive, and engaged faculty.

OAI staff teaching and working with faculty

Inclusive Pedagogy Toolkit

In alignment with racial justice, disability justice and interlocking movements, OAI and PSU faculty are co-creating resources and support for inclusive curriculum and justice-oriented pedagogical practices.

Generative AI Taskforce

The Office of Academic Affairs has mobilized an AI Task Force made up of representatives from throughout the university, including faculty, a representative of the Faculty Senate Educational Policy Committee, the offices of Academic Innovation (OAI), and Information Technology (OIT), the Library, and Student Affairs.