Who We Are
Our Approach to Learning
The Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning is driven by University Liggett School’s student-centered, constructivist approach to education.
Education should empower learners to break through boundaries. Own their academic growth. Flourish through failure. Understand through experience. Revel in their differences, talents, and strengths. It should approach every learner and each day from a place of pure and limitless possibility, with a holistic approach to learning and an environment that supports meaningful risks and rewards.
From the youngest children on up to adulthood, learners should be given the tools and the confidence to answer their own questions and cultivate their passions, thereby assuring an understanding of the world that is deeply, individually meaningful.
Education should lay a foundation upon which students probe, evaluate and absorb what they discover and then demonstrate what they have learned. And that process is what gives learners the freedom to learn on their terms and bring to bear that knowledge for the good of our world.
Our Tenets
We focus upon building skills and learning content, as we strive toward understanding.
Our classrooms are student-centered and teacher-guided. Student voice has meaningful agency in the classroom.
We value growth and process as much as we honor achievement and product.
Teachers provide scaffolding and structure, but students make meaning.
Assessment is a means, not an end, and provides feedback to both student and teacher.
The work students do has connections to the world beyond our walls and the life they might lead in it.
Student interests and passions are cultivated and encouraged. Choice is a pathway to engagement.
Rigor is achieved by relevance and depth, not pace and breadth.
Creating new questions is more valuable than learning old answers.
Education should not be standardized.
We innovate responsibly, supported by research and exemplars.
CITL Staff
Adam Hellebuyck
Place-Based Humanities, Lead Facilitator
Adam is the Dean of Curriculum and Assessment at University Liggett School and a teacher of Liggett's award-winning, place-based United States history program.
Chris Hemler
Place-Based Humanities, Lead Facilitator
Chris is the Cynthia N. Ford Chair of History and Social Studies at University Liggett School, as well as lead educator in Liggett's award-winning, place-based United States history program. Prior to Liggett, Chris was an education manager at The Henry Ford.
Jodi Coyro
Inquiry, Lead Facilitator
Jodi Coyro teaches second grade at University Liggett School. The culture of thinking in her classroom is guided by her choice of language focusing more on inquiry than recall, her interactions with learners, modeling citizenship, and creating opportunities for learners to explore. Promoting learner’s intellectual development drives Jodi's decisions when designing learning experiences both for the classroom and staff meetings. She believes that encouraging learners to notice, wonder, to ask questions, and to discover is the basis of all learning. Inquiry is a part of almost everything learners do. Jodi facilitates workshops in Project Approach, numeracy and mathematics, documentation, and Making Thinking Visible.
Michael Medvinsky
Inquiry, Lead Facilitator
Michael Medvinsky is the Dean of Pedagogy and Innovation at University Liggett School and teaches in the Academic Research Program. He leads campus initiatives and facilitates national and international workshops in Project Approach, Reggio Emilia Inspiration, documentation, Making Thinking Visible, inquiry mindset, teacher growth, and instructional technology integration. Michael strives to create a culture of thinking for teachers which often leads to a culture of thinking for students.
Annemarie Harris
Program Manager
Annemarie Harris is applying her more than 25 years of nonprofit management experience to ensure that CITL is the go-to resource for educators and partners to facilitate transformative learning experiences for children and youth throughout Michigan and beyond. In addition to leading day-to-day operations, Harris works with CITL faculty to develop and manage programming and partnerships.