Jason Ware

Dr. Ware aligns his teaching, engagement, and discovery so that one informs the other. Dr. Ware prioritizes creating learning environments that address students’ psychological needs by providing choices within learning activities, fostering students’ relatedness to course content and to each other, and structuring skill applications that enhance students’ competencies in specific areas. This teaching and learning philosophy manifests within the course topics Dr. Ware teaches—such as multiculturalism and education, research methods, happiness, jazz, and community well-being—and also in the course structures he uses to frame learning experiences. For example, Dr. Ware facilitates course-based research experiences (i.e. HONR 46100: Well-Being) that center community well-being as a way for students to learn quality-of-life theory, qualitative research methods, civic engagement processes and scholarship, and peer mentorship. These activities incorporate undergraduate research, interdisciplinary academics, leadership development, and community experiences—all within the context of service-learning courses. Dr. Ware is committed to fostering these kinds of learning experiences—that facilitate skill application in real-world settings and enhance the relevance of classroom learning—and now serves on the Teaching Academy Executive Council to elevate this kind of pedagogy to the institutional level.

Most of Dr. Ware’s recent scholarship is focused on three areas of well-being: 1) community, 2) social, and 3) physical. Dr. Ware pursues these lines of inquiry through his service-learning courses and his research groups, and translates the results and tools that come from this research into resources for his community partners—which is to say, his discovery links directly to his engagement. Curriculum Studies was Dr. Ware’s academic home/foundation vis-à-vis teacher education. His early discovery was based in curriculum studies, teacher education, and local public schools. Unsatisfied with the level of local (within the city of Lafayette) impact he had, Dr. Ware re-focused his research on the local communities that are home to many of the K-12 learners and teachers he co-investigated with pre-service teachers. The common thread that links Dr. Ware’s earlier discovery to his most recent is his focus on and inclusion of undergraduate researchers. In either case Dr. Ware mentored/s many undergraduate researchers.

• EDCI 28500: Multiculturalism and Education
• EDCI 61500: Qualitative Research Methods in Education
• EDCI 61600: Qualitative Data Collection and Analysis
• HONR 12000: Introduction to Research Planning
• HONR 19901: Honors First-Year Experience I — Discovery
• HONR 19902: Honors First-Year Experience II — Happiness
• HONR 29900: Urban Youth Activism
• HONR 39900: Happiness
• HONR 31200: Jazz
• HONR 46100: Well-Being
• HONR 49900: Interdisciplinary Independent Research in Community Engagement