A Sensory Teaching and Learning Center
The new Hilliard Institute for Educational Wellness was established from a grant and gifts from the friends and family of Jack and Lola Hilliard and Frances Hilliard McAfee. It is a part of the new McAfee Library, which was created from a gift from Caroline T. McAfee, James T. McAfee III, and Julie McAfee, and serves as a memorial to James T. McAfee Jr. The program is a sensory teaching & learning center set up in a beautiful historic home on the campus of O’More College of Design in Franklin, Tennessee, and is an element of the educational framework of this higher education institution.
The new center is based on whole teaching and learning research and the application of innovative approaches to teaching and learning.
- The Institute works to help teachers incorporate wholistic approaches of teaching and learning into their teaching and learning methodologies.
- The Institute works with students who need to better understand how they, individually, learn. It also assists students in the research and documentation phase of learning.
- The Institute supports global and cultural art, design, and educational research and service projects with training and financial support.
- The Institute supports the establishment of an O’More cultural art and design center/gallery and currently seeks after such funding.
- The Institute supports the publishing of our professor’s work.
- The Institute supports projects which benefit society and our environment.
- The Institute supports projects which create authentic beauty
Elements of the Educational Wellness Institute
The O’More Cultural Field College:
The O’More Cultural Field College is meant to challenge the faculty, staff, and students of O’More College of Design to seek opportunities to take part in culturally significant service projects, travel abroad, and global design research; to explore and find ways to bring the benefits of global design home to our local community; and to involve themselves in purposeful design projects—projects that benefit society, support our environment, and create beauty.
The program provides unique teaching and learning opportunities for faculty, staff, and students that explore cultural diversity and humanitarian and environmental research and service projects at the local, regional, national, and global levels.
Some of our current O’More Cultural Field College programs include:
- O’More—Ireland
The Irish Experience-Abbey Leix, Ireland, and throughout all of Ireland
University of Limerick, County Limerick, Ireland
Portlaoise College, County Laois, Ireland
O’More-Sacred Heart University/Diseart Institute of Education and Celtic Culture, County Kerry, Dingle, Ireland
O’More-University of Wales/IMU Institute, Dalgan/Dublin, Ireland
O’More-Internships Ireland
- O’More—France (a new program just being established)
- O’More—Oxford
Harris Manchester Summer Research Institute (scholar and fellowship opportunities at Oxford)
- O’More—International Travel Study (travel study to different countries each year-Italy, France, Germany, etc.)
- O’More—Rural America
Educational and cultural experiences though out America
- O’More—Studio on the Square (various town square design projects each year)
- O’More—Design Markets (NY, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, etc.)
- O’More—First Nations (Native American educational, cultural study projects each year)
Cherokee Spirituality Course on the Cherokee Indian Reservation
Other First-Nations courses under construction with Canada and Western Tribes
The O’More Tutorial Program:
- The O’More Tutorial Program is composed of Senior Tutors who oversee students’ work on major research and documentation projects—much like the chairmen of a dissertation/thesis committee.
- The program is also composed of Tutors who work with students to better understand how they learn.
- In addition, the program offers a yearly Educational Wellness Course for faculty, staff, and students.
The O’More Teacher Mentoring Program:
The Teacher Mentoring Program is composed of Senior Educators and Master Teachers from O’More College and other Universities who receive special teaching and learning training and then work to support the educational needs of O’More professors and instructors—including the expansion of teaching and learning styles and non-traditional assessment methodologies.
The O’More Teacher Training Program offers regular innovative training sessions throughout the year that are meant to guide our faculty in the process of innovative teaching, learning, and assessment. All professors, associate professors, and assistant professors are required to take part in these training sessions.
The Master Teacher Program recognizes the special abilities of innovative teachers with a three-year post as a classroom Master Teacher.
The O’More Innovative Teaching & Learning Research Center:
The Innovative Teaching & Learning Research Center is a program utilizing professors, instructors, and students dedicated to continued research into inventive sensory teaching and learning and whole teaching and learning processes.
O’More Publishing:
The O’More Design Review is a journal dedicated to the art and science of design. The first issue will be out in September 2007. O’More has selected 3 student journalists to create 5 departmental articles each semester for the journal.
O’More Publishing’s major role is in the publishing of books and articles written by our faculty, followed by non-faculty. Books include educational topics, history, family relationships, children’s books, art and design, etc. |
