Janna Lancaster, PhD
Assistant Professor, Director of Graduate Studies, PI of the Great Plains ADA Center
Janna Lancaster is an Assistant Professor and the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Architectural Studies at the University of Missouri. She is also the PI for the Great Plains ADA Center.
Janna holds a PhD in Architectural Studies from Mizzou, a Master of Environmental Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA in Environmental Science from Barnard College. Since the late 1990s, she has studied and researched the intersections between the built environment and planetary and human health. Janna also believes in the importance of the arts and social organizations in creating healthy communities, and has volunteered or served on nonprofit boards in every city she has lived in.
Her teaching centers around bringing joy to the classroom while removing shame from making mistakes. Students learn through trial and error, and we need to structure curriculum to accommodate for all the learning styles and give opportunity for revision and correction.
Janna’s research focuses are in pedagogy, urbanism, and disability. The pedagogy focus is for large lecture classrooms and for teaching high performance building and adaptation to climate change. Her urbanism research focuses on sustainability and resilience. As the PI of the Great Plains ADA Center, Janna works with a team to investigate how people with disabilities experience critical environments like hospitals.
In all her teaching, research, and service, Janna’s focus is on making things better, on learning lessons that can be applied practically. She also works with her colleagues at the GPADA Center to translate the knowledge learned in research to information usable by the people who are building and using the built environment.
Teaching Philosophy
I approach teaching as I do any leadership role – by thinking and working through problems with students rather than only talking at them (although there is some of that as well). Whether it is in a classroom or with a group of online learners, my job is to provide them with good resources, enthusiasm for the topics, support through the struggle of learning, and grace toward the mistakes that will inevitably be made. Teaching is not something that can be done “at” a student. It is only through a structure of expectations, empowerment, and communication that students can become learners. If I can create and support that structure, if I can lead the students through their own experience of discovery and learning, then I am a successful teacher.
How do I lead students in the process of learning? I start with enthusiasm – making sure to show my excitement when I lecture, to ask questions and engage the students with the subjects as we go. I encourage them to get excited about learning, to open their hearts to the process. I look for a variety of resources to share with them, books and articles, links to websites and videos, lectures, and class or online discussion. I try to make sure there is enough for the visual learners, the readers, the auditory learners, and the talkers. I offer a variety of assignments and forms of evaluation to help guide them through the information that those resources provide, and I provide a clear course timeline of when everything should be completed (with leeway when needed). I focus on developing a structure in which they can learn and then offer the tools to continue to learn when they leave my course. To support that goal, I bring in extra books for them to peruse, I bring in guest speakers, and show them how to access outside resources, especially the school and public library.
I also want to remove, as best I can, any embarrassment around making mistakes in the classroom or on assignments. My philosophy is that we learn more from our mistakes than when we do it right, so I encourage the students to experiment and learn, not just worry about grades. I also share my own trials. I am transparent when I make a mistake, and I do my best to maintain open communication about any ongoing classroom challenges or developments. When students share their challenges with me, reasons for lateness, whatever it is, I choose to always believe them and give as much grace as is reasonable.
After many years of teaching, working, and volunteering, my fundamentals are clear, but the execution is perpetually in development. I attend every Teaching for Learning and Writing Center course that I can, I read books about teaching, and sometimes I try to play a game or do an in-class activity that does not go the way I expected it to. I am doing the same thing that I expect my students to do – I am learning, trying, making some mistakes, and growing from them.
Recent publications and presentations
Shafique, F., Lancaster, J. and Faizan, R. (2024) Storytelling for Sustainability in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Education: A Framework. Creative Education, 15, 1524-1536. doi: 10.4236/ce.2024.157092.
May 15, 2024. “Bringing Joy Back into the Classroom: Successes and Failures in playful teaching in large lecture courses.” Celebration of Teaching, University of Missouri. Columbia, Missouri.
I can honestly say, as both a former student and current faculty, that my colleagues and I truly care about the success of our students.
Highlighted Research/Work
