Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Commons^™

Course Master Planning, Haroon Stephen, Jee Woong Park

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Our specific teaching practice is to use a course master plan, which is a comprehensive document that provides the embodiment to the course skeleton often given in the syllabus. The master plan strategy addresses the need to provide multi-level perspectives of the course. The master plan provides a one-stop source of information and enables a consistent course delivery in case of multiple instructors assigned to a course in the same semester or on rotation.

Accessible Equations And Other Stem Content, Jerra Strong

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Equations, Formulas, and STEM Content can pose barriers to students with disabilities, but free tools available to UNLV make it much simpler to create accessible equations and math content.

Mid-Semester Reset: Approaches For Student Self-Assessment, Self-Efficacy And Support, Paige W. Johnson Ed.D.

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

A full college semester, like any long-term project, benefits from periodic reflection, and reconfiguration to make it to completion successfully. This is the thinking behind creating a mid-semester reset framework for first-semester students aligned with lessons on health and wellness. Students asked to reflect on themselves personally, each class during the semester and create an actionable plan was useful in helping to find their power, remember and reconfigure their motivations and see what they're doing right and well as what they can improve.

Utilizing Plastinated Head And Neck Dissections For Doctorate Of Dental Medicine (Dmd) Anatomy Laboratories : Observations From The Den 7109 “Guinea Pig” Course, Jessica Immonen

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

This poster documents use of digital dissection tutorials in place of in-person laboratory time for a gross anatomy course in a dental medicine doctorate (DMD) program. Tutorials were developed with a standard digital camera and Camtasia video editing software. Plastinated head and neck specimens prepared by the Von Hagens company in Germany were used in place of standard, embalmed cadaveric donors. Initial student feedback (N=40) indicated that the tutorials were helpful/very helpful (100%), clinically relevant/very clinically relevant (97.5%), were impactful on content retention (100%) and were appropriate/very appropriate with respect to length (3-8 min; 97.5%). After these initial findings were …

Appreciative Teaching: Utilizing Academic Advising Techniques For Better Teaching And Learning Experiences In Higher Education, Paige W. Johnson Ed.D

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

The first semester of college is quite difficult for students. Add to that a global pandemic, screen fatigue, cabin fever and general uneasiness and it's a recipe for a difficult semester in a difficult time. However, through appreciative teaching, which is modeled after the academic advising framework/technique called "appreciative advising" there are little ways to create a rapport, build a relationship, and foster goodwill with your students. This, in turn, will make your role more enjoyable and allow students to become more comfortable in and enjoy their role.

Virtual Hands-On Lab Exercises, Ed Jorgensen

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Development and deployment of focused topic specific hand-on exercises for upper division technical courses.

Using Social Justice Issues To Engage Students, Sandra L. Candel

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

The Social Justice Issue is a project-based assignment in which students organize in groups to address a social justice issue of their choice. In addition, students are asked to connect theory and practice (praxis) by looking for resources in their community to offer possible recommendations, solutions and resources.

Topics researched include: Voting Rights; Sexual Assault At Colleges; The Racialization of Cannabis Use; Mental Healthcare; Legalizing Prostitution; Gender Pay Gap; Black Lives Matter; LGBTQA Rights Stigma Suicide & Homelessness; Japan's Patriarchal Society; RBG - Open Supreme Court Position; ICE Inhumane Treatment of Immigrants; Universal Healthcare; and Mental Health Stigma.

This teaching …

Promoting Discussion And Community In Online Synchronous Courses, Nathan M. Slife, Gillian Bowden

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

It can be challenging to engage students in class discussion and build community in synchronous, online courses. This teaching practice addresses these challenges by scaffolding synchronous in-class discussions with asynchronous discussion posts. This practice engenders community and promotes student engagement.

A Learning-Centered Approach To Remote Learning, Michelle A. Arroyo

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Although faculty frequently update the content of their courses, they rarely modify their teaching methods. Many faculty continue to teach as they were taught. During remote and online learning, modifying teaching methods is not only a necessity, but critical to student success. Learning-centered teaching focuses on what and how students are learning. Learning-centered instructors create safe, respectful, and inclusive environments that facilitate student learning. Learning-centered teaching is not a single teaching method, but rather emphasizes a variety of techniques and pedagogies than encourage instructors to create an environment that facilitates students learning online and remotely. As a result, students acquired …

Improving Engagement Of Online Learning With Live Lectures, Jorge Ramon Fonseca Cacho

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Online courses have historically been self-taught or a form of independent study. However, with the 2020 Pandemic a renewed focus on remote/online learning has forced the academic community to revisit what works, and does not work, with online classes. I propose that providing a livestream of a class and uploading the recording to a media sharing website, like YouTube, is more engaging to students than posting a pre-recorded lecture (text or video). I propose that doing this motivates students to keep up with the lectures rather than attempting to binge before an exam, or an assignment is due, and improves …

Student Group Podcast And Infographic Presentations, Bill Doyle

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

The podcast and infographic presentations developed from a move to remote instruction and my desire to transform traditional, PowerPoint-based student presentations into something that would lead to more meaningful collaboration within groups, more engaging post-presentation discussions among the class, and more significant engagement with class readings and their contexts.

Recruitment Of International Students Through A Synthesis Of English As A Second Language Instruction, Social Justice, And Service Learning, Daisuke Akiba

Publications and Research

Universities across the U.S. have increasingly emphasized internationalization, leading to rising numbers of international students attending U.S. institutions of higher education. However, these students tend to gravitate toward larger research-intensive universities with many other institutions seeing no increase in international student enrollments. Little is known concerning how to attract international students to regional institutions lacking name recognition. To address the above and promote internationalization through increasing the presence of students from abroad, an academic department at a regional public U.S. college used needs analysis to develop a pilot program for Japanese university students (N = 13). The program involved a …

Exploring The Impact Of Early Exposure To Research On Dual Enrollment Students: A Qualitative Single-Case Study, Kevin A. Adkins, Jorge L. D. Albelo, Samantha Bowyer

Publications

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) provides a concurrent enrollment model to high schools across the United States. The concurrent enrollment opportunity offers science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) college-credit coursework taught by college-credentialed instructors on the student’s high school campus. One faculty member transitioned to Embry-Riddle’s main residential campus following seven years of service with ERAU’s concurrent enrollment program. During his tenure with ERAU’s concurrent enrollment program, in addition to instructing a variety of concurrent enrollment courses, he maintained an active research agenda that involved concurrently enrolled students. His transition was preceded by the matriculation of a subset of these students …

Learning Enhanced: Studio Practices For Engaged Inclusivity (Full Text Pdf), Roberta D. Kjesrud

Learning Enhanced: Studio Practices for Engaged Inclusivity

Downloadable full text of the textbook

Reviewing The Interdisciplinarity Of Professors At Colleges And Universities Globally Through A Meta-Analysis Of Current Literature, Carson Babich

Major Papers

The lineage of interdisciplinarity throughout history pushes us towards understanding the need for interdisciplinarity more than ever in a modern climate. Through a meta-analysis of current literature, topics and themes will be discussed to find answers on how interdisciplinarity of professors are present within institutes of higher learning on a global scale; in addition, the implications that can be drawn from interdisciplinarity of higher education professors. This global outlook of research will focus on a continental approach to observing the divergent forms of interdisciplinarity in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania with nineteen different articles across nineteen …

6b Just The Faqs: What Enquirers Ask About Studio Logistics, Roberta D. Kjesrud

Learning Enhanced: Studio Practices for Engaged Inclusivity

Answers logistical questions posed by professionals planning to implement a studio model

6a Pandemacademia: Sustaining Programs In Times Of Crisis, Roberta D. Kjesrud

Learning Enhanced: Studio Practices for Engaged Inclusivity

Re-envisions academic support services in crisis conditions

6 Value Added: Mergers To Increase Learning, Roberta D. Kjesrud, Sarah Mcdaniel

Learning Enhanced: Studio Practices for Engaged Inclusivity

Explains how economic and demographic pressures urgently create the need for increasing value in higher education institutions

5a Holding Space In Consultations, Ally Duvall

Learning Enhanced: Studio Practices for Engaged Inclusivity

Presents a choose-your-own-adventure approach to outcomes

5 Using Assessment To Prompt Innovation, Roberta D. Kjesrud

Learning Enhanced: Studio Practices for Engaged Inclusivity

Suggests assessment principles for innovation and improving learning