Education Commons^™

I’M An Adjunct: What Do I Need To Know About Teaching?, Teresa Focarile

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When I started as an adjunct faculty member, I had no teaching experience. I was handed a syllabus, a classroom, and students, and left to figure out the rest on my own. In preparing that first course, I focused on what I thought were the essentials of teaching: finalizing the syllabus, picking the readings, and writing the assignments. Now, with nearly 20 years of teaching experience, and nine working as an educational developer, I know that while those planning steps are needed, they are not the most important. These are three essential things that adjunct faculty (and all faculty) need …

Are Faculty Prepared To Teach Flexibly?: Results From An Evaluation Study, Devshikha Bose, Rob Nyland

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Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were hardly any formal/established professional development (PD) program s that intentionally prepared faculty to teach flexibly. The uncertainty around the modality of the fall 2020 semester, required faculty to be prepared to teach their courses in flexible methods in order to meet the needs of their students and the constraints of their institution. This article is an updated report on the evaluation of the Flexible Teaching for Student Success (FTSS) Initiative at Boise State University—a three-tiered faculty development initiative designed to prepare faculty to teach their courses in flexible formats. Evaluation surveys and a …

Flexible Teaching For Student Success: A Three-Tiered Initiative To Prepare Faculty For Flexible Teaching, Devshikha Bose, Lisa Berry, Rob Nyland, Anthony Saba, Teresa Focarile

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The COVID-19 pandemic brought some unique challenges for the academic community. To counter the disruption caused by campus closure, faculty who taught in-person, blended, and hybrid courses needed to be prepared to pivot to remote instruction. This article describes the design and evaluation results of a three-tiered professional development initiative that focused on preparing faculty to teach with flexibility, whatever may be the necessary teaching environment. This design may serve as a model for professional developers building similar programs for faculty. The authors also share a resource—a Flexible Learning and Instruction Plan (FLIP).

Gi: The Guided Inquiry, Regina (Gina) F. Frey, Susan E. Shadle

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As described in chapter 1, the POGIL pedagogy is an integrated combination of intentionally designed guided-inquiry activities and a focus on process skills involving the active engagement of student teams that are facilitated by an instructor. POGIL activities are structured according to the learning cycle (described in Chapter 1). The activities of a POGIL classroom frame the thinking that students will do during class. The students in constructing ideas and mastering material (Bodner, 1986; Driver, Asoko, Leach, Scott, & Mortimer, 1994). Because this approach is different from the kind of classroom that most teachers experienced as students, many do not …

Creating Connection Through Intercultural Dialogue Partners, Tasha Souza

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The Intercultural Dialogue Partner (IDP) program has been a part of my Intercultural Communication course at two institutions across the last 8 years. While the program has evolved over time, the current version at a college campus in the western United States will be described. The IDP program is the service-learning component of an undergraduate course for about 30 mostly Communication majors. The primary goal of the course is for students to gain an appreciation of intercultural communication and to be able to engage in mindful dialogue across difference. My hope is that the class gives students the skills, knowledge, …

What To Do Before, During, And After Difficult Dialogues About Diversity, Tolulope Noah, Tasha Souza

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As faculty, we have a unique opportunity to help students navigate conversations about diversity in a way that leads to deeper understanding, greater empathy, and hopefully, social action. However, such productive dialogue takes careful planning, preparation, and guidance on the part of the instructor. Below, we offer specific strategies faculty can use before, during, and after difficult dialogue about diversity in the classroom setting.

Effective And Interactive Group Assignments In An Online Course, Teresa Focarile, Lana Grover

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The current standard paradigm for online learning involves asynchronous learning. We propose to expand that paradigm to include synchronous elements to the general course design, specifically cooperative learning (CL). Cooperative learning in any classroom, traditional or online, must include a synchronous event: all members are present at the same time in the same space. A synchronous form of online CL simulates face-to-face interaction available in a live classroom but conducted through screen-to-screen communication. The inclusion of synchronous components carries the benefit of increased student engagement and community-building, thereby maximizing the potential for student learning and successful completion.

Faculty Drivers And Barriers: Laying The Groundwork For Undergraduate Stem Education Reform In Academic Departments, Susan E. Shadle, Anthony Marker, Brittnee Earl

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Background: Calls to improve student learning and increase the number of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) college and university graduates assert the need for widespread adoption of evidence-based instructional practices in undergraduate STEM courses. For successful reforms to take hold and endure, it is likely that a significant shift in culture around teaching is needed. This study seeks to describe the initial response of faculty to an effort to shift teaching norms, with a long-term goal of altering the culture around teaching and learning in STEM. While the effort was envisioned and led at the institutional level, dialog about …

Benefits Of Participating In Service-Learning, Business-Related Classes: Assessing The Impact On The Community Partners, Nancy Vizenor, Tasha J. Souza, Joshua Jordan Ertmer

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Problem: Many universities offer service-learning classes that provide opportunities for students and community partners to work together on semester-long projects. Researchers have been especially interested in the benefits students receive in service-learning classes, and those benefits have been well recognized (Eyler, Giles, Stenson, & Gray, 2001). However, the benefits to community partners have been assumed but seldom explored empirically (Bringle & Steinberg, 2010; Cruz & Giles, 2000; Dorado & Giles, 2004). Research Questions: How beneficial were the service-learning projects to the community partners? What were the community partners’ experiences working with the students? Research Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive design was …

Teaching Faculty: A Model Of Professional Development For Mobile Learning Integration In Higher Education, Devshikha Bose, Lana Grover

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The purpose of this study was to document faculty perceptions on the impact of an instructional designer supported, faculty peer instruction model of professional development. The aim of the study was to identify how this faculty development model impacts course design, assessment strategies, and the integration of mobile technology in teaching and learning. Data was collected during a three-day mobile learning, professional development program, via pre and post survey and a focus group meeting. Results indicate that faculty benefited positively from their experience. Faculty reported that they learned methods for integrating mobile learning into their course design and gained knowledge …

Taking A Community Approach To Curriculum Change, Sarah E. Dalrymple, Anna Jo Auerbach, Elisabeth E. Schussler

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Many undergraduate institutions are reforming their courses to increase student engagement. A critical challenge in these efforts is to engage the academic community beyond the instructors in the process of change. At our university, we embraced this challenge by creating a volunteer community of faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduates to design the discussion curricula for a new introductory biology sequence. We report on this process of curriculum development using a case study approach and describe how the community created the new curriculum and how they perceived the outcomes of the process. Our findings indicate that this curriculum design approach …

Knowledge Surveys, Megan Frary

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A knowledge survey consists of course learning objectives framed as questions and is given before and after the content of the knowledge survey is presented in class. For each question on the knowledge survey, students respond using a three-point rating of their confidence to correctly answer the question.

Knowledge surveys may be used as a pretest before the semester or a new unit begins to help faculty get a sense of what students believe they know about upcoming topics. Knowledge surveys may be conducted electronically through Blackboard or as an in or out of class assignment on paper.