Education Commons^™

Counseling Skills For Educators, Craig Hall

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas is touted as a diverse campus. Indeed, students represent a wide range of demographics concerning race, gender, identity, socioeconomics, physical and mental ability issues, as well as non traditional students and those the intersectional representation of multiple demographic groups. It is incumbent upon educators to provide safe spaces for all students. This is an equitable practice. How can educators be more equitable? By using counseling skills in their education such as: empathy, active listening, belief in the capabilities of students, and avoiding labeling students. It must be noted that the use of counseling skills …

Why Ask That? Low Stakes Questions Build Engagement, Van Whaley

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

A few low-stakes questions during the term build engagement, encourage persistence, and can improve learning outcomes.

During labs, students work together to learn Anatomy & Physiology… plus answer these Engagement Booster Questions.

The Need
Students need to meet classmates. After two years of online-only education, returning to in-person labs is a new experience many students find uncomfortable and challenging.

The Existing Resources
Students in the same lab have several similarities that include enrolling in the same lecture section, similar schedules, the same completed prerequisites, similar majors, and career aspirations.

The Goal
Building engagement between students should help more students complete …

Benefits Of Formative Teaching Observations, Dan Gianoutsos

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Formative teaching observations by peer teaching faculty can provide helpful advice about small changes to teaching that can improve teachers’ and students’ experiences during the term (see reference list). The researcher posits that the UNLV Teaching Observation project catalyzed real-time changes to the participating faculty’s teaching and generated short-term solutions to some of their teaching challenges.

Professional Development: Cola 100l, Kassandra Moore

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

The need for professional development integration into curriculum is vital for student success. Colleges and universities across the country are implementing career and professional development opportunities into classroom curriculum to better prepare students for life outside the classroom. Specialized events and focused learning opportunities help students successfully navigate through the career development process, and is exactly what students need.

Trauma-Informed Schools And Educators, Carolina Meza Perez, Michelle Paul

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Educators, staff, and administrators in the school community will be prepared to recognize and respond to those who have been impacted by traumatic stress.

Connecting With Students As A Motivator For Learning, Michelle Arroyo

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Students want to feel cared for and that their instructors have their best educational interests in mind. Having an instructor who demonstrates compassion and shows empathy toward students creates a positive classroom climate and the course is more meaningful to the students at UNLV.

Career Development In Curriculum: Cola 100e, Jenna Heath

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Engagement with Professionals, from the local community, in the classroom allows for students to learn about a variety of career paths and gain career advice. This practice also provides the institution a tangible way of preparing students for their graduation plans and allows for mentorship to develop naturally among the students and professionals.

Working Groups As Classroom Management Style, Emma Frances Bloomfield, Kathryn Rafferty

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

There is a need at UNLV to improve student retention across disciplines, which can be done by improving students’ confidence in their performance, improving their satisfaction with classes and their major selections, and providing welcoming and open spaces for participation and inclusion.

Self-Assessment In The College Curriculum, Joe Ervin

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

The use of self-assessment in the college curriculum is an extensive and wide-reaching endeavor. In essence, through a variety of pedagogical and curricular methods, students are given the opportunity to think about themselves.

Visualization For Spatial Comprehension, Gabriel Judkins

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Mapping and understanding spatial data are fundamental necessities for geographers, yet challenging for many students (Rapp et al. 2007)

Agile Instructional Design For Learning: A Case Example Of Agile Master Course (Amc) Development, Yeonsoo Kim, Heather Whitesides

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Today’s higher education institutions need to “produce quality and relevant learning materials, capable of being reused and adapted in different learning situations” (Arimoto & Barroca, 2015). Agile principles and practices are being used by instructional design teams and are geared toward being adaptive and creative.

Interior Architecture’S Use Of Rotating Teams, Dak Kopec

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

The inclusion of health conditions within the process of environmental modification for design students requires concurrent learning outcomes related to research, brainstorming, and ideation that can only be achieved through team projects.

Lecture Capture / Flipping / Clickers, Darrell Lutey

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Student Success – UNLV needs to improve retention

Instructors Learn From Homework, Too: Streamlining Data Collection To Facilitate Reteaching Before The Test, Erica J. Marti

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Whether it’s for accreditation or simply as a good teaching practice to inform future instruction, gathering and analyzing data can be time consuming. This is especially true for large classes. How can you streamline the process for quick evaluation?

Are Dogs Better Than Cats?: Teaching Oral & Written Persuasion Skills, Sara Mathis

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

First generation students often come into UNLV underprepared for the rigors of speaking and writing. Student’s success in their courses and future careers depend on their abilities to persuade through oral and written skills.

Tea-Searching With Undergrad & Grad Students: Moving Beyond The Stem Fields, Kim Nehls

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Tea-searching is a blend of teaching and research in the college classroom. It is learning by doing with in-class exercises and assignments designed to study complex problems, collect and analyze data, and discuss findings – all to varying levels at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels. In the past decade, research on these student experiences has revealed the extensive array of professional and personal benefits.

Internships For Accounting Students, Daniel R. Siciliano

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

ACC 400 is the first upper division class for accounting majors and students are introduced to the importance of internships.

Dialectical Teaching Strategies For First And Second-Year Students, Nathan M. Slife

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

An oppositional or bi-polar understanding of meaning (Rychlak, 1976). This ancient understanding of meaning has many applications for instructors.

Web Based Classroom Management Enhanced By Personalized And Experiential Learning, Cecilia Turman

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

The purpose of this practice is to promote experiential and personalized learning in online instruction.

Voluntary Web-Based Self-Assessment Quiz Use Improves Exam Performance, Especially For Learners With Low Prior Knowledge, Jenifer C. Utz, Matthew L. Bernacki

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

We examined students’ voluntary use of digital self-assessment quizzes as a resource for learning in a large anatomy and physiology lecture course. Students (N = 238) could use 16 chapter quizzes and four analogous unit quizzes to rehearse and self-assess knowledge. Repeated use was uncommon (12%), as was lack of use (13%). Most students (75%) engaged in occasional use of self-assessment quiz items. Exam performance differed between repeated use (84%), occasional use (76%), and no use (72%) groups. Differences were greater among students who lacked prior knowledge of course topics. Quiz use improved performance more for low prior knowledge students, …

Volunteering In The Community: Combining Service And Learning, Elena Gandia Garcia

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Most of the patients who use the services offered by the Lied Pediatric Clinic are minorities (70%), and half of those patients are Hispanic. The clinic lacks of professional interpreters to help monolingual doctors and residents to communicate with their patients.

A Teaching Method That Boosts Unlv Student Retention, Celeste Calkins, Mary-Ann Winkelmes

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Nationally, underserved students are half as likely to graduate in 4 years as their white and Asian peers (US DoE 2014, Tough 2014, Ishitani 2006). UNLV proudly claims the most diverse undergraduate university population in the nation (US News 2017), including many first generation and low-income students. The majority of UNLV students fall into this underserved category, and our retention rates (re-enrollment rates after the 1st year) indicate that roughly ¼ of our 1st-year students do not re-enroll the subsequent year.

Instructional Methods That Improve Outcomes For Unlv Students In The Virtual Classroom, Tiffiany Howard

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

The demand for online education programs has resulted in the expansion of course and degree offerings, and a steady increase in online student enrollment nationwide (U.S. News, 2016). While the goal of online education is to improve access to higher education, historically underrepresented groups experience lower course completion rates and poorer grade performance in online classes, when compared to underrepresented students enrolled in hybrid and in person courses.

Developing A Teaching Philosophy Statement, Steve Hayden

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

In the college of education it is common practice for students to write multiple versions of a concise and direct teaching philosophy statement (1,000-1,500 words).

Add Interactive Elements To Videos Using H5p, Benjamin Root

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

To increase student engagement, video materials can include interactive components.

Using A Breakout Box To Encourage The 4cs In The Classroom, Erica S. Tietjen

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Small groups can benefit from practicing the “4Cs” skills that will continue to be important in the 21st century (NEA, 2017): Critical thinking Communication Collaboration Creativity

Photo Assignments: An Exploration Of Student Retention Rate, Lawrence Mullen

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

In an attempt to increase student retention and graduation rates, many colleges and universities have some sort of freshman course, or first-year seminar that serves to introduce students to college life. The course also helps students transition from high school.

Enhancing Students' Learning With Word-Games: A Case Of Hospitality Ob Class, Cass Shum

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Learning a new subject involves learning and memorizing a new set of vocabulary (Parry, 1995), a challenge for an increasingly international student population (e.g., Barron & Arcodia, 2002; McDowell, 1998; Zimmermann, 2009).

Facebook Group In Acc 202, Daniel R. Siciliano

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

ACC 202 has three sections of 100-120 students in each section each semester.

Creative Student Engagement, Robyn Raschke

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Many students do not feel comfortable asking questions in front of the whole class and stay quiet during class.