Education Commons^™

Teaching Creatives To Be A.I. Provocateurs: Establishing A Digital Humanist Approach For Generative A.I. In The Classroom, Joshua A. Fisher

Tradition Innovations in Arts, Design, and Media Higher Education

This case study examines the implementation of OpenAI's Generative AI (GenAI) in a graduate interactive storytelling course at Ball State University in Spring '23. Adopting a Posthumanist perspective, the course treated GenAI as a synthetic collaborator to bridge technical disparities among the students, enhancing their characters, dialogue, and visual production. Students also used the tool to help understand complex technical documentation. However, while the approach led to overall success, the case study proposes a shift towards Digital Humanism for a more balanced, ethical integration of GenAI in the classroom. This perspective prioritizes human creative agency over computational creativity, encouraging students …

Systemic Theoretical Instruction: Tense And Aspect In Italian A Sociocultural Study Of American Learners Of Italian, Charles Joseph Panarella, Jr.

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

University-level language and second-language classrooms typically use general rules of thumb to teach grammar without considering its conceptual aspects and cultural origins. These general rules of thumb are normally taught using a communicative approach to language teaching which typically places little emphasis on immediate corrective feedback and learner development. Most assessments are static in nature and focus on right and wrong answers rather than their origins (i.e., learner development and microgenesis). The lack of corrective feedback and lack of considering affective factors have the potential to negatively influence language acquisition in terms of motivation and self-efficacy. In addition, foreign language …

"Between Too Much & Not Enough," A Meta-Analysis Of The 1619 Project, Nathan Pipes

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

When the New York Times released the 1619 Project in August 2019 it was met with enthusiasm and critical review. The outcome of the public debate, as of now, is mixed. Research is also mixed. Education findings suggests the project has the power to heal. Case study evidence indicates culturally centered approaches positively impact academic outcomes and mental health of historically oppressed peoples. By emphasizing and affirming African American experiences 1619 has potential to narrow the achievement gap and disrupt rising suicide rates. However, philosophy and psychology warn against overemphasizing culture. Excessive affirmation can cause groupthink. Continual praise aggrandizes the …

A Tool For Digital Bibliotherapy: Fostering Emotional Resiliency Through A Visual Novel, Joy Cooper

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

Suicide rates among children have risen over the last three years. In Clark County specifically, the numbers doubled between 2019 and 2021. The research for this project sought to find the benefits of bibliotherapy and create a tool to be used for early intervention in children displaying signs of developmental emotional and behavioral concerns. Additionally, the research focused on determining the benefits of bibliotherapy across various mediums with a particular aim on the accessibility of digital formats. The research concluded that bibliotherapy in a digital format is not only beneficial but has a tendency to produce higher engagement among children. …

One Last Month, Or Clancy's Time-Box, Safiyya Bintali

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

One Last Month is a young adult (YA) novella of roughly forty-three thousand words aimed at readers in middle school and in early high school grades. Structurally, it is an “ensemble Bildungsroman”, wherein all the main characters—rather than just one—embark on journeys of emotional growth and are given significant plot focus. Through the characters, One Last Month focuses on the importance and influence of non-romantic love, specifically through homosocial relationships between the novella’s male characters. It also touches on the process of grief beyond the Kübler-Ross structure and, though more subtly, emotional expression in young men. Through one of the …

Exploring The Role Of Epistemic Cognition And Self-Efficacy In The Career Decision-Making Processes Of College Students: An Explanatory Sequential Study, Raelynn Frazier

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

College students are asked to make critical decisions about which academic major to choose and subsequently to make specific career decisions. Students come to college with a myriad of different skill sets, backgrounds, developmental levels, cognitive processes, familial support, and levels of self-efficacy that may influence how they make these decisions. The purpose of this study was to explore the role that epistemic cognition and self-efficacy may play in the career decision-making processes of college students utilizing a mixed methods approach. Results of this study indicate that there are internal and external influences that impact college students’ career decision-making processes …

Violin Performance Influences Of Fritz Kreisler, Walter Daniel White

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study explores elements contained or implied in the question of what can the modern performer of violin literature learn and apply from the life, creative output, and career of Fritz Kreisler, a successful performer and composer of a past era. It is now the twenty-first century, and Fritz Kreisler, who lived from the final quarter of the nineteenth century beyond the first half of the twentieth century continues as a name widely recognized and associated with excellence in violin performance. His name is legendary among violinists, and he left a lasting legacy in the compositions that he created for …

Strengthening The Southern Nevada Workforce Pipeline, Katie M. Gilbertson

Policy Briefs and Reports

This report analyzes the Southern Nevada employment ecosystem by utilizing occupational clusters recognized by the U.S. Department of Labor. The first section examines occupations in the tourism industry using three occupational clusters: hospitality and leisure; arts, audio/video technology and communications; and the transportation, distribution, and logistics. Next, this report utilizes the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance’s 2022 Workforce Blueprint to identify the top 15 in-demand occupations for Southern Nevada and occupational clusters. A case study of the MGM College Opportunity Program (COP) is presented to demonstrate an existing workforce training program that promotes upward mobility of leisure and hospitality employees …

Cutting As A Literacy Practice: Exploring The Fractured Body, Desire And Rage Through Queer And Trans*+ Youth Embodiments, Bess Van Asselt

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

By attending to the ways in which cutting manifests in the life histories of three queer and trans*+ youth of color, I argue that cutting is a literacy practice. I focus on the life histories of three youth, Jay, Harper and Sam, who have different experiences, reasons for, and reactions to their cutting. With each story, we learn something new about the act and how it pushes us to the brink of literacy pedagogy. Jay’s narrative forces us to reckon with youth who refuse to or cannot maintain their bodily integrity. Harper’s story brings to the fore the violence of …

Narrative Inquiry Chopped And Screwed: The Case Of The Curious Teachers, Nick Kasparek, Emily J. Lahr

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

No abstract provided.

Teaching Haitian Studies And Caribbean Digital Humanities: A Rasanblaj Of Critical Pedagogical Approaches And Black Feminist Theory In The Classroom, Crystal A. Felima

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

Digital humanities provide an opportunity for collaborators to connect with various people, disciplines, and resources to produce and share knowledge. It also allows creators and users to navigate research and scholarship through partnerships and online engagement. This article features an undergraduate digital humanities course taught in spring 2018 titled “Haitian Studies and Culture” at the University of Florida. In this course, students considered ways of speaking, writing, researching, and representing Haiti, while engaging in critical discussions related to issues and questions of access, authorship, interpretation, and representation. This essay serves as a reflection statement by highlighting how the author explored …

Developing Vocal Agility Of Light Lyric Coloratura Soprano Voices Through The Neglected Repertoire Of French Opéra Comique, Valentine Baron

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This document explores light lyric coloratura soprano roles in the French opéra comique genre through an analysis of seven arias and their impact on the development of vocal agility. The opéra comique genre was popular at the beginning of the eighteenth century, but declined to disappear from the stage at the end of the nineteenth century. Despite the opéra comique’s influence on many other vocal genres, the genre is today neglected. Opportunities for singers to improve and practice challenging coloratura in this repertoire are limited. The two most famous arias from the genre which are the Doll Aria and Juliette’s …

Impact Of Mentoring On Epistemic Cognition Of Higher Education Administrators: A Modified Explanatory Mixed Methods Study, Robert Levrant

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In today’s complex workplace, organizations have implemented mentoring programs to serve the needs of employees by providing career development and personal support. Mentoring relationships provide a variety of vocational, psychosocial and role modeling functions to protégés. Previous educational psychology research has examined the role of mentoring as it relates to self-regulation, self-efficacy, career promotions, motivation and other constructs. Epistemic cognition relates to the understanding of the nature of knowledge and knowing. Epistemic cognition relates to the development, in which one’s understanding of knowledge evolves from a belief that knowledge is finite, must be passed down by expert authorities toward an …

Mojave Desert Children's Picture Book, Kaesee Bourne

Undergraduate Research Symposium Podium Presentations

Why the Mojave? Climate Change in the Mojave; Animals reaching thresholds; Current picture books available.

Focused And Autonomous Writing Through Objects, Yvonne Houy

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Objects—carefully curated—help focus discussions and knowledge explorations, and become the basis of student-centered scholarly writing when Object-based learning (OBL) is combined with structured research writing assignments using the Cornell Notes questions in a Google form.

Educators cannot eliminate distractions but can encourage focus and attention (Lang, Distracted, 2020, 1-24). I propose using curated objects to focus student attention: Such object-based learning (OBL) allows students to engage holistically with otherwise abstract facts, figures and frameworks (Chatterjee and Hannan, 2016). Combining OBL with structured active note taking, such as through the Cornell note taking method, “can lead to efficient study practices, better …

Mural: An Online Space For Co-Creating Meaning And Understanding, Kimberly James

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Building an online community around learning has been challenging throughout the academic and artistic disruptions caused by the COVID 19 pandemic. In order to promote remote interaction and educe student contributions, I utilized MURAL, a virtual, collaborative whiteboard, several times during AY2020-2021 to co-create meaning and understanding of common pedagogic topics that are applied in my studio. This practice allowed all participants to contribute ideas, make revisions, and enjoy new “aha” moments in real-time with far less pressure and concern for feeling “called out” or being “wrong.”

These activities benefitted the students and the overall wellness of the student participants …

A Stillness In The Desert? Engaging The Public Through An Immersive Exploration Of Southwest Soundscapes, Julian Kilker, Thomas Bjelic

Creative Collaborations

The pandemic highlighted the anthropocentric nature of soundscapes, while the recent popularity of electric cars, quadcopters, and “noise cancellation” earbuds demonstrated how consumer products can rapidly change our awareness of sound. While light pollution is already extensively addressed in scholarly research, popular works such as The End of Night, and public engagement such as The International Dark Sky Association, the complex interplay of sound, natural resources, and public engagement is still emerging, particularly in creative fields.

Two UNLV scholars and artists are collaborating on this project: Julian Kilker, who specializes in visual and emerging technology research, and Tom Bjelic, who …

Trauma-Informed Performance Art Education, Yvonne Houy, Kymberly Mellen, Alethea Inns, Morgan Iommi

Creative Collaborations

Trauma is the emotional response to a disturbing event or series of events, and can cause symptoms such as unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, headaches, and nausea, according to the American Psychological Association (2022). Learning activities in the performing arts - such as adjusting the body through touch, or the emotional content of scenes - can retraumatize students unintentionally. In contrast, creating the conditions for emotional states that enhance learning is a science, and an art, that can support conditions for optimal performance including Flow states

Performing arts educators can proactively support students and performances by becoming trauma-informed and actively using intimacy …

Architone•Ics: The Music Of Architecture — Music As An Entry Point For Understanding Architectural Design, Deborah J. Oakley, Diego Vega

Creative Collaborations

Architecture and Music share many fundamental concepts in common. German polymath Goethe famously described architecture as “frozen music.” Numerous renowned architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Kahn among others, were also accomplished musicians and wrote of the connections between the two disciplines. A particularly noteworthy example of overlapping and crossing boundaries is the Greco-French composer Iannas Xenakis. Regarded as an influential figure in late 20th century avant-garde music, his first education and occupation, was actually as a structural engineer for famed architect LeCorbusier. He later practiced architecture himself before focusing on music composition, for which he is better known. …

Transdisciplinarity In Experience Design: A Global Survey Of Higher Ed Programs In Exd/Xd, Yvonne Houy

Creative Collaborations

In our age of ubiquitous devices and digital media it is the perceived value of the end-to-end experience that brings people to a place. Designing inspiring and emotionally engaging end-to-end experiences requires experts in a wide range of disciplines committed to an interdisciplinary collaboration that can arrive at transdisciplinary design - the sum becomes greater than its parts.

Civil engineering, hospitality, business, psychology, digital User Experience (UX) design, and experience data analysis need to be seamless integrated with the fine and performing arts and design fields:

• Architecture, interior, landscape and sound design actively engage the senses.

• Graphic and fine arts …

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The Experience Of Self-Coherence: Self-Coherence As The Hub Of All Needs, April Ursula Fox

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Self-coherence as the hub of all needs is a novel proposition made by Carol Dweck (2017), and not yet further explored. While supporting self-coherence with a comprehensive review of its presence within behavioral sciences, Dweck does not dive deeper into it, and offers an invitation for further research of its workings. In this study I respond to that invitation. I design a continuation to her theory. I also expand her theory to include what I have found to be missing, but essential, additional components that cannot be ignored within the context of self-coherence as a master sensor of needs. Finally, …

A Tribe Called Trump: The Motivation Behind The Education Line & Why People Of Color Voted For The Bully-In-Chief, Leah P. Hollis

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

Throughout the 2020 election, a constant question arose, “How can they vote for Trump?” Within the context of tribalism and the disenfranchised status created by the deteriorated blue-collar job market, I reflect on labor history to explain how those who are denied affordable education are left out of the American dream. This trend disproportionately affects the Black community. In turn, these populations potentially remain reminiscent of how America was great for them in the past. Supported by descriptive statistics, I reflect on the educational line in red and contested states during the 2020 presidential election. The paper concludes with the …

‘Damn Deleuze’: The Unexpected Artefacts Of Reading Together, Maureen A. Flint, Carlson H. Coogler

Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education

What does reading together produce? As we read A Thousand Plateaus together, Deleuze and Guattari butted into our dreams, our art-making, and our everyday lives. We found that their concepts were active, blurring the lines between theory, method and art. In this paper, we follow these invasions and interruptions of our thinking and living, collecting and discussing them as artefacts that help us make sense of reading and writing together as methodological, theoretical, artful inquiry. By taking up and sharing artefacts -- fragments of encounters, snapshots of artmaking, quotes from novels or poetry that embedded in our conversations about haecceity …

The “East Side” Of Las Vegas: A Latinx Historical Framework, Nathalie Martinez

Spectra Undergraduate Research Journal

Spanish heritage speakers in the United States are a reflection of everchanging linguistic and sociolinguistic pressures that result in myriad varieties across generations. This paper provides a preliminary historical framework to fill this gap of linguistic knowledge in the Spanish-speaking community of Las Vegas, Nevada. The goals were two-fold: (1) highlight the largest Spanish-speaking communities in Las Vegas and (2) explore the significance of the East Side in the history of the Latinx population of Las Vegas. Through the analysis of oral histories and historical works, the investigation highlights the Mexican, Salvadoran, and Cuban populations of Las Vegas and their …

Qualitative Review Of Educational Interventions For Improving Physical Activity Behaviors In Older Asian Americans In The United States, Raisa Kabir, Manoj Sharma, Sayeda Tazim Zaidi, Chia-Liang Dai

Spectra Undergraduate Research Journal

Physical activity (PA) provides numerous health benefits and minimizes chronic diseases and mental health issues, especially in older adults. The national survey data indicated that only 27.3% to 44.3% of older adults meet the recommended PA guidelines of 150 to 300 minutes/ week. There is limited data on PA behavior among older Asian American (AA) adults as very few to no local/national surveys have targeted these marginalized subgroups. This comprehensive review aims to identify existing PA intervention strategies and to update current knowledge on the effectiveness of these interventions to improve PA behavior among aging AA in the US. The …

The Future Of The Live Entertainment Tax In Southern Nevada, Katie M. Gilbertson

Spectra Undergraduate Research Journal

The Live Entertainment Tax (LET) in Nevada generated nearly one billion dollars during the 2019-2020 fiscal year. LET revenue all goes to the State General Fund, even though 97 percent of LET revenue is generated in Clark County. Nevada is experiencing an economic crisis, particularly in the tourism industry. Solutions from various fields suggest the best way to boost the local economy is to reinvest revenue in its original county. One policy solution Nevada policymakers should consider is to carve out a percentage of revenue generated by the LET to return directly back to Clark County to revitalize tourism.

Diabetes Mellitus Affects Working Memory, Dylone C. Braganza, Emmanuel Flores, Lauren A. Crew, Ryan A. Wirt, Andrew A. Ortiz, Adam M. Mcneela, Jefferson W. Kinney, James M. Hyman

Spectra Undergraduate Research Journal

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) degrades the brain’s ability to remember, think, and carry out tasks. The exact cause is not known, but several risk factors have been identified, including diabetes mellitus (DM). DM causes elevated blood sugar levels due to reduced insulin production in the pancreas. The linkage between elevated glucose levels and the behavioral impairments are not fully understood, which was the focus of this study. Rats were trained to alternate directions in a maze to receive a reward on consecutive trials. After training, five rats were injected with streptozotocin (STZ), which induces hyperglycemia by injuring pancreatic beta cells. Three …

A Timeline Of Discovery And Current Research On Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma And Emergence Of Potentially Permanent Treatment Solutions, Yonosuke Dejesus, Guadalupe Moreno Ceballos

Spectra Undergraduate Research Journal

This research examines the timeline of the discovery and research of Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma (POAG). By reviewing the literature on genetic and molecular mechanisms, we aim to emphasize a long-term treatment solution (iSTENT) to mitigate intraocular pressure (IOP) related to POAG etiology and disease progression. POAG is a multifactorial, autosomal dominant, adult-onset eye disease wherein the optic nerve cells become damaged due to a buildup of excess aqueous humor, resulting in increased IOP. Consequently, POAG leads to progressive loss of peripheral vision and is the leading cause of blindness in the US. Due to the multifactorial nature of glaucoma’s inheritance …

Racial Profiling: Understanding The Practice Of Stop-And-Frisk In New York City, Lisa Ly

Spectra Undergraduate Research Journal

Racial profiling has become a prominent issue in modern policing today. Instead of being based on individual suspicion, racial profiling embodies a belief that people of color are continuously singled out by the police for scrutiny and harassment. Policies and procedures make the Black community vulnerable to police discrimination and racial profiling. Floyd et al. v. City of New York et al. (2013) declared that the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) practice of stop-and-frisk was racially profiling Black civilians. This study sought (1) to determine if the NYPD post-Floyd is still engaging in racial profiling towards Black civilians; and (2) …

An Orchestral Percussionist's Guide To Instruments Of The Caribbean, Lucas Brust

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Sparked by the introduction of Janissary percussion into the works of the First Viennese School, composers have been steadily expanding the musical responsibilities and tonal palette of the orchestral percussion section. Most institutions of higher education extensively address the traditional orchestral percussion instruments and only relatively recently have these institutions begun incorporating the more “exotic” percussion instruments from various indigenous musical traditions. With the resources and proposed performance practices suggested in this document, orchestral percussionists can gain the knowledge and familiarity to identify the instruments by name and construction, demonstrate fluency in technique and sound production, and display basic understanding …