Digital Commons Network^™

Evaluating The Benefits Of “Science Of Learning To Learn” In Foundational Undergraduate Biology Courses, Kathryn M. Rafferty, Jenifer Utz, Christy Strong, Matthew Bernacki

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Our objective was to foster increased retention of freshman student and subsequent progression into upper division coursework by incorporating learning skill development and motivational activities into the Introductory Biology courses (BIOL190/191). Enhancement of the introductory biology courses at UNLV has the potential to improve the educational experiences of thousands of students, since about 600 to 800 students enroll in the introductory biology courses each semester. We have previously developed a multimedia learning skill intervention called "The Science of Learning to Learn" which covers the importance of self-testing, spacing out and scheduling study sessions, and managing one's goals, habits, and learning …

Creating Podcasts As Research Assignments With The Help If Unlv Libraries, David Ramos Candelas, Amber Sewell

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Communicating research and ideas via podcasts stretch students’ thinking beyond a traditional classroom assignment, encourgaging: Creative critical thinking Increased sense of ownership and pride over work Research, attribution, and synthesis skills in a publicly accessible, fun, and familiar format

Facilitating Freirean Pedagogy And Asset-Based Learning In An Asynchronous Environment In A Doctoral Public Health Course, Manoj Sharma, Liliana Davlos, Sharmistha Roy

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

The Department of Social and Behavioral Health offers an asynchronous course, Advanced Applications of Social and Behavioral Theories (HED 762), to doctoral students in public health. In this course, commonly used behavior and social change theories are taught. One such theory is the Freirean theory of adult education, which emphasizes dialogue, critical conscientization, praxis, transformation, and critical consciousness. The instructor of this course uses a variety of methods to imbibe this pedagogy that comprise (a) the use of the fourth-generation multi-theory model (MTM) of health behavior change to motivate students, (b) Freirean dialogue in the Canvas discussion forum with students …

Arts Integration: Teaching Through The Senses Just Makes Sense!, Isabella Shenouda, Noah Karnafel, Hongming Xu

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Arts Integration is a high-impact teaching practice for both higher education and K-12 settings. Because students bring diverse backgrounds, learning preferences, and ways of making meaning, the arts offer flexible, multi-sensory pathways to content comprehension that traditional lecture-based and text-based instruction often cannot. Drawing on classroom evidence from an Honors First-Year Seminar at UNLV in which students identified an arts-based workshop as their favorite lesson, we argue that creative, hands-on activities deepen knowledge retention and foster genuine intellectual engagement. Arts Integration is inherently an asset-based and inclusive practice, as it encourages students to connect through various sensory learning experiences, whether …

Using “Ticket Out” To Create A Continuous Feedback Loop For Student Learning, Jacob D. Skousen

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

This presentation highlights the use of a brief end-of-class “Ticket Out” to create a continuous feedback loop for student learning. Students reflect on learning targets and provide feedback on the class experience, which is then analyzed and used to guide instructor response, follow-up communication, and instructional adjustments. The practice supports reflective teaching, student voice, and timely, responsive instruction.

The Prep‑Check Routine: How Students Prepare With Ai, Homa Soroudi-Terzian

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

This poster presents a simple, repeatable Attempt & Audit routine that supports students in using AI as a learning partner rather than a shortcut. The Prep_Check structure guides students to attempt a problem on their own, ask AI for help on only one part, compare their work with the AI’s reasoning, and reflect on differences. This routine promotes metacognition, reduces anxiety, and helps students build confidence and independence in gateway math courses.

Playing To Learn: Game-Based Maternal-Newborn Review Using "Forbidden Words" (Taboo-Style), Nikki Rose Ty-Albright

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

TEACHING PRACTICE & NEED IT ADDRESSES Prelicensure nursing students often struggle to translate medical terminology into patient-friendly language (Rodrigues & Moreira, 2022) Gen Z learners frequently disengage from traditional post-conference lecture formats (Thi, 2025) "Forbidden Words" (Taboo-style) game used during post-clinical conference to bridge this gap in an engaging way Students explain maternal-newborn concepts in jargon-free language while avoiding forbidden words on a card

Streaming Success: Using Summer Fellowships And Asynchronous Lecture Videos To Scale Relationship-Rich Learning In Large Enrollment Courses, Van "Docdoc" Whaley

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Supported by SIHS Summer Teaching Fellowships, this initiative developed 110+ asynchronous lecture videos embedded in Canvas to enhance accessibility, engagement, and alignment across large-enrollment A&P courses. Results include 92,000 minutes of views for the 2025 vides, 330,000 minutes viewed of the 2024 videoss, and over 4.8 million minutes of total student engagement and documented impact on student outcomes and program scalability.

Sparking Engagement: Using "Lightning Debates" To Transform Dry Policy Into Dynamic Learning, Minnie Wood, Ericka Yelle, Necole Leland

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

To address a gap in health policy application among nursing undergraduates, we piloted Lightning Debates, a high-energy teaching strategy that replaces passive lecture with active learning. Students are assigned Pro or Con stances on contentious local policies, using role-play and improvisation to present evidence-based arguments in five-minute sprints. This asset-based approach leverages student creativity to deconstruct complex fiscal and clinical issues. Results demonstrate significant impact: 87.5% of students reported an improved ability to analyze policy, and the percentage of graduates feeling prepared to apply policy knowledge rose from 57% to 77%. This session provides scalable implementation tips for fostering critical …

Using Exit Tickets To Drive Reflective And Responsive Instruction, Melissa Yarczower

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Exit tickets are an effective formative assessment tool for promoting student reflection and guiding responsive instruction. Exit tickets were used at the end of each class session to help students identify key takeaways, assess their understanding, and connect new learning to prior knowledge and professional practice. Exit ticket responses allowed for timely instructional adjustments, including reteaching key concepts, clarifying misunderstandings, and scaffolding complex content. Summarizing themes at the start of each class strengthened continuity between sessions and established a predictable reflective routine. Implementation of this strategy increased student engagement, participation, and metacognitive awareness because students were able to clearly articulate …

Preparing Dental Students To Lead Teledentistry Programs Addressing Oral Health Inequities: An Evidence-Informed Teaching Practice Grounded In Multi-Theory Model (Mtm) & Social Cognitive Theory (Sct), Asma Awan, Christina Demopoulos, Manoj Sharma

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

The rapid expansion of telehealth and teledentistry demands dental professionals proficient in remote care delivery, digital communication, and community-based service models. This practice prepares students to lead and implement teledentistry programs addressing oral health inequities among underserved and rural populations in Nevada and beyond

The Importance Of Relational Teaching In Introductory Statistics, Nathan Matthew Slife

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

This poster presents relational teaching strategies for introductory statistics courses.

Psychedelic Research In The Modern Day: Good Or Bad?, Shane Miller

Mechanical Engineering Student Research

This work is about the usage/safety of psychedelic substances, and I explain whether they are good or bad in terms of other drugs, such as alcohol.

Is Less More? An Analysis Of Microblogs Vs. Discussion Forums As Tools For Understanding The Public, Marco Castillo

Publications and Research

Social media platforms offer valuable tools for public administrators seeking to assess public sentiment on policy issues, especially in urban areas with diverse stakeholder interests. This study investigates how public administrators can leverage social media by comparing communications on Reddit’s discussion forum platform with X’s microblogging platform. I hypothesize that Reddit fosters more subjective, nuanced discussions, providing richer insights into public sentiment. To test this, sentiment and regression analyses are conducted on communications about urban cycling on both platforms. Results indicate that while Reddit facilitates deeper exploration of public issues, X also effectively assesses public sentiment. The study concludes by …

Test-Retest Reliability And Internal Consistency Of The Occupational Resilience Measure (Orm 1.0), Bernard A. Muriithi, Milan Bimali, Kara Gore

Occupational Therapy Faculty Scholarship

Background: The Occupational Resilience Measure (ORM 1.0) is a 20-item, multidimensional self-report tool for measuring occupational resilience, a construct defined as an individual’s ability to persist in performing occupations despite barriers. Objective: This study evaluated test-retest reliability and internal consistency and explored the extent to which ORM 1.0 is a reliable measure across a diverse range of activity types. Methods: Ninety-four participants completed the test and retest measurements within a 2- to 3-week period. A total of 202 activities were included in the analysis, grouped into leisure (LE) [94], productivity (PD) [35], and self-care (SC) [73]. Findings: The …

Redefining Certainty: Non-Euclidean Geometry And Theology Transformation Throughout The Intellectual Unrest Of The Early 1800s, Luke Bensinger

Honors Theses

To bridge the gap between mathematics and theology, it is necessary to explore their intersection and challenge the notion that these fields are incompatible. This study focuses on the 19th century, a period when non-Euclidean geometries emerged and disrupted mathematical certainty, while Protestant theologians such as Barton W. Stone and Alexander Campbell grappled with Calvinism and shifting theological perspectives. By analyzing mathematicians studying geometry, such as Gauss, Lobachevsky, and Riemann, this research examines how both disciplines balance change with enduring truths.

How Speaker Gender Shapes Audience Perceptions Of Credibility: Responses To Humor, Reed Wilson

Honors Theses

This study aims to answer the question of whether the speaker’s gender, the participant’s gender, or the interaction between the two has an effect on the audience’s opinions of the message and the credibility of the speaker. Public speaking has been and continues to be a tool used by politicians, both on the campaign trail and as they seek to advance their agendas in the public sphere. Politicians use humor to relate to their audience and enhance their likeability and credibility. Google VEO 3’s generative text-to-video AI capabilities were used to create two videos of political speakers, one male and …

Greeting Death “Sitting Up:” How Children’S Literature Provides Modern Death Education, Reilly Kendrick

Honors Theses

Western culture places a lot of importance on legacy and friendship as important lessons to learn from death. However, children do not have as much experience with death due to changing cultural customs, and our society lacks a formal death education system that can promote these values and teach children how to respond to death in their lives. Literature, though, can fill this gap in children’s knowledge by teaching the basic physical components of death and philosophical understandings of death. These ideas are learned through vicarious reading, in which children experience the character’s emotions and reactions as they read. The …

Reinforcement Learning Improves Llm Accuracy And Reasoning In Disease Classification From Radiology Reports, Yishu Wei, Yi Lin, Adam Flanders, George Shih, Yifan Peng

Department of Radiology Faculty Papers

Accurate disease classification from radiology reports is essential for many applications. While supervised fine-tuning (SFT) of lightweight LLMs improves accuracy, it can degrade reasoning. We propose a two-stage approach: SFT on disease labels followed by Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) to refine predictions by optimizing accuracy and format without reasoning supervision. Across three radiologist-annotated datasets, SFT outperformed baselines and GRPO further improved classification and enhanced reasoning recall and comprehensiveness.

Comparison Of Chatgpt, Claude Ai, And Dental Students In The Detection Of Artifacts On Panoramic Radiography, Elif Çeçen Erol, Ceren Aktuna Belgin, Gözde Serindere, Kaan Gunduz

Journal of Dentistry Indonesia

Background: Accurate radiographic diagnosis requires images obtained with proper technique. Artifacts are unwanted irregularities or densities not produced by the primary X-ray beam and may obscure anatomical details in radiographic images. This retrospective study aimed to evaluate the performance of ChatGPT, Claude AI, and intern dental students in detecting artifacts in panoramic radiographs (PRs).

Methods: Between January and December 2024, panoramic radiographs of 40 patients containing 74 artifacts (motion, mispositioning, airway/soft tissue, and foreign body/metal artifacts) were retrospectively evaluated. The artifact detection performance of ChatGPT-4.0, Claude AI 3.5 Sonnet, and intern dental students was subsequently evaluated and compared …

Adherence To Malaria Treatment And Its Associated Factors: A Narrative Review, Lafie Urwatul Wutsqo, Eli Halimah, Sofa Dewi Alfian

Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacy Research

Malaria is an infectious disease that remains a global health concern, particularly in Asia and Africa. The success of malaria medication largely depends on patients' adherence to the prescribed therapeutic regimen. This article aims to identify the level of adherence to malaria treatment and the factors that influence it, based on observational studies. A narrative review was conducted using the PRISMA approach, involving 12 articles published between 2019 - 2023 from various countries. The results indicate that adherence levels vary widely, ranging from 15.6% to 93.31%, depending on respondent characteristics and the intervention strategies implemented. Factors influencing adherence include patient-related …

Catur Piwulang: The Concept Of Great Leaders In Javanese Paradigm, Nuri Puji Hastuti

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Leaders can be a key factor in determining whether a nation experiences a flourishing or declining period. However, numerous phenomena indicate that Indonesia is losing its great leaders. Based on this problem, this research aims to explain and describe the forms, meanings, and functions of catur piwulang as the concept of great leaders in the Javanese paradigm. A descriptive qualitative method has been used. The syntax consists of data collection, reduction, display data, and conclusion. Data validity was checked through the triangulation of theories, resources, and techniques. The forms of catur piwulang are 1) wewehono teken, teken wong kalunyon, …

Balanced Scorecard In Healthcare Facilities: A Ten-Year Review Of Strategies To Improve Organizational Effectiveness, Larasati Tunggadewi, Sofa Dewi Alfian, Auliya A Suwantika

Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacy Research

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) has increasingly been adopted as a strategic performance management framework within healthcare organizations. Evidence from the past decade shows varied implementation outcomes, shaped by institutional readiness, leadership commitment, and the maturity of health information systems. This narrative review synthesizes findings from 47 scientific articles selected through a systematic screening process, covering studies conducted in hospitals, primary health centers, and pharmacy units in Indonesia, Morocco, Iran, China, and other countries. The studies employed case study and descriptive cross-sectional designs using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Overall, BSC implementation contributed to improvements in service performance across the financial, …

Exploring Protein-Protein Interactions: A Promising Avenue For Biomarker And Anti-Tb Drug Development, Rajwa Dwifauza Suryanto, Maritsa Widati Aqila Rumawan, Imam Adi Wicaksono

Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacy Research

In 2023, tuberculosis (TB) reached its highest incidence with 8.2 million new cases reported by the World Health Organization (WHO). The virulence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) is strongly governed by protein-protein interactions (PPIs) that regulate essential processes such as cell wall biosynthesis, immune evasion, and persistence. This study aims to map and analyze the mechanisms of key PPIs in MTB using a scoping review approach. Data was retrieved from PubChem and related literature with the keyword ``PPIs Network TB''. Our findings highlight crucial PPI-driven mechanisms, including the role of DprE1/DprE2 in arabinogalactan synthesis, VapB4/VapC4 in stress response and self-toxicity, ESX-1 …

Second April 2026 General Education Council Minutes, University Of Nebraska At Kearney General Education Council

General Education Council

No abstract provided.

A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Finds That Psychological Well-Being Predicts All-Cause Mortality Independently Of Psychological Ill-Being., Max Genecov, David Yeager

Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: Does psychological well-being (e.g. life satisfaction, happiness, meaning in life) predict the length of a person’s life, or are measures of well-being simply assessing the absence of ill-being (depression, loneliness, sadness) and are therefore redundant with ill-being measures? Individual studies have examined this question by measuring and controlling for both well-being and ill-being, but inconsistent findings have been reported. METHODS: A systematic review and random-effects meta-analysis was conducted on the literature of prospective longitudinal studies linking all-cause mortality to well-being. Studies that controlled for ill-being were compared to studies that did not control for ill-being to identify the unique …

Preface Vol. 27 No. 1, The Editors Wacana

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

No abstract provided.

"Ta’Aruf", Pious Asceticism, And Shared Meaning-Making In Islamic Youtube Web Series, Andina Dwifatma

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

Islamic web series have recently become a notable cultural phenomenon in Indonesia. Unlike mainstream Islamic films, most Islamic web series are created by Muslim youth communities and distributed freely on social media platforms such as YouTube, reflecting a more innovative, grassroots approach to exploring identity. The creators of Islamic web series have greater flexibility in crafting narratives that reflect the experiences of young urban Muslims. Their interactive engagement with audiences, both online and offline, facilitates the collective negotiation and preservation of religious values through digital media. One of the recurring themes in these series is ta’aruf, the Islamic practice …

Staging The Commons Through The “Padha Nonton” Song; Youtube, Community Engagement, And Gandrung Cultural Practice, Intan Mustika Sari

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This study examines how the Gandrung accompaniment song “Padha nonton” participates in processes of digital cultural sharing when circulated on YouTube. It employs a qualitative interpretive method within a netno‑pragmatic framework to analyse audience engagement as a culturally informed social practice. The findings show that the song’s linguistic features convey cultural scripts of invitation, togetherness, and communal spectatorship, reflecting the role of the Gandrung tradition in shaping shared social relationships and cultural values. Furthermore, the study identifies three interrelated processes: re-medialization, re-experiencing, and re-conception through which the performance extends beyond its original ritual context and becomes a shared …

Preface Vol. 27 No. 2, The Editors Wacana

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

No abstract provided.