Education Commons^™

Anth 110: Introduction To Anthropology: A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Memo, Taylor A. Livingston

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio examines the extent to which the learning outcomes for Introduction to Anthropology (ANTH 110) were met through course assessments. The primary goal of this course is for students to engage with anthropological content, by introducing students to an anthropological perspective, which requires looking at issues from multiple contexts (holism), and having students add this to their “tool kit” to help them make sense of what they believe, why they believe it, and how to make sense of the world around them and their place in it. The alignment of outcomes and assessment was analyzed through an examination of …

Fdst 403/803 – Food Quality Assurance, Byron D. Chaves

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Food Science and Technology (FDST) 403: Food Quality Assurance is an upper level required course for FDST undergraduate majors at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The course covers food safety regulations, food safety management systems, and statistical process control applied to food safety and quality in food manufacturing. This Peer Review of Teaching Portfolio documents the course analysis and reflection for spring 2021. Two mid-semester student course evaluations were performed on March 1 and April 5, the lecture immediately after the midterm exams. Anonymous paper and online surveys were filled out during class time asking students to reflect on the course …

A First Project Benchmark Portfolio Of Biochemistry Ii: Metabolism And Biological Information (Bioc/Bios/Chem 432/832), Xinghui Sun

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio has been developed for Biochemistry II: Metabolism and Biological Information (BIOC/BIOS/CHEM 432/832). This course is taken primarily by senior undergraduates with majors mainly in biochemistry. The objectives of this course portfolio are: 1) to provide a broad overview for this 400 level class; 2) to revise/refine the course using a backward design approach with clear student learning objectives; 3) to assess and reflect the instructor’s teaching approach; and 4) to analyze and reflect on student learning. The course structure was redesigned with three modules to support the learning objectives of this course. Course activities for each module include …

A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio For Mued 403 Student Teaching Seminar, Danni Gilbert

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio examines the course planning and delivery of MUED 403—Student Teaching Seminar. Taken concurrently in the final semester of the music education degree with full-time student teaching field experiences, in addition to fulfilling the ACE 10 requirement, this course provides an analysis of PK-12 music teaching with special attention to teacher certification, selected legal aspects of education, current issues in education, and professional communication. I chose this course for the Peer Review of Teaching Project to determine whether undergraduate music education students could successfully complete an action research project during their student teaching semester and if so, whether the …

Vbms 403: Integrated Principles And Prevention Of Livestock Diseases, Christina L. Topliff

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio documents the teaching objectives, strategies, assessments, and changes implemented for VBMS 403: Integrated Principles and Prevention of Livestock Diseases, an Achievement-Centered Education (ACE) 10 Capstone course taught during the Spring Semester through the School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Teaching methods and course activities included traditional lecturing with quizzes and examinations, in-class discussions, short reading assignments, and the generation of a scholarly term paper demonstrating broad knowledge, technical proficiency, information collection, synthesis, interpretation, and presentation. This portfolio documents the qualitative and quantitative methods used to assess the course learning objectives (goals). My …

Crpl 495/895: Introduction To Transportation Planning (Crpl 463/863: Land Use And Transportation), Daniel P. Piatkowski

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio presents the results of the first year, peer review of teaching process for CRPL 495/895, Introduction to Transportation Planning. The course is split-level course for advanced undergraduates and graduate students, and has been offered at the University of Nebraska Lincoln since 2016. The course is an elective in the Masters of Community and Regional Planning graduate program. The course introduces students to the connections between Transportation and Land Use planning, and their impacts on urban form, health, sustainability, and social justice, and the planning tools available to influence this process. The course also addresses planning for multiple modes …

A Hybridized Class Format For Apparel Product Development Ll Studio Course: Tmfd 212 Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio, Sandra Starkey

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The benchmark portfolio for TMFD 212, Apparel Product Development ll, provides a broad overview of a studio course in Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design as well as a platform to document and evaluate the transition to a partially on-line hybrid course delivery format. In the past, TMFD 212 had been offered as a studio based in-person course. Due to the University’s restrictions in response to the pandemic, the hybrid format was adopted to accommodate students for classroom participation on one of two scheduled days a week and in response to guidelines for social distancing in the classroom. Three key components …

Peer Review Of Teaching Portfolio - Sped 990: Intervention Design Lll, Susan J. Loveall

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio documents the development of SPED 990: Intervention Design III, a doctoral course being taught for the first time in the Spring of 2021 in the Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders. The primary goals motivating my creation of this benchmark portfolio included: 1) deciding what to teach and how to teach it for the course’s first iteration, 2) understanding how this course fits into my department’s broader curriculum and doctoral training program, 3) upon completion of the course, reflecting on what worked and what didn’t to improve the course for future semesters, and 4) continuing my professional …

Evaluating Quiz And Outline Assessments In Rhetorical Methods, Justin Kirk

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

In what follows, I lay out the structure and development of assessment design for one of the major methods courses in Communication Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. First, I describe the course including the goals of the course, the student learning outcomes for the course, a description of the course’s place in the context of the department and the university, demographics in the course, and other relevant details necessary to understand the pedagogical goals of research methods in communication studies. Second, I lay out the teaching methods, course materials, and outside activities used throughout the course and connect those …

Fdst 420: Fruits And Vegetables Technology – A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Charles Nwaizu

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The aim of this portfolio is twofold: first, the portfolio serves to document the author’s approach to teaching while also providing necessary tools to revamp the course delivery methods to a more active learning format from traditional lecture format. Secondly, this portfolio evaluates the effects of students’ group lab discussion, students Interactive class trivia and interdisplinary students’ collaboration active learning approaches on student learning and performances in the course. The student group lab discussion activity involved modification of some of the lab tasks to include short questions listed under the lab procedure. These questions were discussed within the group and …

Course Portfolio For Cive 378 Materials Of Construction, Spring 2021, Congrui Grace Jin

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

CIVE 378 Materials of Construction is a required three-credit course for junior students at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of Nebraska Lincoln, which is taught every spring semester. Every spring about seventy undergraduate students register CIVE 378, most of whom are junior students and sophomore students majoring in civil engineering. Teaching quality of this course is very important for students’ learning of the fundamentals of construction materials. The aim of this course portfolio is threefold: (1) to demonstrate the intellectual work of teaching taking place inside and outside of the classroom of CIVE 378; (2) to …

Measuring Student Success In Jour200a: Fundamentals Of Editing & Reporting I: A Beginning Writing, Editing And Reporting Class, Jessica Fargen Walsh

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

A grammar error or typo on a resume can mean the difference between getting the job or having your resume deleted. Factual errors and inconsistencies can also affect a writer’s credibility. Accuracy, style, word choice and consistency matter for these reasons and more. Journalism students in particular should come to internships, classes and jobs with the skills they need to succeed. The course Jour200A: The Fundamentals of Reporting & Editing I attempts to meet this demand by providing all majors in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications with a strong foundation in editing and writing. This project sought to …

Nutr100 Healthy Living – A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio, Shinya Takahashi

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

NUTR100 Healthy Living is a gateway course for Nutrition and Health Sciences major students as well as students from other majors at UNL. The course is a large hybrid-online 100-level class. The course is an introductory course designed to help the students improve his/her level of well-being by understanding various risk factors and personal behaviors that affect health. The objectives of this portfolio were 1) Improve students’ preparation for exams by providing exam review sessions, 2) Improve students’ “healthy living practices” throughout the semester and beyond, and 3) Creating a sense of belongingness/community by sharing your experiences, providing constructive feedback, …

Course Portfolio For Mech 300: Thermal Systems And Design, Spring 2021, Mohammad Ghashami

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Thermal Systems and Design (MECH 300) is a three-credit course for junior students at the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering (MME) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which is taught every fall and spring semester. The usual enrollment in this course is about 40 undergraduate students most of whom are junior or sophomore students from the MME department. This course plays a significant role in completing students’ learning from MECH-200 and linking that to more advanced systems and real-life applications. There are two purposes for this portfolio. The first aim is that this portfolio serves to collect and document the …

An In-Depth Review Of Alec 305: Presentation Strategies For Agricultural Audiences, Ruth K. Taylor

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio reviews the class, ALEC 305: Presentation Strategies for Agricultural Audiences. This is junior-level class required for students majoring in Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Communication (AESC) and is an elective for students minoring in AESC or in Leadership and Communication. The class was also approved as a required class for the Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication (ALEC) major that is anticipated to launch in Fall 2022. As a core requirement for ALEC, the enrollment is anticipated to increase from 25 students to 50 students a year. This class focuses on practical presentations strategies that connect to students’ careers. Learning …

A Peer Review Of Teaching Portfolio — Stat 822: Statistical Methods Ii, Reka Howard

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The peer review of teaching program gave me the opportunity to reflect on my teaching in terms of pedagogical goals and methods for the course Stat 822: Statistical Methods II which is offered to MS level students in the Department of Statistics. Even though the course is part of the list of required courses for MS students in the department, typically about a third of the students are from other departments. The portfolio describes details about how the course fits into the MS program in the Department of Statistics, the context of the course, the learning objectives, expectations from students, …

A Benchmark Portfolio Evaluating The Fluency Disorders Components Of Slpa 967: Motor Aspects Of Verbal Communication, Naomi H. Rodgers

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

In Spring 2021, the Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders deployed the first iteration of a co-taught course titled “Motor Aspects of Verbal Communication” (SLPA 967). The students enrolled in this course were graduate students working towards a master’s degree in speech-language pathology. Historically, the topics in this course were taught in three standalone courses: fluency disorders, voice disorders, and motor speech disorders. In this newly developed course, the three instructors of those courses combined their expertise to engage students in an integrated course to promote critical thinking and clinical problem-solving. This portfolio documents the teaching and learning that …

Jour200a: Fundamentals Of Editing And Reporting I — Teaching Lede Writing For Digital/Print, Broadcast And Social Media Simultaneously, Chris Graves

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Fundamentals of Editing and Reporting I is a foundational course required for all majors in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. The first half of the course focuses on grammar, AP style, determining how to identify news and good editing. The second half of the course pivots to applying those principles in writing by focusing on teaching students how to summarize news facts, write them in an inverted pyramid news writing style for digital/print publication and also for broadcast and social media platforms. There are key differences in writing for various platforms …

Geog 181: Global Environmental Issues – A Faculty-Led Inquiry Into Reflective And Scholarly Teaching Benchmark Portfolio, Patrick Bitterman

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This benchmark portfolio is an examination of the structure of Global Environmental Issues (GEOG 181) and how the course materials facilitate student learning. The primary goal of this course is to investigate the nature of – and connections among - urgent global environmental issues in the context of geographic concepts and methods. As a large survey course, there are varied assessments that are punctuated with three summative exams. This portfolio assesses the current state of student learning prior to the addition of recitation sections. In doing so, it assesses exam performance over the course of the semester and by student …

Course Portfolio For Cnst 489: Senior Capstone Project – Fall 2021, Matthew Barrows

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio analyzes CNST 489 – Senior Capstone Project a class in the construction management department of The Durham School at the University of Nebraska. The results of this analysis will be used to improve the content delivered in class and increase the effectiveness of how the content is delivered. This portfolio focuses specifically on how participation by the construction industry in the classroom can increase student learning during their graduating semester. The senior level capstone class is a semester long project based on an actual construction project that is broken down into three main deliverables through the semester. The …

Stat 850 Course Portfolio, Susan Vanderplas

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Stat 850 is an introduction to statistical computing, providing students with the computing skills they need to do research, write papers, and succeed in statistics and quantitative fields. In this portfolio, I examine the impact of increased discussion of pseudocode and flow charts on students’ ability to solve multi-step problems. This additional scaffolding, while not completely effective, does seem to have resulted in lower student frustration, though it is not clear that this is a result of the intervention and not just a consequence of a different group of students with different experience in computational programming.

Setting The Foundation For Experiential Learning And Academic Success In Mbio 101: Introduction To The Microbiology Major, Brandi Sigmon

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Introductory courses for majors, typically completed by first-year students, are important to student success and retention as they set the foundation for students in their respective majors. At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Microbiology majors complete MBIO 101: Introduction to the Microbiology Major during their first semester as their introductory, foundational course. In this course portfolio, I chose to focus on investigating the impact on student learning of integrating more emphasis on experiential learning knowledge and acquisition within the course through the participation of students in a hands-on workshop and research symposium. Integration of these two events into the MBIO 101 …

Investigating Student Learning Outcomes In Visual Merchandising: A Peer Review Of Teaching Portfolio Of Tmfd 314 Textile And Apparel Merchandising And Promotion, Jennifer Johnson Jorgensen

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Students in TMFD 314 learn how to attract consumers to products found in brick-and-mortar stores and online, which leads to heightened sales for brands and retailers. However, based on shifting instruction of the course, it was anticipated that updates were needed. A pre-and post-test was employed to determine how updates should be approached, which helped to determine the students’ perceived level of knowledge on different topic areas. In addition, an investigation of student grades for the first and final project was also assessed to determine areas of possible improvement in the future. Overall, it became clear that a few key …

Acct 301: Using Accounting Information — A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio, Jill Trucke

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This benchmark course portfolio documents my process to evaluate and improve student learning in ACCT301, Using Accounting Information. This course is designed for non-accounting majors who desire to have a better understanding of different aspects of accounting that goes beyond the introductory financial and managerial accounting courses. It covers income taxes, financial statement analysis and internal controls. I had four objectives for this benchmark portfolio project:

1. To evaluate the quantity and quality of my assessments and course activities to ensure they are in line with the goals that I have for this course.

2. To ensure my goals are …

Enabling Conceptual Learning To Prepare Students For The New World Of Nutrition Communication, Sabine Zempleni

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

During the last decades, the flow of nutrition information between nutrition professionals and consumer has changed profoundly. Newest scientific findings are freely available from public data bases and often make it prematurely into the media and social media. Therefore, students need to require a precise knowledge of nutrition concepts, be able to explain the concepts to the consumer, and apply those concepts to eating decisions. Many students have not made the transition from memorizing individual facts to conceptual learning. Students will need appropriate learning tools and instructions to help them make this transition successfully. The goal of this Peer Review …

Strengthening Graduate Student Teaching Through The Basic Course: Comm 101: Communication In The 21st Century, Allison Ronnau Bonander

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Basic course instruction receives significant attention in relation to pedagogical practices and application. While this examination is very worthy, it often neglects to understand how Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) are trained, taught, and how their learning as teachers is examined. This portfolio examines COMM 101: Communication in the 21st Century, a large lecture basic course with recitations led by GTAs, as a means of understanding how GTAs are trained and taught to meet the “learning objectives” of teaching pedagogy of a basic course. A qualitative analysis of GTA training meetings transcripts as well as emails from GTAs – and select …

Czec 361/Hist 361: Czech History And Culture, Hana Waisserova

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The Benchmark Portfolio traces the process of rethinking my interdisciplinary course CZEC 361/HIST 361 “CZECH HISTORY AND CULTURE” taught for the first time in Spring 2021. The primary goal of the course was to provide students with understanding of the cultural history of the Czech(oslovak) and Central European region of the last two centuries. It explores the question of creating cultural history as a narrative to understand how the modern Czech national identity has been constructed since the times of national awakening, via the formation of Czechoslovakia, and in the course of the turbulent 20th century. In addition to main …

Agro 366: Soil Nutrient Relationships — A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio, Meghan Sindelar

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Soil Nutrient Relationships serves juniors and seniors with a major or minor in Agronomy. I originally cotaught this course with another professor and was in charge of just the lab portion. Now that I am the sole instructor I had goals of developing new content learning resources and better integrating lab and lecture content. The course was reorganized in 2021 into weekly modules with independent learning, lab time to work on calculations, using NebGuides, and other skill content, and then end of week discussion for relevant case studies or discussion of application and interactions. Students also conducted a group project …

Exploring The Benefits Of Asynchronous Online Learning In Mngt 360: Foundations Of Organizational Behavior, Amy L. Bartels

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This peer review course portfolio describes the shift from in-person teaching to an online, asynchronous format for MNGT 360: Foundations of Organizational Behavior. This course is offered in the Department of Management within the College of Business at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. My goal was to embrace the opportunities and tackle the challenges associated with online learning to generate learning opportunities outside the traditional classroom setting while concurrently creating an interactive environment to allow the students to learn from each other. I redesigned the group project to ease the challenges with online group dynamics and communication as well as the …

Fdst205 Food Composition Analysis — A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Mei Lu

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The purpose of this peer review of the teaching portfolio was to document and evaluate the course activities that are aimed at improving student learning in FDST205 Food Composition Analysis. This FDST205 is unique that it is offered exclusively to the students in the 3+1 International Food Science Dual Degrees Program established between the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) and Northwest Agricultural & Forestry University (NWAFU) in China. Students that enrolled in this course were a cohort of 55 sophomores in the 3+1 Food Science Dual Degrees Program. In spring 2021, the lecture part of FDST205 was offered online synchronously, while …