Educational Methods Commons^™

Utopia And Contemporary Human Society: A Model For Sustainable Continuance, David Blake Corman

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Sir Thomas More’s Utopia outlines a bustling, blissful society in which all individuals live equitably, happily, and comfortably. Utopia, which literally means “no-place,” simply does not exist. However, More provides Utopia as a progressive template through which analogous contemporary social and economic structure may be assessed. Juxtaposing contemporary society with Utopia, a relatively superior or perfect state, illuminates some factors inhibiting modern society from otherwise ascending to the state and functionality of a Utopia.

Tears Of A Jester, Anjali Chacko

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

As I stared at my former doctor in her casket, I felt my throat tighten and the stomach acid climb up. Mary looked so different from the pictures her family had placed near her body. Her skin seemed thicker in death. She appeared much paler, almost sallow, and her body sagged in all the wrong ways. I joined the procession of mourners and thought about how poorly the makeup artist had done their job. I mean, it was bad—it looked as if someone had just slapped some lipstick all over her face and called it a day. I almost laughed …

She Asks For Something Hopeful, Alexander Lane

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

I reach into my pocket

searching

not for the cold-jagged teeth of car keys

—I was going to see him,

the autodidact—

not for almost empty key lime chapstick

—on our one and only coffee

date I took the plastic wrap

of the cap and frayed the edges

small—at first—then

larger—like a flower slow splitting

itself—

—apart—

Another Apocalypse, Jared Kohn

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

For a brief infinity, all was silent darkness, all were shadows layered lifelessly on top of one another, and the formless figures rattled only to breathe in the impossible abyss. There were no distinctions between woman and blanket, blanket and couch, couch and floor; light failed to reach the isolation of the living room. In fact, this living room seemed to exist before and after the passing of time, a perfect solitude that existed outside of the bells and whistles of the known gloom. The heat was heavy and the body hidden beneath layers of shadow and blanket lurched through …

Lyrics For Magnolia, Too, Sreyash Sarkar

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

As the beats of summer

Went down

Went down in Sorbonne

We were together

We were together

In the shades

Of perplexity

And magnolia too.

Talking of death

What would

What would indeed

Happen after that

Application Of The Modified Finite Difference Method To The 1-D Schrödinger Equation, Trevor A. Robertson, Jay Wang

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

The time-dependent Schrödinger equation (TDSE) is a fundamental law in understanding the states of many microscopic systems. Such systems occur in nearly all branches of physics and engineering, including high-energy physics, solid-state physics, and semiconductor engineering, just to name a few. A robust and efficient algorithm to solve this equation would be highly sought-after in these respective fields. This study utilizes the well-known method for solving the TDSE, the finite difference method (FDM), but with an important modification to conserve flux and analyze the 1-D case given well-known potentials. Numerical results that agree with theoretical predictions are reported. [3] It …

Flawed And Formidable: Galadriel, Éowyn, And Tolkien’S Inadvertent Feminism, Rachel Maddox

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

inspiring an intense fan base and Peter Jackson’s multimillion-dollar film series. However, the trilogy’s acceptance in the literary canon has been tepid at best, with critics discrediting the work for relying too heavily on elements of fantasy, while those who accept the trilogy as worthy of literary consideration are forced to confront Tolkien’s sexist views and the manifestation of these beliefs in his work. In keeping with his well-documented misogyny, it appears that Tolkien intentionally excluded women from his narrative: the Entwives are all inexplicably absent, powerful women are excluded from major scenes and events, and there are “more named …

Health Is Wealth: Behavioral Economic "Nudges" Applied To Health Care, Cameron Watts

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

“Health is wealth,” is a common catchphrase adopted by non-profits and clinics to describe the inherent value of investing in one’s physical and mental wellbeing. However, most people do not recognize the truth behind the phrase – the financial return on health investments. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported in 2010, that over 2.3 trillion dollars were spent to treat chronic and mental health diseases, many of which were preventable (Gerteis et al., 2016); Furthermore, the Congressional Budget Office expects 966 billion dollars to be spent on Medicare and Medicaid alone in 2018 (Projections for Major Health …

Bridging Aesthetic Theory: Comparing Scottish Enlightenment Theories To Modern Neuroscience Evidence, Calen Smith

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

Artistic disciplines burgeoned in Scotland during the eighteenth century. As fields such as sculpture, painting, literature, and music thrived, so did philosophy. Responding to the advancements of the fine arts, philosophers such as Hume, Reid, and Hutcheson began to write about the philosophy of art—aesthetics. Though they addressed a variety of themes in their writings, aesthetic theory can generally be characterized by three main questions: does beauty originate internally (person) or externally (object), are there universal traits that create beauty, and lastly, what is the role of the critique (expert) in recognizing and interpreting beauty? Three hundred years later, academic …

Academic Twitter And Professional Learning: Myths And Realities, Muireann Okeeffe

Articles

Social networking sites provide opportunities for informal and social learning of academic practices in higher education, yet not all academics engage in these spaces. This qualitative study suggests that while Twitter offers informal opportunities for academi development, inhibiting factors prevent staff from establishing their social presence and participating in conversations on academic Twitter.

Using Interactive Digital Wall (Iwall) Technology To Promote Active Learning, Cheryl Bagley Thompson, Suhasini Kotcherlakota, Patrick Rejda, Paul Dye

Innovation in Pedagogy and Technology Symposium

Using Interactive Digital Wall (iWall) Technology to Promote Active Learning

Garrat

Cheryl Thompson (UNMC), Suhasini Kotcherlakota (UNMC), Patrick Rejda (UNMC), Paul Dye (UNMC)

UNMC's iWall technology bridges College of Nursing campuses across the state. The multi-taction iWall consists of from 9-12 high resolution video panels. These panels provide interactive monitor space on which to project class content and simultaneously allow instructor and student interaction with content. The iWalls across the state are connected, allowing interactions between students in different locations. Students at home or sites without iWall are able to view and participate in class activities via webinar technology. This …

Beyond Closed Captioning The Other Ada Accessibility Requirements, Analisa Mcmillan, Peggy Moore

Innovation in Pedagogy and Technology Symposium

Did you know that there is more to making your online course ADA accessible than just closed captioning your videos? Join us as we uncover the ADA accessibility requirements in Sections 508 refresh. In this session, we will discuss how to design your online course space, your materials, and documents to meet the compliance standards. Learn the whys and how’s to formatting your PDFs, PPTs, Canvas content pages, word documents and multimedia to meet standards as well as considerations for colorblindness.

Learning To Learn Online - Helping Online Students Navigate Online Learning, Suzanne Withem

Innovation in Pedagogy and Technology Symposium

Students spend the first 13 years of their schooling learning how to be good students in the physical classroom, but receive little to no direct instruction in how to be successful online students. By developing a “Learning to Learn Online” module for students new to online learning at UNO, the Office of Digital Learning is helping prepare students to be successful online learners and freeing up faculty to focus on course content rather than instruction in the use of digital tools or study skills. This session will introduce strategies for developing and implementing similar online student-readiness programs to prepare students …

Students As Creative Forces To Enhance Curriculum Via E-Learning, Betsy Becker, Peggy Moore, Dele Davies

Innovation in Pedagogy and Technology Symposium

Academic institutions are seeking to enhance student centered teaching with active educational encounters, but development can be hampered by limited time and resources. This session focuses on the successful engagement of student-faculty teams to create interactive e-learning modules to enhance our medical school and other health science programs curricula. UNMC launched the "UNMC Student E-Learning Program" for student and faculty teams to build interactive elearning modules. We started with a competitive application process, informational meetings, and a comprehensive website with resources to guide development. Then student developers, with their faculty advisors, utilized our E-Learning Studio to access tools and e-learning …

Broaden Your Passion! Women In Stem, Barbara Oakley

Innovation in Pedagogy and Technology Symposium

Women and men develop with equal, often outstanding, abilities in math and science. However, one of women’s advantages is that they also often have a developmental edge over men when it comes to verbal abilities. The result? When women hear the ubiquitous advice to “follow their passions,” they sometimes turn towards their undeniable strengths outside STEM. Some subjects—like STEM—take longer for women and men to master. This talk helps women recognize that it’s sometimes important to be patient with passion—don’t just follow your passions, broaden them!

Structuring Security For Success, Matt Morton, Rick Haugerud

Innovation in Pedagogy and Technology Symposium

Structuring Security for Success An overview of the approach and strategy for the reorganization of security. Review of the structure and how it aligns with others in the industry and best practices. What the future plans are and where do we see the organization growing to address the increased needs for security now and in the next 5 years.

Collaborating Across Nu For Accessible Video, Heath Tuttle, Jane Petersen, Jaci Lindburg

Innovation in Pedagogy and Technology Symposium

Recent budget trends have led to more collaboration across university systems. These collaborations help members solve common problems, share resources, and develop and support innovative initiatives beyond what individual institutions could do alone. Historically, higher education institutions have fallen behind in ensuring accessibility for teaching and learning systems in general, and specifically for video. In the past several years, the University of Nebraska campuses have seen an increased need to meet accessibility requirements for video, particularly in online courses. In this session, members of ITS from each campus will present processes and outcomes that led to selecting ilos as the …

Closing Keynote. Navigating Change: It's A Whitewater Adventure, Marjorie J. Kostelnik

Innovation in Pedagogy and Technology Symposium

Some people think of higher education as a sleepy backwater, where hardly anything changes too often. But for all of us living through it right now, higher education has become a whitewater adventure! Change is happening all around us in hundreds of different ways. Today, we’ll explore the who, why, how and what of change.

• Who is changing…who is promoting change…who has to live with the change

• Why are some people just better at change than others and what can you do to help your organization move forward?

• How can you manage change best … both as …

Extending The Conversation About Teaching With Technology, Marlina Davidson, Timi Barone, Dana Richter-Egger, Ryan Schuetzler, Jaci Lindburg

Innovation in Pedagogy and Technology Symposium

Over the past two years, UNO has increased the number of online course selections by nearly 50 percent, offering seven fully online undergraduate programs, seven fully online graduate programs, and an assortment of online minors, certificates, and endorsements. The need to expand the conversation about teaching with technology and cultivating effective online teaching environments has never been more important, as UNO seeks to maintain our growth in online learning and retain our current students taking online courses. A strategy introduced in 2017 that has been extremely effective has been the Faculty Liaisons for Instructional Design Program, co-sponsored by the Office …

Your Learners, Their Devices & You: Incorporating Byod Technology Into Your Didactics, Tedd Welniak

Innovation in Pedagogy and Technology Symposium

It is theorized that mobile technology, in its place alongside other “intellectual technologies” throughout human history, has contributed to significant shifts in the way that newer generations discover, interpret, interact with, and learn new information. The BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) movement in education has been touted as a means of actively and individually engaging these learners with content using technology that many of them may already own or are familiar with. The depth to which this movement has been applied in the medical and graduate medical education communities has been variable, partly owing to the fact that only recently …

Hidden Treasures: Lesser Known Secrets Of Canvas, Julie Gregg, Melissa Diers, Analisa Mcmillan

Innovation in Pedagogy and Technology Symposium

Join us as we explore some of the little-known Canvas secrets and tools that you can use to make your user experience more manageable in the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS). In this session, we will share tools, tips, and tricks that will help you take your Canvas skills to the next level. We did the research and want to share the tools and tricks we found that will help you m

Critical Coaching: Approaching Literacy Coaching Through A Critical Lens, Melissa Wells

Education Faculty Articles

Based in critical theory, this qualitative case study explored how a new genre of literacy coaching, called critical coaching, developed and what outcomes it produced. The researcher (a literacy coach) built a critical coaching partnership with an early childhood teacher, and two findings emerged: (1) self-reflection occurred through defining educators’ identities as cultural beings, as well as by naming and challenging assumptions; and (2) taking action occurred through critical networks, advocacy in public spaces, and planning culturally relevant pedagogy. Implications include seven essential conditions for building critical coaching partnerships.

Possibility And Play: Ludonarratology As Liberating Praxis, Morgan Read-Davidson

English Faculty Articles and Research

Studying and composing ergodic media like interactive fiction can be one way of liberating students from the constraints of linear textual composition, encouraging them to explore and experiment with multimodality and remediation. A pedagogy that incorporates narratology and ludology teaches awareness of the remediation of narrative into digital, ludic media, and creates opportunities for the transfer of nonlinear, interactive writing practices back into more conventional writing. This paper describes an example of this pedagogical approach in a Writing for Video Games course, and the preliminary steps toward understanding how such praxis might transfer to writing in new contexts.

2018 Bachelor's Degree Exit Survey, Southwestern Oklahoma State University

Assessment Center Reports

Exit Surveys produced by the SWOSU Assessment Center.

2017-2018 Continuous Improvement, Southwestern Oklahoma State University

Assessment Center Reports

The 2017-2018 Continuous Improvement report produced by the SWOSU Assessment Center

Proposed: Technical Communicators Collaborating With Educators To Develop A Better Efl Curriculum For Ecuadorian Universities, Daniel Jack Williamson

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

This policy and action research in the form of a case study of language policy in Ecuador posits, with a pragmatic view, that students’ backgrounds, prior knowledge, and learning objectives should significantly impact curriculum development. Applying principles of information development, such as conducting usability studies and generating appropriate user profiles, technical communicators produce user-friendly documentation. Pairing technical communicators with educators to collaborate in the parallel processes of information development and curriculum development may yield instructional materials more useful to students than currently available materials are. An etic perspective is appropriate for this study for it does not presuppose what the …

Creating A Sustainable Mentoring Program, Laura L. Sanchez

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

One Size Does Not Fit All: Exploring Online-Language-Learning Challenges And Benefits For Advanced English Language Learners, Renee Kenney

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

Research has shown that traditional pen-and-paper methods of learning and teaching do not sufficiently reach all students with varying learning backgrounds, styles, and preferences. Thus, a shift toward multimodal instruction has occurred in which traditional methods are augmented by the viewing, listening and watching of a variety of technologies and media. This thesis explores how to implement multimodality within online spaces, utilizing social media platforms as instructional spaces for English Language Learners. The research presented shows that employing these platforms may supplement in-class work to give students opportunities and space to utilize English rhetorical tools, cultivate and express their second …

An Exploration Of Research And Resources Related To Aphasia: Creating A Resource Guide, Lexie Anne Velez Diaz

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of educators is to aid their students as they develop as their own individuals. Only through education can individuals grow to become the best version of themselves, in and out of the classroom. It is crucial for educators to be aware of the many different learners in the world, so teachers are prepared for any exceptional student that enters their classroom. That is why it is so important to educate oneself on the many exceptionalities and circumstances students are facing. Encompassed within the 13 disabilities identified in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 1975), are sub categories …

2018 Master's Degree Exit Survey, Southwestern Oklahoma State University

Assessment Center Reports

Exit Surveys produced by the SWOSU Assessment Center.