Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Commons^™

Examining Faculty’S Transition To 100% Online Learning During A Pandemic: A Narrative Inquiry, Christa Ann Banton, Jose Garza

The Qualitative Report

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) quickly emerged as an unprecedented pandemic that has impacted communities at every level. Although online teaching is not a new concept, many faculty entered new territory as they transitioned into the online learning environment at the onset of the pandemic. This qualitative, narrative inquiry sought to capture the unique experiences of on-ground faculty during the rapid transition into online learning. Through these twenty interviews, some emerging themes included the instability and usage of technology, changes in engagement and participation, and the need for additional student and faculty support. Emerging themes provide insight to future implications related …

Transforming Curriculum: A Process For Implementing Problem-Based Learning In A College-Level Course, Morgan Robertson, Marla K. Robertson

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Access the online Pressbooks version of this article here.

Transforming curriculum by implementing Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in the college-level classroom helps students internalize the concepts of a course, improve their critical and reflective thinking skills, learn to problem-solve using questioning, and ultimately construct a better understanding of course concepts in a personally relevant way. This article introduces a process for implementing PBL in a college-level course. Each of the four main ideas in PBL, motivation, collaboration, reflection, and facilitation, are addressed with a particular focus on the role of the educator in designing and implementing PBL in the classroom. An …

My First Time Ungrading: Approach Used And Reflections, Heather Leslie

Feminist Pedagogy

A few months ago, I began devouring information about ungrading with a fervent appetite. I started with the book Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What To Do Instead) edited by Susan Blum and listened to just about every podcast where she was interviewed about this topic. I then read other books she recommended like Wad-Ja-Get: The Grading Game in American Education by Howard Kirschenbaum and Punished By Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, and Praise by Alfie Kohn. Recently, I have become much more dialed into the ungrading movement by reading articles from Teachers Going …

Making Remote Learning Engaging, Denise Grandits, Tina Wagle

Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning

This article provides extant background on online learning including best practice frameworks at multiple educational levels. The authors also discuss important considerations of remote and online learning when one is planning or teaching in that modality. Perhaps most importantly, this piece details the account of one highly qualified teacher’s experience transitioning to remote learning during the spring of the COVID-19 pandemic, which can serve as an exemplar to others. This example will demonstrate how teachers can be effective when mandated to utilize remote or hybrid teaching. The piece will also share implications for the future of teaching and teacher preparation.

Transforming Higher Education: Responding To The Coronavirus And Other Looming Crises, Michael Mascolo

Pedagogy and the Human Sciences

Higher education is being deeply challenged by the coronavirus. The immediate threats of the coronavirus come at the heels of an existing panoply of problems that already threaten higher education as we know it. These include, of course, the looming enrollment crisis, the high cost of higher education, intractable student debt, the corporatization of education, limited learning on campus, and a general loss of faith in higher education among many sectors of the nation. How are colleges and universities to respond to these challenges? This paper calls upon colleges and universities to consider the need for structural transformation in order …

Service-Learning In The Covid19 Era: Learning In The Midst Of Crisis, Lauren Grenier, Elizabeth Robinson, Debra A. Harkins

Pedagogy and the Human Sciences

No abstract provided.

Information Literacy On-Demand: How To Create An Online Library Readiness Mini-Course, Rachel Hooper

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

What do many academic librarians want? Required information literacy classes! When do they want them? Now! This poster will show how a large university developed an on-demand library readiness mini-course online that has recently become a requirement for all undergraduate orientation classes, both in-person and online. Furthermore, the online mini-course has been adopted by numerous faculty in research-based courses across varied subject areas throughout the University. Through a collaboration between librarians and faculty, the mini-course teaches students research skills, how to find books and journal articles, how to use InterLibrary Loan, how to get library and research assistance, and more. …

A Digital Immigrant Venture Into Teaching Online: An Autoethnographic Account Of A Classroom Teacher Transformed, Karin A. Lewis

The Qualitative Report

This paper presents an autoethnographic account of a classroom teacher’s experience transitioning to teaching online within the shifting culture of academe in the 21^st Century. After decades as a classroom teacher, the author engages in autoethnography to reflexively analyze her challenging transition to teaching online. The author examines her perspectives, beliefs, thought process, learning, and development. Findings regarding her new way of teaching, thinking, and living as an online instructor may provide insights for others in academe.

Emphasis On Test Scores In Education, Lindsay Olson

Empowering Research for Educators

This article discusses how too much emphasis on standardized testing can affect student learning as well as teaching in the classroom. It includes a personal interview with a high school teacher as well as an article from the Washington Post regarding a study that was completed involving testing students.

Full Issue: Journal On Empowering Teaching Excellence, Volume 1, Issue 1

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

For our inaugural issue, we reviewed the feedback from our 2016 ETE faculty conference—an event for USU faculty hosted every August on the USU main campus. We identified several of the presenters who received high marks in post-session surveys and invited them to submit a proceedings paper for their presentation. Many responded, and their papers now comprise the majority of this issue. Because most of the articles began as stand-up presentations for a conference, several adopt a first-person narrative style in which the authors share examples of things they have tried in their teaching that have worked. In the process …

Faculty Online Questionnaire Protocol, Undergraduate Scholarly Habits Ethnography Project, Maura A. Smale, Mariana Regalado, Jean Amaral

Publications and Research

This research protocol describes a questionnaire used for data collection in the Undergraduate Scholarly Habits Ethnography Project to explore the lived experiences of faculty use of technology in the hybrid and online courses they teach.

Introducing Undergraduates To Open Access And The Power Of Collaboration Between Scholarly Communications And Instruction Librarians, Kristin Laughtin-Dunker, Annie Knight

Library Presentations, Posters, and Audiovisual Materials

Undergraduates are often left out of conversations surrounding open access. While they may not share the same concerns about publishing and prestige as faculty and graduate students, they do consume vast amounts of information, and thus can benefit just as much as those farther in their academic careers by knowing how to find, evaluate, and use open access resources. This presentation highlights a successful collaboration between the presenters in their respective roles as scholarly communications librarian and course developer to create and implement curriculum for a 3-unit information literacy course to teach undergraduate students about open access principles. Once the …

Evaluation Of An Adult Education Technology Program, Iwasan D. Kejawa Ed.D

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the adult education technology program at a chartered alternative adult education center in Florida. The adult education center had a low rate of students passing the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). This study examined the impact of the use of computer technology in an effort to improve student learning in mathematics, reading, and science. Computers at the institution were used by all students for tutorials to prepare them for the FCAT and to obtain a high school diploma. The research questions for this study were as follows: 1. Is the education technology …