Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Commons^™

Improving Active Learning Through Advanced Teaching Practices On An Online Course, Jin Ouk O. Choi

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Since the outbreak of the COVID, there has been a great need to advance learning experiences and opportunities for students when the courses are taught remotely. To address the need, the author incorporated the teaching strategies learned from the Culturally Relevant & Responsive Teaching (CRRT) fellows program supported by the NSF TRANSCEnD project. In Fall 2021, the author implemented multiple new teaching techniques and strategies in the CEM453-653 course, delivered entirely online. The specific teaching practices and technologies are: 1) Delivering lectures both live (synchronous) and recordings (asynchronous); 2) Using adaptive technology (Mentimeter & WebEx Poll) with real-time feedback; 3) …

Toward Building Science Literacy, Kathryn Rafferty

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Reading scientific literature is a critical science competency that proves difficult to “teach.” Students enter our classes with varying science vocabularies, and many suffer imposter syndrome when reading technical reports because they do not yet identify as capable scientists. The “Science Literacy” assignment guides students to develop and expand strategies to read science articles. Over the semester, students read 5 to 6 articles ranging from peer-reviewed manuscripts to popular science magazines to science blogs about sequencing Ozzy Osbourne's DNA. In Canvas Discussion boards, they a guiding set of questions and then respond to their peers. This assignment is a low-stakes …

Online Small Groups And Student-Faculty Connections, Sheila Janofsky

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

When classes moved online to protect community health, many students felt disconnected from their teachers and peers. To address this lost sense of connection, I restructured a live remote class. Rather than teaching this 400-level class live via WebEx with some breakouts for active learning assignments, I pre-recorded the lectures for each week and asked the students to watch these on their own time. I assigned the students to small (5-6 person) discussion groups and broke out our assigned class meeting times into multiple small group meetings. We meet in these small groups every week to discuss questions prepared by …

An Intensive Course: Benefits For Non-Traditional Students In A Practice-Based Discipline, Lisa Nicholas, Necole Leland, Jennifer Pfannes, Jovi Dumangan, Hope Hinchman, Gretchen Little, Angela E. Silvestri-Elmore

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Intensive courses: compressed, condensed, or accelerated courses deliver content within a shortened period of time. An intensive course is not meant to be a copy and paste of a traditional full-semester course.

Students will:

• Meet more frequently for a shorter period of time for class activities, discussions, and group work.

• Have increased number of out-of-class, self-study commitment hours for pre intensive course preparation.

Intensive courses provide a different modality to the higher educational environment. Non-traditional students, such as second-degree-seeking, desire to return to school while keeping pace with their daily responsibilities and therefore require non-traditional methods of instruction. This type …

Informed Self-Assessment And Peer Evaluation To Foster The Development Of Adaptive Learners In Online Education, Tiffany Barrett, Jen Nash

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Functioning in an online education model, we find ourselves refocusing on the best way to engage learners in academic content and professional development. For example, physical therapy students have shown difficulty engaging in self-reflection.¹ Yet, we know that self-assessment helps practitioners recognize, interpret, and be moved to action.² Research has suggested that self-assessment is vitally important during the assessing phase of becoming a master adaptive learner.³ It has also been shown to increase students’ understanding and promote the implementation of patient-centered practice.⁴ We aimed to adapt previous modes of assessment to the online environment. We did …

It’S So Complex! Active Learning Strategy For Teaching The Autonomic Nervous System And Referred Pain, Jessica Immonen

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

This poster highlights the use of an active learning tool to draw the course of action potentials in autonomic nerves. The diagrams used offer a simplified and novel breakdown of ANS targets.

Promoting Equity And Engagement With Randomness, Aaron Saiewitz

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Classroom discussion is a key aspect of learning, but class discussion is often dominated by extroverted students. Further, research shows that students from underrepresented groups are often less likely to participate in classroom discussion. While instructors may attempt to broaden participation by calling on students to participate, instructors are often subject to unconscious biases which cause them to call more often on students with certain characteristics. To address these issues, I recommend a random calling technique using a random number generator to create an advance list of students to call on during class. This random approach addresses the issue of …

Remote Learning, Van Whaley, Dustin Davis

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

• One instructor presents live, virtual, synchronous lectures while another instructor builds engagement and support using the live chat feature.

• An engaging way to highlight concepts and explain key figures, pictures, and drawings using shared screens.

I share my screen and move through the e-textbook to discuss the most important topics from each week’s chapter. During each discussion, I intersperse my drawings of body structures on Google Jamboard. While I present, Dustin works in the chat to ask recall and application questions, answer students’ questions, and link resources such as educational YouTube videos and practice quizzes. Our DVDs address two key …

Research Skills: Identifying Peer-Reviewed Scientific Articles, Catherine Brotman, Sharon Jalene

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Students entering into college are exposed to a variety of new academic experiences, challenges, and expectations. Of these, developing proper research skills is one of the most difficult yet essential skills for students to master. Specifically, identifying and differentiating between primary and secondary research along with being able to properly reference and cite scientific articles. During Assignment 2, students in the Kinesiology Milestone class, KIN 350, learn how to search for peer-reviewed scientific articles using the UNLV library website. Students are then required to identify types of articles (e.g., original research and literature reviews) and their components (i.e. abstract, introduction, …

Unlv Teaching And Technology Model, Nicole Hudson, Ted Weisman

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

The teaching practice is UNLV's Online Teaching and Technology Model which incorporates asynchronous and synchronous learning opportunities.

The Return Of Labor-Based Grading Contracts, Erica J. Marti

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Despite best attempts, grading can be very subjective when it comes to determining quality. For certain courses, the process is just as important as the product, but often the grade is based mainly on the quality of the product and doesn’t take the labor or process into account. One alternative to standard grade systems is labor-based grading or contract grading. In this system, students meet certain requirements to earn a certain grade. If students meet the criteria for the assignment, it counts toward the contract. If not, they can revise, reflect and resubmit. With this format, students can focus on …

An Integrative Approach To Teaching In Precalculus And Calculus Classes, Aleksei Talonov

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

We would like to present practices of using problem-based learning activities in Mathematics classroom. We mostly concentrated our attention on Precalculus and Calculus classes which have had low success rates and retention. During the last couple of years, we developed a set of course specific materials in the form of lecture notes and inclass and out-of-class assignments. Each major assignment is accompanied by clear and coherent guidelines explaining what kind of skills will be attained by practicing this assignment, how it can be done, what amount of time can it reasonably take, when is it due, and where to get …

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 …

Learning Retention Through Glossary Development, Haroon Stephen

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

The teaching practice is to engage students in glossary development. It is adopted to increase student learning retention of civil engineering terms. Learning retention is the process of transferring new information into long-term memory. This teaching practice was implemented in two courses during summer and fall 2021. The benefits of this practice were assessed using a post-semester survey. The survey responses revealed that this teaching practice increased understanding of the technical terms of 87% of the respondents and increased conceptual understanding of 83% of the respondents.

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 …

Agile Teaching And The Agile Manifesto, Trish Isaacs

Pedagogicon Conference Proceedings

The Agile framework and its principles were originally created for software development, not for higher education. The software development environment in which they were created holds many parallels with the environment of higher education today, including the adaptiveness required, increased consumer focus, and pace and complexity of change. Principles outlined in the Agile Manifesto provide a way of dealing with uncertainties and turbulence, and ultimately succeeding in the midst of them. Agile principles can be applied to support and facilitate effective teaching and learning in today’s rapidly changing environment.

Agile Course Design: Modeling Flexibility, Empowering Engagement, And Prioritizing Community, Julie A. Rowan, Todd A. Stanislav, Allison C. Bernknopf, Tracy E. Russo

Pedagogicon Conference Proceedings

The Agile Course Design Institute, created for faculty at a regional public university, utilized an agile thinking lens to model flexible, interactive learning. The Institute framework consisted of three core factors: sense of belonging, students’ bandwidth, and interaction and engagement. Faculty participated in online synchronous and asynchronous settings to develop agile courses. In doing so, they gained insights into the experiences their students might have in remote learning. Examples from the Institute and participant work are explored through a “Why” (purpose/outcome), “What” (connections to the ACDI framework), and “How” (tools and strategies) structure.

Metacognitive Teaching–Reflecting On Our Teaching Practice, Stephanie Foote

Pedagogicon Conference Proceedings

To help students become metacognitive learners, faculty should first consider their own metacognition and the role that plays in their courses. Faculty who take a metacognitive approach to their instruction are aware of their own teaching practices and purpose, and they have an awareness of student engagement and learning and are willing to adapt based on that knowledge (Scharff, 2015). While faculty are often metacognitive in their own discipline, these approaches are not always transferred to teaching (Tanner, 2012). This piece focuses on strategies and approaches faculty can take to use metacognition to reflect on their own teaching practice.

Applying Special Education High Leverage Practices To Enhance Learning In Higher Education Courses, Michelle Gremp, Maria L. Manning, Julie H. Rutland, Mary Jo Krile

Pedagogicon Conference Proceedings

In response to the Covid-19 Pandemic, new and varied platforms of instruction have become commonplace across all content areas of higher education. As a result, faculty are faced with the challenge of individualizing and differentiating instruction more than ever before. As outlined in High-Leverage Practices for K-12 Special Education Teachers (McLeskey et al., 2017), successful teaching at all levels requires skill in 4 intertwined components of practice: collaboration, assessment, social/ emotional/behavioral practices, and instruction. Incorporating aspects from each component of practice into higher education courses can help faculty improve engagement and enhance learning outcomes for all students.

Literature Genre Effects On Memory And Influence, Katelyn Mcclure, Hung-Tao Chen, Megan Thomas

Pedagogicon Conference Proceedings

Superstructures are text structure relations commonly found in specific types of text such as narrative texts. Superstructures are important from a pedagogical standpoint because learners’ comprehension can be improved when they are taught about superstructures (Baumann & Bergeron, 1993; Calfee & Patrick, 1995; Dymock, 2005). The current study examined three types of texts with distinct superstructures—narrative, expository, and procedural. Undergraduate student participants (n=200) were randomly assigned to read a text that was written in the form of a narrative, expository, or procedural superstructure text. After reading, participants were asked to recall information from the text and rated their compliance level …

The Faculty Scholar Role In Peer Review Of A Journal Article, Cindy Hayden, Renee Causey-Upton, Dana Howell

Pedagogicon Conference Proceedings

Peer review is a process to help ensure publication of high-quality research. Manuscripts submitted for publication are evaluated by others with similar content or methodological expertise, and the feedback is used by editors to determine suitability for publication. Participation in the peer review process may help improve agile teaching as well as contribute to the faculty scholar roles of professional service. This paper describes the process of peer review, including criteria for becoming a reviewer and how to perform a review.

Using Video Technology For Discussion Forums: Building An Engaged Online Community, Shirley P. O'Brien, Steven Shisley Dr.

Pedagogicon Conference Proceedings

Faculty used various multimedia technology delivery methods within higher education in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instructors were urged to be more agile when considering tools to promote student engagement within the forced, online environment. Video technology is a mainstay in both online and hybrid education as well as in the workforce. Flipgrid, an agile learning tool, promotes asynchronous class discussions to reinforce higher levels of thinking in Bloom’s taxonomy of learning. Data collected from three courses suggests that Flipgrid promotes student engagement in a learner-centered approach. Implications are suggested for online learning.

What Have We Learned After One Year Of Remote Teaching And Learning? A Critical Conversation Between Two Language Educators, Marlon Valencia, Miguel Rincón

Pedagogicon Conference Proceedings

In this critical conversation, two language educators reflect on their experiences of online instruction after nearly two years of teaching during the Covid 19 pandemic. The duoethnographers share the challenges they faced to adapt their teaching and assessment for remote delivery, as well as how their pedagogical orientations transformed to engage with learners online. The discussion focuses on teaching both synchronously and asynchronously, re-thinking language assessment, and the authors’ strategies to manage a sustainable and healthy workflow. This last aspect is of significant importance given how much these two educators had to learn to teach in ways and through media …

Using A Technology Integration Content Plan To Align Course Components For Enhanced Student Learning, Melony Shemberger

Pedagogicon Conference Proceedings

In education, students simply consuming technology is not sufficient. Rather, we as educators want students to become effective producers of technology. That takes planning. Writing a plan that integrates the right technology to align with course components can assist instructors to design lessons that would encourage and challenge students cognitively. In this article, instructors are guided on constructing lessons that comprise a unit in which a lesson has a technology anchor. A list of free or less expensive tech tools that instructors and students could use is also available.

Agile Learning And Teaching With Miro Boards, Camille Skubik-Peplaski, Steven Shisley Dr., Jennifer Edick, Whitney Cook

Pedagogicon Conference Proceedings

Educators use agile and transparent learning procedures that require students to analyze, assess and critique theoretical perspectives. This paper highlights the use of Miro board technology, allowing students to engage in collaborative team work to create a visual representation of a theory, increasing their proficiency as a theory driven occupational therapist. Students reported that Miro boards decreased feelings of isolation, created a sense of community, encouraged creativity, and promoted a collaborative, meaningful learning experience. Effective teaching during the COVID pandemic provided learners multiple opportunities to track their learning progress with substantive and timely feedback.

Give ‘Em Something To Smile About: Connecting With Online Students Through Humor, John Huss

Pedagogicon Conference Proceedings

Humor and higher education are infrequently mentioned in the same conversation, but much empirical evidence supports the contention that the use of humor is related to positive student perceptions of the instructor and learning environment (Banas et al., 2011; Garner, 2006; James, 2004; Suzuki & Heath, 2014). The literature certainly establishes a foundation to consider humor as a critical element of any instructor’s online teaching arsenal and such an inclusion may be particularly pertinent at this time, given the undeniable shift in higher education dynamics as more institutions, both by choice and circumstance, witness unprecedented growth in their web-based programs. …

Let’S Talk: Learning To Communicate Well In Emergency Online Learning, Kim Cuny, Jenny M. Southard, Erin Ellis-Harrison

Pedagogicon Conference Proceedings

In this article, we use the lens of Tinto’s (1987) separation and transition phases to reflect on lessons learned when moving classes with oral communication components from in-person to online. We believe that being mindful and intentional in how we include oral communication instruction, opportunities for improvement, and incorporating feedback can positively impact retention and persistence of students. First, we describe the timelines of events, then we connect Tinto’s essential features of effective retention programs to oral communication pedagogy, and finally offer resources and strategies for incorporating oral communication into courses.

The Importance Of Building A Social Presence In The Online Classroom, Amanda W. Joyce

Pedagogicon Conference Proceedings

While important, many of the guidelines put in place to prevent disease transmission during the Covid-19 pandemic (social distancing, quarantining, facial coverings, etc.) have created challenges to building student-student and student-faculty relationships. However, these relationships are, according to the Community of Inquiry model (Garrison et al., 2000), essential to learning. The purpose of this piece is to explore strategies to build social presence in the classroom to benefit students and faculty alike. Strategies such as the strategic use of discussion boards, collaborative assignments, class announcements, extra credit, and more are discussed in the context of improving student learning without significantly …

Cooking Up A Data Literacy Course, Claire Nickerson Mlis

Library Faculty Publications

This asynchronous online course, Interdisciplinary Studies 815: Introduction to Data, was developed for graduate students in the information analysis and communication concentration of the Fort Hays State University master of liberal studies degree. The course is designed for professionals who need to make data-driven decisions such as educators, policy makers, and nonprofit employees. It is a survey course, so it does not go into great depth on any of the topics covered but rather provides a basic grounding for developing further data literacy skills. It exclusively uses zero-cost resources, including openly licensed content, library-licensed e-books and articles, and free online …

Pre-Service Teachers And The Next Generation Of Agile Teaching Through Crisis, Makayla Carmichael, Maria L. Manning

Pedagogicon Conference Proceedings

Pre-service teacher candidates have experienced extreme stressors from COVID-19 through both the lens of postsecondary students and clinical practitioners. This duality provided a complex understanding of crisis management within instructional settings for future incoming teachers. This article discusses trauma-related student behavior brought on by COVID-19 and introduces agile teaching practices such as reflective practices and integrated use of technology. Reflective practices help educators unpack teaching practices and apply ideas and concepts in novel ways. Technology tools help to strengthen relationships, communication, and collaboration reducing crisis related behavior. Future implications include addressing technology inequity and crisis planning.